How Many Languages are Spoken in Latin America?

How many languages are spoken in Latin America. While this number has changed and the variety of different spoken languages has declined with time, you'll be surprised to find out how high this number is.

According to the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, there were between 550 and 750 indigenous languages spoken in Latin America as of the late 1990s, the time at which the last study was attempted and completed in the region. As you can see, this means that there are a large number of languages spoken in Latin America.

It is estimated that there may have been as many as 1,750 separate and distinct indigenous languages spoken in Latin America before the onset of European colonization. However, no one is really sure of this exact number because many of the small groups of people who spoke these languages were either enslaved, killed off, forced to join other groups, or were otherwise removed from the accounting of the various language types when the Europeans invaded. 

Since that time, small pockets of indigenous languages have slowly been corrupted and destroyed as explorers and technology bring the people of Latin America closer together and as many individuals in these indigenous groups begin to have contact with other groups or tribes. 

Because of the loss of these indigenous languages, it is important for scholars, linguists, and scientists to study and record as many of these languages as they can before they die out for good as further homogenization of languages occurs over time.

So, now you know how many languages are spoken in Latin America and you also know why this number has declined.