Expert: Paul Walcutt - 11/29/2000

Question
Why is Latin America called Latin America?
(I am just interested in where the "Latin" is from? Does that "Latin" then get translated into "Latino" to describe a portion of spanish speaking people? Did that section of the world once speak Latin?)

Answer
This name has nothing to do with the speaking of Latin.  I'm not exactly sure where the origin is from, but I would guess that it is an 18th or 19th century phrase used because the major languages of the region were Romance languages and therefore, Latin based (Spanish/Portuguese).  Note that North American peoples primarily spoke English, which is German based.

No, they did not speak Latin (at least the common people did not;  I'm sure many scholars in the region could read and speak it since it was one of the "classical" areas of study).