Languages of Chile Languages of Chile The Republic of Chile is an overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking country, with the exceptions of isolated native and immigrant communities. According to Ethnologue, Chile has nine living languages and seven extinct. Of the 18 million Chileans, some 17 million speak Chilean Spanish as their first language. It is a Spanish dialect which is sometimes difficult for speakers of the Castilian variant of Spanish to understand. It is very similar to Andalusian Spanish in pronunciation but it does have a lot of local slang. There are some 1,700,000 Mapuche living in Chile, of whom 114,000 speak Mapudungun. Huilliche dialect or
Demographics of Chile around 10,000 came to the mainland in the 20th century. There is a sizable population of Romani people in Chile. They are widely and easily recognized, and continue to hold on to their traditions and language, and many continue to live semi-nomadic lifestyles traveling from city to city and living in small tented communities. Since the reestablishment of democracy in Chile, the former tendency for emigrants from the country to outnumber immigrants to it has reversed. Chile now is one of the two countries in Latin America with a positive migration rate. Today, the principal immigrant groups correspond to the