South
America, the fourth-largest continent, is a region with historical traditions
and rich cultural diversity. And it does not end there.

Geographically,
the continent has global significance as it has several mountains and
highlands, river basins, and coastal plains. It even serves as home to the
Amazon Rainforest, which is often tagged “the lungs of the earth”.

South
America’s most significant attribute is probably its economic potential, with a
nominal GDP of 3.473
trillion USD, while having only 12 countries.

The
continent also plays host to emerging giants like Argentina and Brazil, which
are strategic markets that businesses and organizations can exploit for
commercial expansion.

But
foreign success can’t occur with trade and regulatory strategies alone.
Perhaps, a most often underlooked criterion involves catering to regional
diversities of foreign markets. And in that light, we would be looking at some
of the main languages spoken in South America.

Origins of South
American languages

We
can classify the languages of South America into broad categories based on
their origins.

For
starters, you have the indigenous languages, which are no lesser than 325 in
number, many of which have been around since the pre-colonial era. But you also
have the languages brought by immigrants either in the form of colonizers,
settlers, or even slaves.

Some
of these languages range from a handful of speakers to hundreds of millions,
but the combination of both categories has turned the continent of South
America into one huge melting pot.

What are the languages
spoken in South America?

Today
the main languages that are spoken in South America are Spanish and Portuguese.
But these were languages that were brought by immigrants.

As
we mentioned earlier, South America also has its indigenous languages, some of
which may have gone extinct, while others are still waxing strong.

Some
of the most spoken languages in South America include;

Spanish

Spanish
is the most spoken language in South America by a thin margin. Its 210 million
speakers are spread across ten countries, with Columbia, Argentina, and
Venezuela making up more than half of its total speaking population.

The
earliest records of Spanish in South America dates back to the 1400s. But
today, the language has spread to almost the entire continent.

Portuguese

Portuguese
is just next to Spanish when it comes to the number of the speaking population,
with its 206 million speakers. Although, more than 99 percent of its speakers
come from Brazil due to the colonization of the nation by Portugal.

Other
countries in South America with trace amounts of Portuguese speakers are
Venezuela, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Quechua: is the most spoken
indigenous language in South America, with over 8 million native speakers
spread across the Andean region ( Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru).

Quechua
origin dates back thousands of years ago in Peru but has spread to other
nations in South America like Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela.

Today
Quechua is the official language of Peru and Bolivia, with 25% of Peruvians
speaking the language.

English: With its 5.4 million
speakers is the fourth most spoken language in South America. This relatively
low number is due to the fact that Britain did not have a strong colonial
presence in the region, colonizing only Guyana.

Besides
Guyana, English is spoken in parts of Argentina, Colombia, and the Falkland
Islands.

Guarani: This is a thriving
indigenous South American language native to the people of Paraguay and is the
fifth most spoken language in the continent with over 4.6 million speakers that
also spreads to parts of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia.

Although
there are a few dialects of Guarani across the region, the Paraguayan form
makes the bulk of its total speakers.

Guarani
is an agglutinative language with several loanwords from Spanish. The language
has also impacted English language subtly, with certain words like; Cashew,
Piranha, Jaguar, etc., having their origins from it.

Aymara: This is the third
most-spoken indigenous language in South America and is native to the Aymara
people of Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina.

Although
Aymara is quite similar to yet another indigenous language — Quechua — it has
managed to garner 2.8 million speakers, a bulk of those who are from Bolivia,
making it the only country where it is an official language.

German: This is an immigrant
language that is surprisingly spoken in South America to a large extent. The
language’s origin in the region dates back to the 1500s but more recently in
the twentieth century due to the search for agricultural colonies in Brazil, Chile,
Argentina, and Uruguay.

Today
there are 2 million speakers across these countries, although most of them are
settled in Brazil.

Italian: Italian makes the top
ten most spoken languages in South America with its 1.5 million speakers. More
than 95 percent of these bunch are in Argentina, while the remaining are
domiciled in Brazil.

Arabic: It would most likely
come as a surprise to many that Arabic, all from the Middle-East, also made its
way down to South America. But there are about 1.1 million Arabic speakers in
South America, with Argentina accounting for most of them.

It
is also possible to find Arabic speakers in Venezuela and Suriname.

Mapudungun: Also known as Mapuche
is an indigenous language with many links to its origins. Some that even extend
beyond the continent of South America.

Although
it contains some loan words from Quechua and Spanish, it still has five
dialects (Pehuenche, Huilliche, Moluche, Nguluche, and Ranquenche).

Mapuche
is spoken by 260,000 people majorly in Chile and parts of Argentina.

These
are just the top ten most spoken languages in South America out of over 400,
which of course, we would not be able to cover in this write-up.

But
other notable indigenous languages include; Wayuunaiki Embera, Paez, Kuna, etc.

Conclusion

By
now, this short post should give you an idea of the cultural diversity of South
America.

Your
organization’s ability to enter, maintain a decent presence, and eventually
succeed in this region requires catering to the cultural and linguistic
diversity of this continent. And this is where translation and
localization services become very crucial.

Translationsinlondon is a language service
provider with more than a decade’s experience in delivering translation and
localization services to businesses and startups.

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