What languages were spoken in Central & South America before the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese?

by efeneh

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything with a quick Google search.

CommodoreCoCo

As it's such a large area, there's quite a few of them. Here's just a sampling off the top of my head:

  • Various Maya languages in the Yucatan and Guatemala. Those still spoken include K'iche' and Kaqchikel in the highlands and Mam and Yucatec in the lowlands.

  • Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec empire in central Mexico, which likewise still has many speakers.

  • Quechua was the primary language of the Inca empire, though it may have been spread earlier by the Wari empire (~700 AD). It is currently the most commonly spoken indigenous American language with millions of speakers.

  • To the south, in the Bolivian Andes, Aymara was and is the dominant language.

I and other folk here can answer more specific queries about each.

Searocksandtrees

hi! hopefully you'll get some more detailed replies, but you can get a start with this post

e: oh, here's another one.. most (all?) of the maps in the replies are for North America, but they may include Central (or at least give you some leads)