OTL Question and AHC: Why didnt Other Iberian Languages Find their Way Into America

So I was recently thinking about this and I realized I couldnt find anything about it. Why didnt any of the other languages spoken in Spain move over to America? I mean it just seems odd that a few Catalans and Galicians didnt come in at some point and establish their own communities. Especially given how Galicia and Basque country where major fishing communities who could have been very prosperous in the Americas rather unfished waters.

EDIT: Forgot the challenge, find a way to get these languages (or dialects ive never been quite clear on which Galician is) to have majority areas on the continents of North and South America.
 
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The Spanish Crown had an extremely tight grip on transatlantic transport through the port of Seville during the 16th century, and as a result were in essence able to pick and choose who went abroad. I recommend reading The Spanish Seaborne Empire for more reference.
 
Actually, I think a lot of minorities did migrate. There are plenty of Latin American Yzaguirres (Basque) or Betancurs (Canarian).
 
Most of the minorities who went to the new world were quickly assimilated into the Castillian language.
Only a few retained their native tongues.
 
New England has a suprisingly large Portugese community, if that counts.

They are recent immigrants to the United States from Portugal.

To answer the OP, Most of the early migrants (mostly from Andalucia) who arrived in Latin America spoke in Castillian language and later migrants like Basques, Catalans, Asturians, and Galicians adopted the language of the majority Andalucian settlers in Latin America. In addition, only Seville and for the lesser extent, Cadiz was opened to Latin American trade.
 
The easiest solution would be to have Aragon and Castille never unite, methinks. Assuming of course that America is discovered around the same time, and that Aragon has any interest in the New World.
 

yourworstnightmare

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The easiest solution would be to have Aragon and Castille never unite, methinks. Assuming of course that America is discovered around the same time, and that Aragon has any interest in the New World.
Or even a way to get there if the Castillans control Gibraltar.
 

FDW

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The easiest solution would be to have Aragon and Castille never unite, methinks. Assuming of course that America is discovered around the same time, and that Aragon has any interest in the New World.

I think a better one would be for Navarre to not be dismembered, as that kingdom actually had a coast facing the Atlantic.
 
So I was recently thinking about this and I realized I couldnt find anything about it. Why didnt any of the other languages spoken in Spain move over to America? I mean it just seems odd that a few Catalans and Galicians didnt come in at some point and establish their own communities. Especially given how Galicia and Basque country where major fishing communities who could have been very prosperous in the Americas rather unfished waters.

EDIT: Forgot the challenge, find a way to get these languages (or dialects ive never been quite clear on which Galician is) to have majority areas on the continents of North and South America.

you've had basques in Quebec and what is now maritime canada with a few words such as Orignal ["moose"] from the basque "oreinak" entering the french-canadian language.

The basque flag is even present on the flag of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon:

st+pierre+miquelon+drapeau.png


And there's the "Île-aux-basques" near trois pistoles (quebec) which had a small seasonal population of basque fishermen in the late 16rh/early 17th century. Would be interesting in an ATL to have a permanent settlement there as an official colony of the kingdom of Navarre.
 
^Not just that, but also until the 1950s SPM also had a thriving Basque-speaking community. Now that would be an interesting POD, for sure.
 
^Not just that, but also until the 1950s SPM also had a thriving Basque-speaking community. Now that would be an interesting POD, for sure.

So Navarre would have a colonial empire consisting of "hiru txanpon" on the saint lawrence river, "San Petri eta Mikelune" in the atlantic and..... what else can we find ?
 
I asked this in the small OTL History questions thread but maybe I could get an answer here.

How many people in Spanish America were either maroons, or members of essentially independent tribes? edit: in the 1600s. edit: if this is a better question, how many were Christians. Moriscos and crypto-Jews count as Christians.

By the way, when did gold and silver become rare in Mexico and Peru?
 
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By the way, when did gold and silver become rare in Mexico and Peru?

IIRC, Potosi, in present day bolivia, where most silver camo from, was exploited till the first years of the 1800. I think mineral wealth in South America started becoming scarse in the late 1700s, and thats when other sources of wealth, previosly neglected, became more intersting.

Don't know when it happened in Mexico, though
 
So Navarre would have a colonial empire consisting of "hiru txanpon" on the saint lawrence river, "San Petri eta Mikelune" in the atlantic and..... what else can we find ?

Hypothetically, if one wanted to bend the space-time continuum, one could make a good portion of Newfoundland Basque-speaking (and have that affect the English, Irish, and French spoken there) - Basque fishermen have been known in written accounts to have fished in the Grand Banks area, even using parts of Labrador such as Red Bay.
 
They are recent immigrants to the United States from Portugal.

To answer the OP, Most of the early migrants (mostly from Andalucia) who arrived in Latin America spoke in Castillian language and later migrants like Basques, Catalans, Asturians, and Galicians adopted the language of the majority Andalucian settlers in Latin America. In addition, only Seville and for the lesser extent, Cadiz was opened to Latin American trade.

This. There were several basque in the first years, mostly sailors (but also some famous captains and conquistadors), but they where few and got assimilated to the mainstream Spanish speaking society.

Remember also most of the Spanish who came where men: this was true for all immigrants, but especially for Basque sailors, and isolated individuals rarely pass their language to their descendants.Basques and Galician families began arriving later, when Castialian was firmly settled as the local language.


Incidentally, maybe it's an archaism, but here in Argentina we still call the language we speak "Castellano" (castilian), which is a more accurate term than "Spanish".

Anyway the way to change this would be first, to have Spain open the Nosthern ports to trade from the Americas, and to allow immigrants to the Americas to go throush these ports. I'm sure you'll get way more galicians and Basques in the first years. Maybe if there where fewer people intrested in going, the Spanish Crown would be less restrictive vis a vis who could go or from which port should they go.

This might not be enough, though. You might need to change the pattern of Spain colonization, and to have more families (or even communities of some sort) sent to the Americas insted of isoleted and selected men, who where mostly "old Christians", and predominantly Andalucians (since the only ports which could trade with the Americas where). Spain began encouraging peasant families to go only in the late XVIII, IIRC.
 
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