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
Maritime history of Chile Maritime history of Chile The maritime history of Chile begins with the independence of Chile, but traces it origin in the colonial era and has ultimately origin in the seafaring tradition of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and the Mediterranean as well as from indigenous peoples of Chile. In the Chiloé Archipelago a watercraft called "dalca" was of common use in Pre–Columbian times. Dalcas were made of planks and were mainly used for seafaring while wampus were used for navigating rivers and lakes. It is not known what kind of oars early Mapuches presumably used. In 2007, evidence appeared to have