The language most spoken in El Salvador is Spanish. Spanish is derived from Latin and is primarily a Romance language. To some linguists it is a SVO (Subject, Verb, and Object) language and yet to some it is a fusional language. The Spanish language has an alphabet with 27 letters. The Spanish language resembles the English alphabet, except for the addition of the character. Previously, the Spanish alphabet had 29 letters. The additional letters, and were originally thought to be acceptable but were later disputed.

Salvadoran Spanish is spoken by the majority of El Salvadorans. Indigenous languages such as Nawat are also spoken, particularly in the Western part of El Salvador. Nahualt is spoken by less than 5% of the people while Lenca is used by around 37,000 people. Q’eqchi, which is also an indigenous language, is spoken by around 9,000 people.

El Salvadoran Spanish does not differ much from the Spanish spoken in neighboring countries, aside from the pronouncation (or lack of pronunciation) of some letters, notably the letters “h” and “u”. In Salvador, “vos” is the pronoun that is used much more frequently than the less formal “tu”.

Minority languages used in El Salvador include Nawat, which is an indigenous language spoken by the Izalcos. Others are Lenca, which is one of the dialects of the native Mesoamerican language. Q’eqchi’ is a dialect of the Mayan languages, frequently spoken in the parts of Guatemala and Belize. Cacaopera is native language spoken in El Salvador.

This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018

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