What are the Costa Rica Languages?
The official language of Costa Rica is, naturally enough, Spanish. Not only did the Spaniards hold the region as part of their New World empire for close to three centuries, but they also came to make up most of the population of the area as well. The Indians of Costa Rica were very few and scattered, and the arable tracts of land in some portions of the country attracted considerable European settlement.
Costa Rican Spanish is spoken with an accent similar to that of Nicaragua, as well as being pronounced slowly and very clearly. The language is rather more formal than the Spanish currently spoken in Spain, and the Costa Ricans enjoy using many polite phrases in everyday speech. A generalized phrase, “Pura vida” (literally “pure life”) is employed for many situations, and can be a greeting, a goodbye, a substitute for “thank you” or “you are welcome”, and so forth. “Pura vida” is mostly unique to Costa Rica.
English is spoken as a first language by the 3% of the population who are Afro-Costa Ricans, descendents of men and women brought to work on United Fruit Company’s railway lines many years ago. There are also four major Indian languages with several thousand speakers each, and an array of other Indian languages with far less speakers.
How Widespread is English Among the Costa Rica Languages?
English is the language of international commerce, a sort of lingua franca of the modern era, and many tourists also come from the English-speaking words. Besides the English creole spoken by the Afro-Costa Ricans along the Caribbean coast, close to 11% of the population speaks English as a second language. This is due to the constant activities of American companies interested in coffee and bananas, as well as the need to communicate with tourists.
French is spoken by a smaller percentage of Costa Ricans, while Portuguese and German are also numbered among the secondary Costa Rica languages. The country includes numerous language schools that offer quick, high quality courses in Spanish for visiting foreigners.