Cuban language
The Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean, in Central America, whose capital and most populous city is Havana. It has a population of 11 million inhabitants (82º) and an extension of 109,884 km 2 (104º). Its human development index is high (73rd) and its official currencies are the Cuban peso and the Cuban convertible peso. But what language is spoken in Cuba?
What language do they speak in Cuba?
Cuba has an official language, Spanish.
Cuba is a fairly homogeneous country in terms of languages. Virtually the entire population speaks Spanish. The second most widely spoken language (in a minority) in Cuba is Haitian Creole, spoken by Haitian immigrants and their descendants. It originated from the immigration of Haitian slaves during the Haitian revolution at the end of the 18th century.
Other immigrant languages are Galician, Corsican and Catalan. The latter has 3,500 speakers in the Cuban state.
The Spanish language
The variety of Castilian Spanish spoken in Cuba is Cuban Spanish, which is a subdialect of Caribbean Spanish. Between the western and eastern parts of the island there are slight differences in intonation and vocabulary. It originated from the Spanish of Andalusia and, for the most part, from the Canary Islands, with which it bears the most similarities (the accent of La Palma is the most similar). In addition, it collects Canarian vocabulary, which is distinguished from standard Spanish, such as guagua (bus) or fajarse (fight).
The lucumí language
Lucumí is a minority language used in “Santeria”, which is a religious system formed by the union of Catholic beliefs with traditional Yoruba culture (an ethnolinguistic group from Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Togo). It is used only as a second language in a liturgical way, so it does not have native speakers. It originated from Yoruba slaves transported to Cuba during the 18th century.
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