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The languages of North America reflect not only that continent's indigenous peoples, but the European colonization as well. The most widely spoken languages in North America (which includes Central America and the Caribbean islands) are English, Spanish, and to a lesser extent French, and especially in the Caribbean, creole languages lexified by them.
North America is home to many language families and some language isolates. In the Arctic north, the Eskimo–Aleut languages are spoken from Alaska to Greenland. This group includes the Aleut language of the Aleutian Islands, the Yupik languages of Alaska and the Russian Far East, and the Inuit languages of Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Greenland. [1]
The Na-Dené languages, of which the most numerous and widespread are the Athabaskan languages, include the languages of central and eastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, as well as the Apachean languages of the Southwestern United States. [2] The Algic languages, including the large Algonquian branch, are widespread across Canada and the United States; they include Cree, Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Mi'kmaq, and Blackfoot. [3] The Iroquoian languages dominate the area around the Saint Lawrence River and the eastern Great Lakes, but also include Cherokee. [4] The Siouan–Catawban languages, including Crow and Sioux, dominate the Great Plains. [5] Many small language families are spoken in the Pacific Northwest from British Columbia to California. [6]
The Uto-Aztecan languages are found throughout the Western United States, northern and central Mexico, and as far south as El Salvador; they include Hopi, O'odham, and Nahuatl (descended from Aztec). [7] Other large families in Mexico include the Mayan languages (also spoken in Belize and Guatemala), [8] the Mixe–Zoque languages, [9] and the Oto-Manguean languages. [10] In the Caribbean, the Arawakan languages were formerly widespread, but are now limited to Garifuna on the Central American mainland; the family is still well represented in South America, however. [11] The Chibchan languages are spoken in Costa Rica and Panama as well as South America. [12]
The most widely spoken language in North America is English, followed in prevalence by Spanish, and French a distant third place. These three languages were brought to North America as a result of the colonization of essentially the entire continent by settlers from Europe.
English is the predominant language of Canada, the United States, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands, and is spoken alongside English-based creole languages in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Virgin Islands. [13] It is also the official language of Dominica and Saint Lucia, where the French-based Antillean Creole is also widely spoken.
Spanish is the dominant language in Mexico and all of Central America apart from Belize, as well as the largest Caribbean islands of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico (where English is spoken as well); it is also widely spoken in the United States. [14]
French is the dominant language in Quebec and Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and is spoken in Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Louisiana. It is spoken alongside French-based creole languages in Saint Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, and the French side of Saint Martin. [15] French is one of the two official and national languages of Canada.
Russian was once widely spoken in Alaska as it was the language of administration, commerce, and the settlers there that often intermarried with the locals (they numbered no more than a thousand), creating a sizable biracial population. The language began to decline after the United States purchased the land from the Russian Empire. Nonetheless, the language, called "Old Russian" by its speakers, is still spoken today in parts of Alaska like Ninilchik and Kodiak by descendants of Russian colonists and Russified Alaskan Natives and is known for its archaic Russian vocabulary and indigenous influences, though the vast majority of speakers are elderly, so that this unique Russian dialect is heavily endangered. [16] In addition, a Russian creole/mixed language known as Medny Aleut language was once spoken in some of the Aleutian Islands. Only a few elderly people still speak it. There has also been sizable recent immigration from Russia in the past few decades, leading to a new generation of Russian-speaking Alaskans. Other Slavic languages brought to the continent by North American settlers include the Canadian Ukrainian and Texas Silesian dialects. [17] [18]
Though no German state played a major role in the European colonization of the Americas, German people did found their own colonies. Pennsylvania Dutch, Hutterite German, Texas German, all of which developed in North America, as well as Plautdietsch are spoken by descendants of these settlers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Other introduced languages include Danish in Greenland, [19] where it is spoken by nearly everyone (mostly as a second language) due to centuries of colonization by Denmark. Danish was once the language of administration of the US Virgin Islands before the purchase by the United States. Dutch in Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, where it is spoken alongside the Portuguese Creole language in Papiamento. [20] In modern times North America has immigrant speakers of many languages from around the world. For details see Languages of Canada, Languages of the United States, and Languages of Mexico. Some historic languages include Gholan Language and Quechua.
Yiddish, another Germanic language with Aramaic and Hebrew words and slavic influence, is spoken by Jewish Hassidic and Orthodox communities and in some families from Jewish extraction in many parts of America and in the US, and Canada.
Many Christian communities from the Middle East speak Neo-Aramaic in many cities in the States and Canada.
Indians were brought to the Caribbean from South Asia during the mid-19th century to the early 20th century to work on the sugar cane, cocoa bean, rice and coffee bean plantations after slavery was abolished. Caribbean Hindustani is spoken by Indo-Caribbeans in islands in the Caribbean like Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica where a majority of the Indians are North Indian. Tamil and Telugu was spoken as the lingua franca of Indians in islands like Martinique and Guadeloupe, where the majority of Indians are Dravidians (South Indians). Recent immigration beginning in the 1960s from India to Canada and the United States has increased the prevalence of Indian languages in those countries, with Punjabi once had the highest ranking in Canada among Indian languages, being the third most-spoken language by the 2011 Canadian census. But now in the most recent 2016 census, Punjabi has been superseded by Mandarin and Cantonese to be the fifth. Today, Hindi, Urdu, and other South Asian languages are also spoken throughout North America.
Canadian Gaelic is an endangered dialect of Scottish Gaelic spoken by the descendants of Scottish Highlander settlers in Nova Scotia. [21] [22]
Eskimo is an exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit and the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related third group, the Aleut, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands, are generally excluded from the definition of Eskimo. The three groups share a relatively recent common ancestor, and speak related languages belonging to the family of Eskaleut languages.
The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and the adjacent subarctic regions as far south as Labrador. The Inuit languages are one of the two branches of the Eskimoan language family, the other being the Yupik languages, which are spoken in Alaska and the Russian Far East. Most Inuit people live in one of three countries: Greenland, a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark; Canada, specifically in Nunavut, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, the Nunavik region of Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut regions of Labrador; and the United States, specifically in northern and western Alaska.
North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Clipperton Island, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States.
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, known initially as India Nova, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
The United States does not have an official language at the federal level, but the most commonly used language is English, which is the de facto national language. In addition, 32 U.S. states out of 50 and all five U.S. territories have declared English as an official language. The majority of the U.S. population (77.5%) speaks only English at home as of 2023. The remainder of the population speaks many other languages at home, most notably Spanish, according to the American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau; others include indigenous languages originally spoken by Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and native populations in the U.S. unincorporated territories. Other languages were brought in by people from Europe, Africa, Asia, other parts of the Americas, and Oceania, including multiple dialects, creole languages, pidgin languages, and sign languages originating in what is now the United States. Interlingua, an international auxiliary language, was also created in the U.S.
The Yupik are a group of Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples of western, southwestern, and southcentral Alaska and the Russian Far East. They are related to the Inuit and Iñupiat. Yupik peoples include the following:
Creole peoples may refer to various ethnic groups around the world. The term's meaning exhibits regional variations, often sparking debate.
Ninilchik is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 883, up from 772 in 2000.
The Indigenous languages of the Americas are a diverse group of languages that originated in the Americas prior to colonization, many of which continue to be spoken. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now extinct. The Indigenous languages of the Americas are not all related to each other; instead, they are classified into a hundred or so language families, as well as a number of extinct languages that are unclassified due to the lack of information on them.
The Eskaleut, Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of what are now the United States (Alaska); Canada including Nunavut, Northwest Territories, northern Quebec (Nunavik), and northern Labrador (Nunatsiavut); Greenland; and the Russian Far East. The language family is also known as Eskaleutian, or Eskaleutic.
The French West Indies or French Antilles are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:
Alaska Natives are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Alaskan Creoles, Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures. They are often defined by their language groups. Many Alaska Natives are enrolled in federally recognized Alaska Native tribal entities, who in turn belong to 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations, who administer land and financial claims.
The Yupik languages are a family of languages spoken by the Yupik peoples of western and south-central Alaska and Chukotka. The Yupik languages differ enough from one another that they are not mutually intelligible, although speakers of one of the languages may understand the general idea of a conversation of speakers of another of the languages. One of them, Sirenik, has been extinct since 1997.
Antillean Creole is a French-based creole that is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of French, Carib, English, and African languages.
Virgin Islands Creole, or Virgin Islands Creole English, is an English-based creole consisting of several varieties spoken in the Virgin Islands and the nearby SSS islands of Saba, Saint Martin and Sint Eustatius, where it is known as Saban English, Saint Martin English, and Statian English, respectively.
The Americas, also known as America, are lands of the Western Hemisphere, composed of numerous entities and regions variably defined by geography, politics, and culture.
As of 2020, Alaska has a population of 733,391.
The official language of Nicaragua is Spanish; however, Nicaraguans on the Caribbean coast speak indigenous languages and also English. The communities located on the Caribbean coast also have access to education in their native languages. Additionally, Nicaragua has four extinct indigenous languages.
The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:
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