standing of global geography, ease of naviga-
tion, the improvement of scientific methods,
and even the fate of nations. Many of the most
profound changes, however, took place in
basic ways as people on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean led their lives in the steadily
shrinking world.
Only a few centuries after the Taino Indi-
ans and Columbus awkwardly greeted each
other with sign language on the Bahamian
shore at Guanahaní—most likely present-day
San Salvador—Native American languages
throughout the Western Hemisphere were
replaced or, at least, diminished by the lan-
guages of colonizing European powers.
North American Indian languages still sur-
vived throughout much of the United States
and Canada in 1800, despite efforts by Euro-
pean missionaries to obliterate Native Amer-
ican languages through acculturation. By
1800, however, the pattern was set. Brazilians
primarily spoke Portuguese. Spanish was
spoken in Mexico, Central America, and
much of South America and the Caribbean.
French was spoken in parts of Canada,
Louisiana, and certain islands of the Lesser
Antilles. English was spoken in Canada and
the former British colonies of the United
States.
Yet while the advent of European lan-
guage transformed communication in the
New World, it did not entirely destroy what
had existed before. Nahuatl, the Aztec lan-
guage, is still a primary language in some
regions of Mexico and Guatemala. Quechua
is spoken today in Peru, Ecuador, and
Bolivia. Guarani and Spanish coexist as the
national languages of Paraguay. The linguis-
tic exchange did not flow only in one direc-
tion. New World contributions to English
and other Old World vocabularies described
animals, plants, and aspects of culture of
which the rest of the Earth had been
unawarebefore 1492. This ongoing process
introduced indigenous New World words
into common usage in a larger world; exam-
ples include maize, raccoon, opossum, coy-
ote, skunk, succotash, hominy, squash,
tomato, potato, tapioca, tobacco, Eskimo,
hickory, hammock, canoe, moccasin, and
totem. The transoceanic importation of
slaves to the Americas also brought a West
African component into the linguistic
exchange, in the Caribbean and South Amer-
ica as well as the United States. Immigration
to the Americas in the 1800s would broaden
the exchange even further, with languages
evolving to meet the need to communicate.Tobacco later proved to be a very profitable crop
when cultivated in the British colonies in eastern
North America. On this 1850s tobacco label,
laborers carry bales of tobacco from a plantation
to a waiting boat.(Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-1996])The New World in 1800 B 175