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
Culture of Chile colder, and there are steeper shores and bigger waves. In addition to football (soccer), basketball is particularly popular in southern Chile, where it as an indoor sport can be played all year round despite Southern Chile's cold and rainy winters. The "NCBAOC" is the official league. It stands for the National Chile Basketball Association of Chile. Rodeo is the second most popular sport in Chile. It was declared the national sport in 1962. It has since thrived, especially in the more rural areas of the country. Chilean rodeo is different from the rodeo found in North America. In Chilean rodeo,