| The Spanish language arrived in America first through | | | | different populations. This allowed the incorporation of |
| Cristóbal Colón's exploratory travels, and then | | | | aspects belonging to the pre-Columbian cultures into |
| with the rest of colonizers, at the end of the fifteenth | | | | what would later become American Spanish. African |
| century. At this point the Spanish language was | | | | languages, brought by those who were taken to |
| already firmly consolidated in the Iberian peninsula. In | | | | America as slaves, also contributed to the formation |
| the "new world", however, Spanish had yet to be | | | | of this rich mosaic. |
| established, and this was done through a process | | | | Just listening to the intonation of the different South |
| labelled by historians as "hispanización". | | | | American Spanish dialects we can see that they are |
| During this period, the southern part of the American | | | | closer to the various native languages than to |
| continent was a conglomerate of hundreds of different | | | | peninsular Spanish. In terms of vocabulary, two of the |
| languages and dialects. Moreover, the cultures that the | | | | most influential languages were the Mexican |
| settlers encountered were radically different from the | | | | náhuatl (spoken by the Aztecs) or the Peruvian |
| Spanish one. Communication, therefore, was really a | | | | quechua (spoken by the Incas). These two languages |
| challenge in the first stages, and it was done first | | | | were accepted and spoken by a significant part of the |
| through gestures and later on through captive natives | | | | population, and therefore they were used for |
| who acted as interpreters. | | | | commerce purposes, even after the arrival of the |
| The Catholic Church played a fundamental role in the | | | | Spanish conquerors. Examples of words that have |
| expansion of the Spanish language throughout Latin | | | | been incorporated into American Spanish from these |
| America. Thus, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries | | | | languages are "papa" (potatoe), "cuate" (friend), or |
| established schools where they educated and | | | | "chamaco" (boy). |
| converted into Catholicism most children and | | | | On the other hand, the characteristics of the Spanish |
| teenagers. Of course, this was all done in Spanish, and | | | | explorers were also heterogeneous, since they came |
| thus this language started to penetrate little by little in | | | | from all over Spain. However, their meeting point |
| the daily lives of the different indigenous groups. | | | | before starting their long journey was Seville, in |
| The evangelization was accompanied by the slow but | | | | AndalucÃa, the southern part of the Iberian |
| firm administrative imposition of the Spanish language, | | | | Peninsula. Since they stayed a long time while |
| which relegated the Amerindian languages to an | | | | preparing their adventure, they ended up adopting |
| unprivileged position. This was the inevitable | | | | some of the characteristics of the Andalusian dialect. |
| consequence of the cultural and ethnic cleansing | | | | Then they took them to the "new world". This is why |
| imposed by the Spanish Empire to its colonies. | | | | American Spanish shares most of the Spanish |
| However, there was a two-way flow of cultural and | | | | pronunciation characteristics with Andalusian Spanish. |
| linguistic influence between the colonizers and the | | | | The most significant one is the phenomenon known as |
| colonized. This happened because, in spite of their | | | | "seseo", which indicates the fact that the sound "c" |
| dominant position, the natives of Spain always | | | | (pronounced "th") is transformed into the sound "s". |
| constituted a very small minority in the American | | | | All these factors have made American Spanish the |
| continent. Thus, there was a constant contact among | | | | rich and multicultural linguistic variety that it is today. |
| languages and a progressive mixing among the | | | | |