About 60 % of the population speak Spanish, with nearly all of the rest speaking Amerindian languages.

Spanish, Amerindian languages

This is an anomaly in the Americas where language shift towards European colonial languages ( in this case, the other official language of Spanish ) has otherwise been a nearly universal cultural and identity marker of mestizos ( people of mixed Spanish and Amerindian ancestry ), and also of culturally assimilated, upwardly mobile Amerindian people.

New residents in the town include numerous immigrants from Mexico, whose Amerindian languages include Zapotec, Nahuatl, and Mixtec.

Jamaican Patois language comprises words of the native languages of the many races within the Caribbean including Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Amerindian, and English along with several African languages.

The overwhelming majority of Mexicans today speak Spanish, however, the government recognizes 62 indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages.

In American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America ( 1997 ), Lyle Campbell lists several hypotheses for the historical origins of Amerindian languages.

* Spanish-words relating to warfare and tactics, for instance flotilla and guerrilla ; or related to science and culture, whether coined in Arabic ( such as algebra ), origined in Amerindian civilizations ( Cariban: cannibal, hurricane ; Mescalero: apache ; Nahuatl: tomato, coyote, chocolate ; Quechua: potato ; Taíno: tobacco ), or Iberian Romance languages ( aficionado, albino, alligator, cargo, cigar, embargo, guitar, jade, mesa, paella, platinum, plaza, renegade, rodeo, salsa, savvy, sierra, siesta, tilde, tornado, vanilla etc .).

Papiamento is a creole language derived from African Languages and either Portuguese or Spanish, with some influences from Amerindian languages, English, and Dutch.

Studies have also been carried out of Amerindian and African languages.

* Amerindian languages in French Guiana.

Some Amerindian groups have attempted to revive moribund languages.

For a time Portuguese coexisted with Língua Geral, a lingua franca based on Amerindian languages that was used by the Jesuit missionaries ; as well as with various African languages spoken by thousands of slaves brought to the country between the 16th and 19th centuries.

The evolution of Brazilian Portuguese has certainly been influenced by the languages it supplanted: first the Amerindian tongues of the natives, then the various African languages brought by the slaves, and finally those of later European and Asian immigrants.

Many of the Amerindian words entered the Brazilian Portuguese lexicon as early as in the 16th century, and some of them were eventually borrowed by European Portuguese and later even into other European languages.

Most Ecuadorians speak Spanish, though many speak Amerindian languages such as Kichwa, the Ecuadorian dialect of Quechua.

Other Amerindian languages spoken in Ecuador include Awapit ( spoken by the Awá ), A ' ingae ( spoken by the Cofan ), Shuar Chicham ( spoken by the Shuar ), Achuar-Shiwiar ( spoken by the Achuar and the Shiwiar ), Cha ' palaachi ( spoken by the Chachi ), Tsa ' fiki ( spoken by the Tsáchila ), Paicoca ( spoken by the Siona and Secoya ), and Wao Tededeo ( spoken by the Waorani ).

Many words from Cuban Amerindian languages have entered common usage in both Spanish and English, such as the Taíno words canoa, tobacco and huracán.

The last PNAD ( National Research for Sample of Domiciles ) census revealed the following numbers: 4, 988, 000 Brown ( Multiracial ) people ( 69. 9 %), 1, 641, 000 White people ( 23. 0 %), 470, 000 Black people ( 6. 6 %), 35, 000 Asian or Amerindian people ( 0. 5 %).

The last PNAD ( National Research for Sample of Domiciles ) census revealed the following numbers: 2, 272, 000 Brown ( Multiracial ) people ( 71. 80 %), 739, 000 White people ( 23. 36 %), 145, 000 Black people ( 4. 60 %), 41, 000 Amerindian people ( 0. 47 %), 5, 000 Asian people ( 0. 17 %), 2, 000 Amerindian people ( 0. 05 %).

In Canada, however, the Métis, who also have partly Amerindian and partly white, often French-Canadian, ancestry, have identified as an ethnic group and are a constitutionally recognized aboriginal people.

Mestizos, the multiracial group of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry, are by far the largest of all the ethnic groups, and comprise around 72 % of the current population.

It found that, in fact, 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans have Amerindian mitochondrial DNA, 27 percent have African and 12 percent Caucasian.

A majority of mixed-race Brazilians have all three origins: European, African, and Amerindian ancestry.

Besides many of the pasta, sausage, and dessert dishes common to continental Europe, Argentines enjoy a wide variety of Indigenous and Criollo creations, which include empanadas ( a stuffed pastry ), locro ( a mixture of corn, beans, meat, bacon, onion, and gourd ), humitas, and yerba maté, all originally indigenous Amerindian staples, the latter considered Argentina's national beverage.

Today, zambo refers to all people with significant amounts of both African and Amerindian ancestry, though it is frequently considered pejorative.

Some regions celebrate mask carnivals, while others have no official customs, yet all of them are related to a mixture of Amerindian and Catholic beliefs.

Aside from the indigenous Amerindian ( aka Native American ) population, all Latin Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.

Arawak indigenous culture ( in Puerto Rico, specifically that of the Taíno Amerindian ), though destroyed by Spanish slave owners, survived through its miscegenated descendants and, as the first fusion of a non-European language to Spanish, became the major tying force which brought together all the other cultural contributions which would soon come.

) For some castizos whose residual quarter of Amerindian ancestry was not apparent at all, many simply consolidated themselves within the criollos and Peninsulares ( Spaniards born in Spain ).

With the fall of the Spanish Empire, the numerous caste terminologies fell out of use and lost all meaning, other than the categories of White, Black, Amerindian, and their three possible resulting combinations ; mestizo, mulato and zambo ( the latter three, now without blood quantum connotations ), as these legal categories were seen as incompatible with the new concept of citizenship.

Another study involving mitochondrial DNA suggests a single founding tribe diverged into 4 specific mtDNA lineages responsible for 95 % of all Amerindian genotypes.

The Virgin Islands were first settled by the Arawak from South America around 100 BC ( though there is some evidence of Amerindian presence on the islands as far back as 1500 BC ).

Therefore, native Caymanians do not have any Amerindian heritage from their own islands ; however, a significant number of Jamaicans have settled in the Cayman Islands over the years, so they and their descendants may have some Amerindian blood via Jamaica.

These hunter-gatherers for years were mistakenly thought to be the Ciboney, an Amerindian race from Cuba.

This Amerindian insurgents fought from 1986 to 1989.

* Bartolomé de las Casas urges Charles V to end Amerindian slavery and recommends the importation of blacks from Africa.

Anguilla was first settled in pre-history by Amerindian tribes who migrated from South America.

The earliest inhabitants of Anguilla were Amerindian tribes from South America, commonly ( if imprecisely ) referred to as Arawaks, who travelled to the island on rafts and in dugout canoes, settling in fishing, hunting and farming groups.

The earliest Amerindian artefacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 BC, and remains of settlements dating from 600 AD.

Fully documented Amerindian settlement dates to between about 350 to 650 AD, by a group known as the Saladoid-Barrancoid, who arrived from mainland South America.

It is exported chiefly from Guyana, where it started as a traditional recipe with its origins in Amerindian practices.

This study, under the Taino genome project started in 1999 through a grant from the National Science Foundation, tested mitochondrial DNA throughout the island, identifying that-10 percent of Puerto Ricans today are of Amerindian descent.

International immigration transformed the local culture from Spanish origins and Amerindian origins.

It is believed the charango came to be what it is today in the early part of the 18th century in the city of Potosi in the Royal Audiencia of Charcas part of the Viceroyalty of Peru ( in what is present-day Bolivia ), probably from Amerindian contact with Spanish settlers.

Molecular genetics study suggests that surviving Amerindian populations derived from a theoretical single founding population, possibly from only 50 to 70 genetic contributors Preliminary research, restricted to only 9 genomic regions ( or loci ) have shown a genetic link between original Americas and Asia populations.

The genetic diversity of Amerindian indigenous groups increase with distance from the assumed entry point into the Americas.

The racial makeup of the town was 78. 65 % White, 17. 97 % Amerindian, 0. 78 % Asian, and 2. 60 % from two or more races.

Mameluco is a Portuguese word derived from " mamluk " ( also named ameluco in Spanish ), used to identify people of mixed European and Amerindian descent in South America.

In one recent genetic study of 800 Puerto Ricans, 61 % had mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA ) from an Amerindian female ancestor, 27 % inherited mitochondrial DNA from a female African ancestor and 12 % had mitochondrial DNA from a female European ancestor.

Conversely, patrilineal input as indicated by the Y chromosome showed that 70 % of Puerto Rican males in the sample have Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20 % inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor and less than 10 % inherited Y chromosome DNA from male Amerindian ancestor.