Words from the Americas: Taíno, Nahuatl, Quechua, Guaraní

Explanation

The first supplier was Taíno, an Arawakan language of the Caribbean and the first that Spanish met. It gave the oldest and most universal Americanisms — canoa, hamaca, huracán, maíz, tabaco, barbacoa, caimán, iguana, cacique, sabana, batata, maní — most of them borrowed before Spain had even reached the mainland, and from there passed on to every other European language.

Then came the large mainland languages, each with its own semantic signature. Nahuatl, in central Mexico: chocolate, tomate, aguacate, chile, cacahuete, coyote, elote, chicle, tiza, hule, petate, guajolote, tianguis. Quechua, in the Andes: papa, cóndor, pampa, puma, llama, coca, guano, chacra, cancha, quinua, carpa. Guaraní, in Paraguay and the Río de la Plata: ñandú, yacaré, mandioca, tapioca, and — with the rest of Tupi-Guaraní — jaguar, piraña, tucán. Mapudungun added poncho and malón. In the countries where these languages are still spoken, the borrowing never stopped: Bolivian and Paraguayan Spanish take in Quechua, Aymara and Guaraní words by the dozen.

Two things are worth noticing. First, Spanish acted as the relay: chocolate, tomato, hurricane, canoe, potato, condor and barbecue are American words that reached English, French and German through Spanish — free vocabulary in both directions. Second, coverage is regional, not universal. papa is standard across the Americas while patata is peninsular; palta competes with aguacate in the southern cone; choclo, elote and mazorca divide the map for corn on the cob. Which indigenous word someone reaches for is one of the fastest ways to tell where they learned their Spanish.

Examples

Related rules

• Quechua loanwords in Bolivian Spanish
• Guaraní influence: a bilingual country
• Anglicisms: from fútbol to hacer clic