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82-634: In the Americas , Spanish is now spoken by people of a great variety of cultural backgrounds, including those of Amerindian and African heritage. The extensive contact with native American languages especially has resulted in the adoption of many lexical items from these languages, not only in local dialects of Spanish, but throughout the language as a whole. As Spanish went through its first stages of development in Spain, it probably received influences from neighbouring Romance languages, and also from Basque , which

164-408: A sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age. Both routes may have been taken, although the genetic evidences suggests a single founding population. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions specific to South American Indigenous peoples indicates that certain populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. A second migration occurred after

246-507: A few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge. The first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, with suggested ages of up to 40,000 years. Beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including

328-568: A landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America . When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent right after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth 's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World . Along with their associated islands , the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography

410-427: A million years, with the total spread of South American genera into North America far more limited in scope than the spread of North American genera into South America. There are 35 sovereign states in the Americas, as well as an autonomous country of Denmark , three overseas departments of France , three overseas collectivities of France, and one uninhabited territory of France, eight overseas territories of

492-480: A number of islands. The gaps in the archipelago of Central America filled in with material eroded off North America and South America, plus new land created by continued volcanism. By three million years ago, the continents of North America and South America were linked by the Isthmus of Panama , thereby forming the single landmass of the Americas. The Great American Interchange resulted in many species being spread across

574-695: A series of rivers and streams that flow east with their terminus in the Atlantic Ocean, such as the Hudson River , Saint John River , and Savannah River . A similar instance arises with central Canadian rivers that drain into Hudson Bay ; the largest being the Churchill River . On the west coast of North America, the main rivers are the Colorado River , Columbia River , Yukon River , Fraser River , and Sacramento River . The Colorado River drains much of

656-530: A shared population of flora and fauna around 2.5 million years ago, when continental drift brought the two continents into contact via the Isthmus of Panama . Initially, the exchange of biota was roughly equal, with North American genera migrating into South America in about the same proportions as South American genera migrated into North America. This exchange is known as the Great American Interchange . The exchange became lopsided after roughly

738-682: A synonym). Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America , where English, a Germanic language , is prevalent, and which comprises Canada (with the exception of Francophone Canada rooted in Latin Europe [France]—see Quebec and Acadia ) and the United States. Both countries are located in North America, with cultures deriving predominantly from British and other Germanic roots. The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to

820-453: A wide variety of indigenous religions, many of which can be categorized as animistic ; new age religions and many African and African-derived religions. Syncretic faiths can also be found throughout the Americas. Various languages are spoken in the Americas. Some are of European origin, others are spoken by indigenous peoples or are the mixture of various languages like the different creoles. The most widely spoken first language in

902-466: Is a language isolate and thus completely unrelated to Spanish in origin. Umbrian and Oscan influences have also been postulated for the Roman colonization period. Two specific types of lenition , the voicing of voiceless consonants and the elision of voiced consonants (both of which are discussed at greater length below), are the phonological changes of Spanish that are most often attributed to

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984-419: Is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue, in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as far back as the prepalatal arch, although in the last contact may involve parts behind the blade as well. It is distinct from an apical consonant , produced by creating an obstruction with

1066-431: Is a literal translation of "hard disk". Words like blog , chat , and weblog are used, though bitácora (from cuaderno de bitácora , the captain's log on a boat) is also common. Some authors estimate that seventy-five percent of Spanish words have come from Latin and were in use in Spain before the time of Christ . The remaining 25 percent come from other languages. Of these languages (and language families ),

1148-568: Is also possible that the two forces worked in concert and reinforced each other. Another claim of Basque influence in Spanish is the voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant [ s̺ ], a sound roughly intermediate between laminodental [ s ] and palatal [ ʃ ]; this sound also appears in other Ibero-Romance languages and in Catalan . The apico-alveolar retracted sibilant might be a result of bilingualism of speakers of Basque and Vulgar Latin . Spain

1230-449: Is an example. In October 1492 Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas , and thereafter Spanish settlers began to come into contact with a host of native American languages . Most of these were wiped out or severely reduced in number of speakers and distribution area during the colonization , but Spanish adopted a number of words from some of them . The following list

1312-406: Is by no means exhaustive. Those words referring to local features or animals might be limited to regional usage, but many others like cóndor , canoa or chocolate are extended even to other languages. Spanish borrowed many words from other European languages: its close neighbors such as Catalan or Portuguese , other Romance languages such as Italian and French (this particularly during

1394-599: Is close to the Basque Country too. The claim is that the Basque language lacked the [f] sound and thus substituted it with [h], the closest thing to [f] in that language. There are some difficulties with attributing this change to Basque, however. There is no hard evidence that medieval Basque did or did not have an [f] sound. Presumably early borrowings of forms with initial [f] into Basque were usually received as [p] or [b] (e.g. FESTA > Basque pesta or besta , depending on

1476-510: Is dominated by the American Cordillera , a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon , St. Lawrence River – Great Lakes , Mississippi , and La Plata basins. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from

1558-614: Is evidenced by many place names throughout Spain. The change from Latin 'f-' to Spanish 'h-' was once commonly ascribed to the influence of Basque speakers for a few reasons. The change from [f] to [h] was first documented in the areas around northern Castile and La Rioja , areas that are close to the Basque-speaking area. The change to [h] took place to a greater degree in the Gascon language in Gascony , in southwestern France, an area that

1640-464: Is generally quite flat. Similarly, the north-east of South America is covered by the flat Amazon basin . The Brazilian Highlands on the east coast are fairly smooth but show some variations in landform, while farther south the Gran Chaco and Pampas are broad lowlands . The climate of the Americas varies significantly from region to region. Tropical rainforest climate occurs in the latitudes of

1722-666: Is that of the Mississippi , covering the second largest watershed on the planet. The Mississippi-Missouri river system drains most of 31 states of the United States, most of the Great Plains , and large areas between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. This river is the fourth longest in the world and tenth most powerful in the world . In North America, to the east of the Appalachian Mountains , there are no major rivers but rather

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1804-704: The Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana , by Joan Corominas — lists slightly over 1,000 words of Arabic origin, while Misplaced Pages's own List of Spanish words of Arabic origin , based on etymologies given by the Real Academia Española so far includes 1,200 confirmed Arabisms, excluding place names and derivatives. Morphological borrowing was scarce. The suffíx -í (deriving adjectives from place names, as in Marbellí , Ceutí or Iraní , "from Marbella ", "from Ceuta ", or "from Iran " respectively)

1886-474: The Amazon , American cloud forests , southeastern Florida and Darién Gap . In the Rocky Mountains and Andes , dry and continental climates are observed. Often the higher altitudes of these mountains are snow-capped. Southeastern North America is well known for its occurrence of tornadoes and hurricanes , of which the vast majority of tornadoes occur in the United States' Tornado Alley , as well as in

1968-684: The Arctic small tool tradition , a broad cultural entity that developed along the Alaska Peninsula , around Bristol Bay , and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait c.  2500 BCE moved into North America. The Arctic small tool tradition, a Paleo-Eskimo culture branched off into two cultural variants, including the Pre-Dorset , and the Independence traditions of Greenland. The descendants of

2050-675: The Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada and Cape Froward in Chilean Patagonia , is roughly 14,000 km (8,700 mi). The mainland's most westerly point is the end of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska; Attu Island , further off the Alaskan coast to the west, is considered the westernmost point of the Americas. Ponta do Seixas in northeastern Brazil forms the easternmost extremity of

2132-636: The Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration , conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present. The Spanish presence involved the enslavement of large numbers of the indigenous population of America. Diseases introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples , and the European powers colonized the Americas . Mass emigration from Europe , including large numbers of indentured servants , and importation of African slaves largely replaced

2214-491: The Latin version of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci 's first name. The feminine form America was originally used to refer to the newly discovered continent, which is why it was accorded with the feminine names of the other continents: Asia , Africa , and Europa . Since the 1950s, however, North America and South America have generally been considered by English speakers as separate continents, and taken together are called

2296-557: The Quaternary glaciation . These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats , they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by

2378-680: The Southern Rockies and parts of the Basin and Range Province . The river flows approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 km) into the Gulf of California , during which over time it has carved out natural phenomena such as the Grand Canyon and created phenomena such as the Salton Sea . The Columbia is a large river, 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, in central western North America and is the most powerful river on

2460-642: The United Kingdom , three constituent countries of the Netherlands , three public bodies of the Netherlands, two unincorporated territories of the United States , and one uninhabited territory of the United States. In 2021 the total population of the Americas was about 1.03 billion people, divided as follows: There are three urban centers that each hold titles for being the largest population area based on

2542-534: The phonological development very little, Spanish words of Germanic origin are present in all varieties of Modern Spanish. Many of the Spanish words of Germanic origin were already present in Vulgar Latin , and so they are shared with other Romance languages. Other Germanic words were borrowed in more recent times; for example, the words for the cardinal directions ( norte , este , sur , oeste — 'north', 'east', 'south', 'west') are not documented until late in

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2624-552: The 15th century. These direction words are thought to be from Old English , probably by way of French. In 711 AD, most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Arabic-speaking Muslims , who had recently also conquered a large part of northwest Africa. Loanwords from Arabic thus entered Castilian from a very early period. This lexical influence reached its greatest level during the Christian Reconquista , when

2706-934: The American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period . The term Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas , such as those of Mesoamerica ( Olmec , Toltec , Teotihuacano , Zapotec , Mixtec , Aztec , Maya ) and the Andean civilizations ( Inca , Moche , Chavín , Muisca , Cañari ). Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies . Some of these civilizations had long faded by

2788-490: The Americas , or more rarely America . When conceived as a unitary continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a clarifying context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America . The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on

2870-421: The Americas began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola . This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán , founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation. This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its new colonies and their expansion. Santo Domingo

2952-520: The Americas is Spanish , followed by English and Portuguese . The dominant language of Latin America is Spanish, though the most populous nation in Latin America, Brazil , speaks Portuguese . Small enclaves of French -, Dutch - and English-speaking regions also exist in Latin America, notably in French Guiana , Suriname , and Belize and Guyana respectively. Haitian Creole is dominant in

3034-579: The Americas is made up of the descendants of four large ethnic groups and their combinations. The majority of the population lives in Latin America , named for its predominant cultures, rooted in Latin Europe (including the two dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese , both Romance languages ), more specifically in the Iberian nations of Portugal and Spain (hence the use of the term Ibero-America as

3116-485: The Americas, such as the cougar , porcupine , opossums , armadillos , and hummingbirds . The geography of the western Americas is dominated by the American Cordillera , with the Andes running along the west coast of South America and the Rocky Mountains and other North American Cordillera ranges running along the western side of North America. The 2,300-kilometer-long (1,400 mi) Appalachian Mountains run along

3198-559: The Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves , prisoners or indentured servants . Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution in the late 1700s. This was followed by numerous Latin American wars of independence in

3280-586: The Atlantic Ocean. The Mackenzie River is the largest in Canada and drains 1,805,200 square kilometers (697,000 sq mi). The largest river basin in South America is that of the Amazon , which has the highest volume flow of any river on Earth. The second largest watershed of South America is that of the Paraná River , which covers about 2.5 million km . North America and South America began to develop

3362-708: The Caribbean began to achieve peaceful independence well after World War II . Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962, and Guyana and Barbados both achieved independence in 1966. In the 1970s, the Bahamas , Grenada , Dominica , St. Lucia , and St. Vincent and the Grenadines all became independent of the United Kingdom, and Suriname became independent of the Netherlands. Belize , Antigua and Barbuda , and Saint Kitts and Nevis achieved independence from

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3444-525: The Hudson River Valley, and what later became New Jersey. The spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and African slaves killed many of the inhabitants of North America and South America, with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid-16th century, often well ahead of European contact. One of the most devastating diseases was smallpox . European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to found colonies in

3526-567: The Neoclassicist to Napoleonic periods, when French language and culture became the fashion at the royal court), and Germanic languages like English. For example: In recent times, Spanish has borrowed many words and expressions from English, especially in the fields of computers and the Internet. In many cases, technical expressions that superficially employ common Spanish words are in fact calques from English equivalents. For example, disco duro

3608-593: The Norse colonies and Europe was maintained, as James Watson Curran states: From 985 to 1410, Greenland was in touch with the world. Then silence. In 1492 the Vatican noted that no news of that country "at the end of the world" had been received for 80 years, and the bishopric of the colony was offered to a certain ecclesiastic if he would go and "restore Christianity" there. He didn't go. Although there had been previous trans-oceanic contact , large-scale European colonization of

3690-751: The Pre-Dorset cultural group, the Dorset culture was displaced by the final migrants from the Bering sea coast line, the Thule people (the ancestors of modern Inuit ), by 1000  CE . Around the same time as the Inuit migrated into Greenland, Viking settlers began arriving in Greenland in 982 and Vinland shortly thereafter, establishing a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows , near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland . Contact between

3772-616: The United Kingdom in the 1980s. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere . The northernmost point of the Americas is Kaffeklubben Island , which is the most northerly point of land on Earth. The southernmost undisputed point is Águila Islet , although the Antarctic islands of Southern Thule are sometimes taken into account. The mainland of the Americas is the world's longest north-to-south landmass. The distance between its two polar extremities, Murchison Promontory on

3854-608: The United Kingdom, starting with the Balfour Declaration of 1926 , Statute of Westminster 1931 , and ending with the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. The Dominion of Newfoundland similarly achieved independence under the Balfour Declaration and Statute of Westminster, but relinquished self-rule in 1934. It was subsequently confederated with Canada in 1949. The remaining European colonies in

3936-496: The United States, and more specifically in the US state of Colorado . The highest peaks of the Americas are located in the Andes , with Aconcagua of Argentina being the highest; in North America Denali (Mount McKinley) in the US state of Alaska is the tallest. Between its coastal mountain ranges, North America has vast flat areas. The Interior Plains spread over much of the continent, with low relief. The Canadian Shield covers almost 5 million km of North America and

4018-433: The West Coast of the Americas. In the far northwest of North America, the Yukon drains much of the Alaskan peninsula and flows 1,980 miles (3,190 km) from parts of Yukon and the Northwest Territory to the Pacific. Draining to the Arctic Ocean of Canada, the Mackenzie River drains waters from the Arctic Great Lakes of Arctic Canada, as opposed to the Saint-Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes of Southern Canada into

4100-426: The alveolar ridge to the teeth but is a little farther forward than other alveolar laminal consonants, which cover more of the alveolar ridge and might be considered postalveolar. This occurs in French . Part of the confusion in naming laminal consonants is quite literally a matter of point of view. When one looks at a person pronouncing a laminal alveolar or denti-alveolar, the tip of the tongue can be seen touching

4182-417: The arctic tundra of Northern Canada , Greenland , and Alaska , to the tropical rainforests in Central America and South America. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 20,000 and 16,000 years ago. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic c.  3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as

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4264-503: The back of the teeth or even protruding between the teeth, which gives them the common name of dental . Acoustically , however, the important element is the place of the rearmost occlusion, which is the point that the resonant chamber in the mouth terminates. That determines the size, shape and acoustics of the oral cavity , which produces the harmonics of the vowels. Thus, French coronals are alveolar and differ from English alveolars primarily in being laminal rather than apical (in French,

4346-423: The dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred after the Late Glacial Maximum , from 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered during

4428-479: The development of Old Spanish . The second assumption is that Continental Celtic , an extinct branch of Celtic , did indeed exhibit the types of lenition that are known to exist in modern Insular Celtic languages . Alternatively, the Spanish development may therefore just be a natural internal process, not due to outside influence. Many Castilians who took part in the Reconquista and later repopulation campaigns of Muslim Iberia were of Basque lineage and this

4510-466: The dialect), rather than [h]. Adding to this is the fact that the f-to-h lenition is not peculiar to Spanish. In fact, the change from [f] to [h] is one of the most common phonological changes in all kinds of world languages. According to the explanations that negate or downplay Basque influence, the change occurred in the affected dialects wholly independent of each other as the result of internal change (i.e. linguistic factors, not outside influence). It

4592-473: The early 1800s. Between 1811 and 1825, Paraguay , Argentina , Chile , Gran Colombia , the United Provinces of Central America , Mexico , Brazil , Peru , and Bolivia gained independence from Spain and Portugal in armed revolutions. After the Dominican Republic won independence from Haiti , it was re-annexed by Spain in 1861, but reclaimed its independence in 1865 at the conclusion of the Dominican Restoration War . The last violent episode of decolonization

4674-414: The east coast of North America from Alabama to Newfoundland . North of the Appalachians, the Arctic Cordillera runs along the eastern coast of Canada. The largest mountain ranges are the Andes and Rocky Mountains . The Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range reach similar altitudes as the Rocky Mountains , but are significantly smaller. In North America, the greatest number of fourteeners are in

4756-507: The emerging Kingdom of Castile conquered large territories from Moorish rulers in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. These territories had large numbers of speakers of Arabic, as well as many who spoke local Romance dialects ( Mozarabic language ) that were heavily influenced by Arabic, both influencing Castilian. Arabic words and their derivatives were also brought into Spanish by Mozarab Christians who emigrated northwards from Al-Andalus in times of sectarian violence , particularly during

4838-518: The first half of the 16th century, Spanish colonists conducted raids throughout the Caribbean Basin , bringing captives from Central America, northern South America, and Florida back to Hispaniola and other Spanish settlements. France, led by Jacques Cartier and Giovanni da Verrazzano , focused primarily on North America. English explorations of the Americas were led by Giovanni Caboto and Sir Walter Raleigh . The Dutch in New Netherland confined their operations to Manhattan Island, Long Island,

4920-439: The flat of the tongue, they cover a broader area of contact than apical consonants. Laminal consonants in some languages have been recorded with a broad occlusion (closure) that covers all the front of the mouth from the hard palate to the teeth, which makes it difficult to compare the two. Alveolar laminals and apicals are two different articulations. A very common laminal articulation is sometimes called denti-alveolar . It spans

5002-619: The four that have contributed the most words are Arabic , Indigenous languages of the Americas , Germanic , and Celtic in roughly that order. African – Americas – Arabic – Austronesian – Basque – Celtic – Chinese – Etruscan – French – Germanic – Iberian – Indo-Aryan – Iranian – Italic – Semitic – Turkic – uncertain – various origins . The Americas The Americas , sometimes collectively called America , known initially as India Nova , are

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5084-447: The indigenous peoples in much of the Americas. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in the 1770s and largely ended with the Spanish–American War in the late 1890s. Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in independent countries; however, the legacy of the colonization and settlement by Europeans is that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most notably Christianity and

5166-481: The influence of Celtic languages ; they have also been attributed to the influence of the Basque language. While examples of these two types of lenition are ubiquitous and well-documented in Spanish, two assumptions need to be made if these two types of lenition are to be attributed to patterns of lenition in Celtic languages. The first assumption is that a population of bilingual Celtiberian – Vulgar Latin speakers existed long enough to have had an influence on

5248-402: The initial peopling of the Americas; Na Dene speakers found predominantly in North American groups at varying genetic rates with the highest frequency found among the Athabaskans at 42% derive from this second wave. Linguists and biologists have reached a similar conclusion based on analysis of Amerindian language groups and ABO blood group system distributions. Then the people of

5330-421: The mainland, while Nordostrundingen , in Greenland, is the most easterly point of the continental shelf. South America broke off from the west of the supercontinent Gondwana around 135 million years ago, forming its own continent. Around 15 million years ago, the collision of the Caribbean Plate and the Pacific Plate resulted in the emergence of a series of volcanoes along the border that created

5412-447: The nation of Haiti , where French is also spoken. Native languages are more prominent in Latin America than in Anglo-America , with Nahuatl , Quechua , Aymara , and Guaraní as the most common. Various other native languages are spoken with less frequency across both Anglo-America and Latin America. Creole languages other than Haitian Creole are also spoken in parts of Latin America. Laminal consonant A laminal consonant

5494-751: The scientific field) were then passed on to other languages (English acquired most of them through French ). Most Spanish nouns beginning with the letters al- (from the Arabic definite article) have their origin in Arabic. As to how many words in Modern Spanish are of Arabic origin, the estimates vary widely, depending largely on whether the count includes derived forms and place names. One respected authority suggests that they number more than 4,000, based on estimates of 850 of known etymology, 780 forms derived from them, 1,000 place names, 500 additional place names of "probable" Arabic origin, and "very numerous" Arabic-looking words whose affiliation has not yet been established. The largest Spanish etymological dictionary —

5576-412: The settlement by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas . The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Erikson . However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The Spanish voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1504 resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old World ) powers, which eventually led to

5658-443: The southerly Dixie Alley in the North American late-winter and early spring seasons. Often parts of the Caribbean are exposed to the violent effects of hurricanes. These weather systems are formed by the collision of dry, cool air from Canada and wet, warm air from the Atlantic. With coastal mountains and interior plains, the Americas have several large river basins that drain the continents. The largest river basin in North America

5740-410: The territories of the Americas under the colonial rule of European powers. In South America, Portugal played a significant role in the trafficking of enslaved Africans, with estimates suggesting that around 40% of all Africans forcibly brought to the Americas were taken to Brazil alone, to work primarily in sugar cane plantations, mining, and agricultural endeavors. In North America, the British Empire

5822-424: The three main demographic concepts: In accordance with these definitions, the three largest population centers in the Americas are: Mexico City , anchor to the largest metropolitan area in the Americas; New York City, anchor to the largest urban area in the Americas; and São Paulo, the largest city proper in the Americas. All three cities maintain Alpha classification and large scale influence. The population of

5904-524: The time of the first permanent European arrivals ( c.  late 15th –early 16th centuries), and are known only through archeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as pagan, and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only

5986-421: The times of Almohad and Almoravid rule in the 12th and 13th centuries. Due to the long-lasting presence and influence of Arabic , mainly in southern Iberia, Spanish has a significant lexical component from that language, constituting some 8% of its vocabulary according to some estimates. Spanish borrowed words from Arabic in many semantic fields: Many of these borrowings (especially in

6068-446: The tongue apex (tongue tip) only. Sometimes laminal is used exclusively for an articulation that involves only the blade of the tongue with the tip being lowered and apicolaminal for an articulation that involves both the blade of the tongue and the raised tongue tip. The distinction applies only to coronal consonants , which use the front of the tongue. Some languages contrast laminal and apical sounds: Because laminal consonants use

6150-466: The tongue is flatter). There are true laminal dentals in some languages with no alveolar contact, such as in Hindustani , which are different from French consonants. Nevertheless, the breadth of contact has some importance; it influences the shape of the tongue farther back and so the shape of the resonant cavity. Also, if the release of a denti-alveolar consonant is not abrupt, the tongue may peel off from

6232-663: The use of West European languages: primarily Spanish , English , Portuguese , French , and, to a lesser extent, Dutch . The Americas are home to more than a billion inhabitants, two-thirds of whom reside in the United States , Brazil , and Mexico . It is home to eight megacities ( metropolitan areas with 10 million inhabitants or more): Greater Mexico City (21.2 million), São Paulo (21.2 million), New York City (19.7 million), Los Angeles (18.8 million), Buenos Aires (15.6 million), Rio de Janeiro (13.0 million), Bogotá (10.4 million), and Lima (10.1 million). The name "America"

6314-551: Was controlled by the Visigoths between the 5th and 8th centuries. However, the influence of the Gothic language (an East Germanic language) on Spanish was minimal because the invaders were already somewhat Romanized, were secluded in the upper echelons of society, and generally did not intermarry with the natives. Besides a few military words, Spanish borrowed the following from Gothic: Although Germanic languages by most accounts affected

6396-548: Was first recorded in 1507. A two-dimensional globe created by Martin Waldseemüller was the earliest recorded use of the term. The name was also used (together with the related term Amerigen ) in the Cosmographiae Introductio , apparently written by Matthias Ringmann , in reference to South America. It was applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. "America" derives from Americus ,

6478-440: Was heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade, with the establishment of colonies such as Virginia, where enslaved Africans were primarily used as labor in tobacco plantations and later in other agricultural and domestic sectors. This system perpetuated for centuries, shaping the socio-economic landscape of all nations of the hemisphere. After the Haitian Revolution led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines , which started in 1791 and

6560-556: Was subject to frequent raids by English and French pirates . On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America, founded on August 15, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the Spanish conquest of South America. Conquistador Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established San Miguel de Guadalupe , the first European settlement in what is now the United States , on the Pee Dee River in South Carolina . During

6642-634: Was the Cuban War of Independence which became the Spanish–American War , which resulted in the independence of Cuba in 1898, and the transfer of sovereignty over Puerto Rico from Spain to the United States. Peaceful decolonization began with the United States's purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1916. Canada became independent of

6724-500: Was the only successful slave revolt in history, the world's first black republic was established. It started with the massacre of the white population, between 3,000 and 5,000 white men and women of all ages were killed. Dessalines declared: — Dessalines, first president of the Republic of Haiti, 1804 The most prevalent faiths in the Americas are as follows: Other faiths include Buddhism ; Hinduism ; Sikhism ; Baháʼí Faith ;

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