History of American Language (original) (raw)

If we look back to the time before European colonization, there were perhaps a thousand languages spoken in the Americas. It was not just one Native American language. Before the arrival of Europeans which bring English and Spanish languages to America, there were about 250 in the present territory of the United States alone. Sure these languages showed tremendous variety between one another. Because of European colonization, the population of native civilizations of the current territory of the United States fell from about 20 million to the present level of less than 2 million. Beyond the shrinking size of the ethnic populations, the languages have also suffered due to the prevalence of English among those of Native American ancestry. Most Native American languages have ceased to exist, or are spoken only by older speakers, with whom the language will die in the coming decades.