ABSTRACT
South America is a continent of twelve politically independent countries and one department of France (maps pp. 243, 244, 246, 247). Five official or national languages are spoken—Dutch, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese—as are hundreds of native American tongues, dozens of imported languages [see Music of Immigrant Groups], and several localized ones, such as Creole, Taki-taki, and Papiamento. Most of the continent’s three hundred million people, however, speak Spanish or Portuguese.
