Influences From Native American Languages
In October 1492 Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas, and thereafter Spanish settlers began to come into contact with a host of native American languages. Most of these were wiped out or severely reduced in number of speakers and distribution area during the conquest, but Spanish adopted a number of words from some of them. The following list is by no means exhaustive.
- From Nahuatl: tomate "tomato", chocolate "chocolate", ajolote "axolotl", cacao "cocoa", coyote "coyote".
- From Quechua: cóndor "condor" (orig. kuntur), cancha "playing field", alpaca, caucho "rubber", coca, guano, gaucho (orig. wakcha "poor person"), guanaco, llama, puma, pampa "plains, flat terrain".
- From Guaraní: caracú "bone marrow", catinga "body odor", chamamé (a folk music genre), tapera "ruins", jaguar, yaguareté "jaguar", mate (an infusion, orig. mati "pumpkin").
- From Carib: caimán "caiman", huracán "hurricane", caníbal "cannibal", canoa "canoe" (through Arawak).
- From Tupi: capibara (the largest rodent on Earth), jacarandá (a tree).
Those words referring to local features or animals might be limited to regional usage, but many others like cóndor, canoa or chocolate are extended even to other languages.
Read more about this topic: Influences On The Spanish Language
Famous quotes containing the words influences, native, american and/or languages:
“Do not seek anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those poor farmers who came up, that day, to defend their native soil, acted from the simplest of instincts. They did not know it was a deed of fame they were doing. These men did not babble of glory. They never dreamed their children would contend who had done the most. They supposed they had a right to their corn and their cattle, without paying tribute to any but their governors. And as they had no fear of man, they yet did have a fear of God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Miss U.S.A. is in the same graveyard that [Amanda Jones] the twelve-year-old is. Where the sixteen-year-old is. All the past selves. There comes a time when you have to bury those selves because you’ve grown into another one.”
—Amanda Theodosia Jones, U.S. beauty contest winner, Miss U.S.A., 1973. As quoted under the pseudonym “Emma Wright” in American Dreams, Prologue, by Studs Terkel (1980)
“People in places many of us never heard of, whose names we can’t pronounce or even spell, are speaking up for themselves. They speak in languages we once classified as “exotic” but whose mastery is now essential for our diplomats and businessmen. But what they say is very much the same the world over. They want a decent standard of living. They want human dignity and a voice in their own futures. They want their children to grow up strong and healthy and free.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)