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
Official languages of the United Nations India, and is an official language in nine countries. In 2008, the President of Portugal announced that the then eight leaders of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. This followed a decision by Portugal's legislators to adopt a standardization of Portuguese spelling. The media branch of the UN, UN News, already includes translations into Portuguese. Swahili is a lingua franca throughout eastern Africa and is especially prevalent in the African Great Lakes region. Swahili, known as Kiswahili by its speakers, is an official language of Kenya,