List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
Encyclopedia
This is a list of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 words that come from Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...

. It is further divided into words that come from Arawakan
Arawakan languages
Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean based on the Arawakan languages. Sometimes the proposal is called Arawakan, in which case the central family is called Maipurean....

, Aymara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...

, Carib, Mayan
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...

, Nahuatl, Quechua, Tarahumara
Tarahumara
The Rarámuri or Tarahumara are a Native American people of northwestern Mexico who are renowned for their long-distance running ability...

, Tupi, and uncertain (the word is known to be from the Americas, but the exact source language is unclear). Some of these words have alternate etymologies
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 and may also appear on a list of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 words from a different language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

.

A

  • aguacate (nahuatl awakatl)
  • ajolote (nahuatl axololtl)
  • alpaca (quechua)
  • amate (nahuatl amatl)
  • ambú
  • atole (nahuatl atolli)

C

  • cacahuate/cacahuete (nahuatl kakawatl)
  • cacao (nahuatl)
  • cacique
  • cacomistle, cacomiztle, cacomixtle (nahuatl kakomixtli)
  • caimán
  • calpulli (nahuatl kalpulli)
  • camelo
  • camote (nahuatl camohtli)
  • campechano
  • cancha (quechua)
  • caníbal
  • canoa
  • caoba
  • capulín
  • caraota
  • caribe
  • caribú
  • carioca
  • caraqueño
  • catre
  • caucho
  • casabe, cazabe
    Tapioca
    Tapioca is a starch extracted Manihot esculenta. This species, native to the Amazon, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and most of the West Indies, is now cultivated worldwide and has many names, including cassava, manioc, aipim,...

  • ceiba
  • chacra
  • chayote (nahuatl chayotl)
  • chía
  • chicle (nahuatl tsikitl)
  • chichimeca (nahuatl chichimeca)
  • chilacayote (nahuatl)
  • chile, chili (nahuatl chilli)
  • Chile
  • chileno
  • chinchilla
  • chirimoya
  • choclo (ear of corn)
  • chocolate (nahuatl xokolatl)
  • cigarro
  • coyote (nahuatl coyotl)
  • cuate

G

  • gaucho (mapudungu)
  • guacamaya, guacamayo
  • guacamole (Nahuatl "awakamolli" )
  • guaco, huaco
  • guagua ('child')
  • guajolote (nahuatl huehxōlōtl)
  • guarábana
  • guanaco
  • guano
  • guaraní
  • guayaba
  • güiro

M

  • macana
  • macanudo
  • maguey
  • maiz
  • mamey
  • mandioca (nheengatu/guarani manio'k / mandio)
  • mangle
  • maní
  • maraca
  • maracuyá
  • mate ('drink')
  • maya
  • mecate (nahuatl mecatl)
  • mesquite
  • milpa (nahuatl milpan)
  • mixteco (nahuatl mixtecatl)
  • mole ('sauce', nahuatl molli)

P

  • palta
  • pampa
  • papa
  • papaya
  • patata
  • pécari
  • petaca
  • petate
  • pinole
  • poroto
  • potosí
  • pozole
  • pulque
  • puma

T

  • tabaco
  • taco
  • tamal (Nahuatl "tamalli")
  • tamandua
  • tapioca
    Tapioca
    Tapioca is a starch extracted Manihot esculenta. This species, native to the Amazon, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and most of the West Indies, is now cultivated worldwide and has many names, including cassava, manioc, aipim,...

  • tapir
  • tarahumara
  • tequila (Tecuilah)
  • tiburón
  • tiza
  • tolteca
  • tomate (Nahuatl "tómatl)
  • tucán
  • tuna

Z

  • zacate (nahuatl zacatl)
  • zapallo
  • zapote (nahuatl zapotl)
  • zapoteca (nahuatl zapotecatl)
  • zarigüeya
  • zopilote (nahuatl zopilotl)

Arawakan
Arawakan languages
Macro-Arawakan is a proposed language family of South America and the Caribbean based on the Arawakan languages. Sometimes the proposal is called Arawakan, in which case the central family is called Maipurean....

Iguana
Cocoa
Barbecue
Hurricane
Hammock
Savannah
Tobacco
Papaya
Canoe
Potato
Jamaica
Guava

Aymara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...

  • china= feminine
    Grammatical gender
    Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

     form of chino, see chino below
  • chino= a person indigenous to the Americas
    Americas
    The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

    , a mestizo
    Mestizo
    Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

    , a servant
    Domestic worker
    A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...

    : from Aymara (or Quechua) china "female
    Female
    Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

     animal
    Animal
    Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

    , servant"

Carib

  • arepa = a typical maize bread ; a pancake, a thin cake, fried or roasted made of maize flour (from Carib arepa)
  • canoa = a typical dugout
    Dugout (boat)
    A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon is Greek -- mono- + ξύλον xylon -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called einbaum )...

     canoe made by the native Amerindians (from Carib kanawa)
  • curiara = a typical dugout
    Dugout (boat)
    A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon is Greek -- mono- + ξύλον xylon -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called einbaum )...

     canoe made by the native Amerindians (from Carib kurijara)

Mayan
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...

chuco = adj, having a dark color, sometimes with the connotation of dirty

Tupi–Guarani languages

  • Guarani language
    Guaraní language
    Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...

    : ñandú, ananá, guaraná, tatú, cajú, yacaré.
  • Nheengatu language
    Nheengatu
    The Nheengatu language , often spelled Nhengatu, is an Amerindian language of a Tupi–Guarani family. It is also known by the Portuguese names língua geral da Amazônia and língua geral amazônica, both meaning "Amazonian General Language," or even by the Latin lingua brasilica...

    : tapioca
    Tapioca
    Tapioca is a starch extracted Manihot esculenta. This species, native to the Amazon, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and most of the West Indies, is now cultivated worldwide and has many names, including cassava, manioc, aipim,...

     (< typyʼók-a) , jaguar
    Jaguar
    The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...

     (< jawár-a), mandioca (< maniʼók-a), tucán
    Toucan
    Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...

     (< tukán-a) o tapir
    Tapir
    A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...

     (< tapiʼír-a).

See also

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