Over a thousand known languages were spoken by various peoples in North and South America prior to their first contact with Europeans. These encounters occurred between the … 展开

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

Hypothetical language-family proposals of American languages are often cited as uncontroversial in popular writing. However, many of these … 展开

It has long been observed that a remarkable number of Native American languages have a pronominal pattern with first-person singular forms in n and second-person singular forms in m. (Compare first-person singular m and second-person singular t … 展开

Countries like Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Guyana recognize most Indigenous languages. Bolivia and Venezuela give all … 展开

Notes:
• Extinct languages or families are indicated by: †.
• The number of family members is indicated in parentheses (for example, Arauan (9) means the Arauan family consists of nine languages). 展开

Several languages are only known by mention in historical documents or from only a few names or words. It cannot be determined that these languages actually existed or that the few recorded words are actually of known or unknown languages. Some may simply be … 展开