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The richness of Latin American culture is the product of many influences, including: Spanish and Portuguese culture, owing to the region's history of colonization, settlement and continued immigration from Spain and Portugal. All the core elements of Latin American culture are of Iberian origin, which is ultimately related to Western culture.
The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. The Romance languages have more than 700 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas , Europe , and Africa , as well as in many smaller regions scattered through the world.
Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture is a comprehensive reference work, with over 5,000 articles by specialists in Latin American history, politics, and culture. The first edition of the encyclopedia comprises five print volumes, edited by Barbara Tenenbaum of the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress . [ 1 ]
The contemporary history of Latin America. Durham : Duke University Press, 1993. Herring, Hubert, A History of Latin America: from the Beginnings to the Present, 1955. ISBN 0-07-553562-9; Kaufman, Will, and Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson, eds. Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History (3 vol 2005), 1157pp; encyclopedic coverage; excerpt
Latin American countries (green) in the Americas. Latin America (Spanish: América Latina or Latinoamérica; Portuguese: América Latina; French: Amérique latine) is the region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin)—particularly Spanish and Portuguese, as well as French—are primarily spoken.
Latin America is the region of the Americas that was colonized by Latin Europeans, and came to be called so in the 19th century. [18] The term is usually used to refer to Spanish-and Portuguese-speaking countries, namely Hispanic America and Brazil.
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 beginning of the 11th century (with the Nordic settlement of Greenland and failed efforts in Newfoundland and Labrador) and the end of the 15th century (the voyages of Christopher Columbus).
The term "Latin America" is defined to mean parts of Americas south of the mainland of the United States of America where a Romance language (a language derived from Latin) predominates. Latin America are the countries and territories in the Americas which speak Spanish or Portuguese, with French being sometimes included.