If you’re thinking of visiting or living in Costa Rica, you’re probably considering learning Spanish to enhance your communication skills and enjoyment. And that’s a great thing. But to fully understand the country and its culture, it’s important to look at the bigger picture.
Costa Rica is incredibly diverse—both culturally and linguistically—with thriving Jewish, Muslim, Quaker, Chinese, and German communities, some of which are the largest in Central America! There are even multiple varieties of English spoken. This amazing variety, along with at least six indigenous tribes living in Costa Rica, makes it a fascinating place to explore for a short trip or an extended stay.
If you’re eager to dive into every language Costa Rica has to offer, Rosetta Stone’s Unlimited Languages is the natural language learning choice. You’ll have lifetime access to immersive lessons, immediate pronunciation feedback, and more to get you conversation-ready in 25 languages!
That’s exciting news for any world traveler. To narrow down which languages you want to tackle first, let’s take a look at the full list of languages spoken in Costa Rica below.
What is the official language of Costa Rica?
Spanish is an official language of Costa Rica. Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica was conquered and colonized by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, where, soon after their arrival, Spanish became the dominant language.
Costa Rica was a colony of Spain for nearly 300 years, forming part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which covered the territory known today as Mexico and beyond. The country finally gained its independence as part of Mexico’s victory in the early nineteenth century.
By this time, Spanish was intensely prevalent throughout Costa Rica, though dozens of indigenous languages persisted. Although some of these languages didn’t survive, a great many of them are still spoken today. The other recognized languages of Costa Rica are Patois and Mekatelyu, which are, interestingly, based on the English language.
What makes Costa Rican Spanish so unique?
By now you probably already get a sense of Costa Rica’s linguistic and religious diversity, unusual past, and compelling present. Costa Rica is known for its tropical rainforests and delicious coffee, but it also has two coasts and unimaginable biodiversity, in part due to being the first tropical country to reverse deforestation. Pretty cool, right? But what about the language that is so ubiquitous throughout its jungles and coastlines?
Costa Rica’s official language of Spanish is spoken by about 5 million people, to which you might be inclined to say: ¡Son muchas personas! (“That’s a lot of people!”). It shares many commonalities with Latin American Spanish, but has certain nuances that a trained ear can identify, including:
- Soft “e”: Ticos, the nickname for Costa Ricans, tend to drop or soften the final e of words like coche (“car”).
- Using voseo: A few words have slightly different meanings in Costa Rica, and grammatically speaking, Costa Ricans use the voseo form when talking to friends and family. That means they say vos instead of tú for the word “you.”
- Slang: Costa Rican Spanish has some pretty fun slang too, like ¿al chile?, which could be directly translated as “to the chili pepper?” but it actually means “really?”
Tranquilo, readers. These are minor differences, and any knowledge of standard Spanish will no doubt be useful in Costa Rica. Still, it’s fun to learn all about dialects to impress native speakers! Take a closer look at uniquely Costa Rican slang, grammar, and more with our in-depth guide.
How many languages are spoken in Costa Rica?
The presence of indigenous languages and an influx of temporary residents make the answer to this question tricky. While there’s no set number, it’s safe to say that there are dozens of languages spoken in Costa Rica, which includes European, Asian, and indigenous languages.
Costa Rica is intent on celebrating and preserving its linguistic diversity, having recently committed to the goal of fostering a bilingual population by 2040. Integrated into the nation-wide curriculum, this program places equal emphasis on English and a handful of other languages offered by schools.
While this may seem like a lofty goal, many of those living in Costa Rica are already bilingual!
European languages of Costa Rica
Including Spanish, Costa Rica boasts at least six European languages. Many of them have a particular Costa Rican sound—some with their own unique vocabulary— while others are now dated dialects that are rarely spoken in other parts of the world.
Spanish
By now it’s clear that Spanish is spoken by nearly everyone in Costa Rica. It’s the official language after all! With 5 million speakers, it is the primary language spoken by most residents.
Italian
Due in part to immigration of the nineteenth century, Costa Rica is home to the largest community of Italian-speaking people in Central America. But the Italian spoken there is slightly different from its European counterpart: it’s been influenced by the country’s Spanish.
French
Like the Italian-speaking population, Costa Rica also has the largest French-speaking population of Central America caused by more recent immigration from France, Canada, and Haiti. Other people speak the language because they are descendants of French immigrants from the nineteenth century. French is also widely spoken and promoted among the other inhabitants whose mother tongue is Spanish.
English
Costa Ricans are known among the Central and Latin American countries for speaking English well, perhaps because English is an obligatory language in public school programs well-funded by the government. There are quite a few inhabitants from English-speaking countries too: about 10,000 Canadians, 20,000 Americans, and thousands of British choose Costa Rica as their home. A Quaker community that uses the old form of “thou,” a pronoun that means “you,” can also be found here.
German
Due in part to immigration of previous centuries, thousands of German-speaking folks from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland live in Costa Rica. There’s even a Mennonite community that speaks Plautdietsch, a form of Old German!
Asian languages of Costa Rica
After Costa Rica gained its independence in the nineteenth century, immigrants from around the world landed in Costa Rica. Immigrants from Asia were no exception, and the lasting influence of their cultures and languages continues today.
Chinese
Chinese folks began immigrating to Costa Rica in the nineteenth century–and they continue to do so up to the present day. In the past, this was particularly true of the city of Puntarenas. As in other Latin American countries like Mexico, Chinese workers arrived in the country to work on the haciendas and railroads. Of course, they brought with them the Mandarin and Cantonese languages, spoken today by some 45,000 Chinese residents in Costa Rica, making it one of the largest Chinese communities in Central America.
Arabic
With its population of immigrants from Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and other Arab countries, Costa Rica also has–you guessed it!–one of the largest Muslim communities in the Central American region, most of whom speak Arabic or use the language for liturgical purposes.
Hebrew
Not to break the rhythm of diversity, Costa Rica has one of the largest Jewish populations in Central America. Used in the Jewish liturgy, Hebrew is also spoken by the Israeli community that lives there. Historically, Jews have also migrated to Costa Rica from Poland, Spain, and other European countries.
Indigenous languages of Costa Rica
While not all of Costa Rica’s indigenous languages have survived, the country presently has six living indigenous tongues, all of which fall under the larger linguistic umbrella of the Chibcha language family.
Cabécar
Cabécar, like its sister language Bribri, listed below, is spoken in the Limón province and Talamanca mountain range area. Unlike Bribri, Cabécar is the most widely spoken indigenous language of Costa Rica, and a couple thousand of its speakers are thought to be monolingual. There are two dialects, one northern and one southern. Despite its wide geographical use, the Cabécar language is in decline.
Bribri
Spoken in the area of the Talamanca mountain range, Limón province, and southern Pacific, this language was preserved for quite some time due to the remoteness of these regions. It is also spoken in parts of Colombia, Nicaragua, and Panama. Nowadays in Costa Rica, it is losing speakers due to immigration and land loss. Less than 10,000 people speak it in the nation. There is also a Bribri Sign Language.
Maléku
Considered to be an endangered language spoken by less than 500 people, Maléku is spoken in the northern region of Costa Rica by the Guatusos. One interesting fact about Maléku is the two ways it forms plurals: either by repeating the noun twice or by using a modifier to speak about the singular noun. After the Spaniards arrived, the Guatusos had little contact with them, since the tribe lived in isolated conditions. Later on, most of the population died during conflict with Nicaraguan rubber harvesters in the late nineteenth century.
Kuna
This language, called “Guna” in its own territory, is spoken in the Cartago Province in Central Costa Rica. Originally from Northern Colombia and parts of Panama, the Kuna, a significant group at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival, migrated west after conflict with the Spanish. Some people know the language as Kuna Yala, which geographically speaking is the San Blas Islands. A versatile word in Kuna is nuedi. It means “excellent,” “good,” “thank you,” and “kindly”!
Ngäbere
Ngäbere was formerly referred to as Guaymí. Nowadays, we use Guaymí to talk about a group of two languages: Ngäbere-Buglé. Ngäbere is spoken by the Ngäbe peoples who migrated in the 1950s to parts of southern Costa Rica. Today there are about 4,000 people living on five different reservations in Costa Rica, but in Panama they make up the majority of the indigenous population. Ngäbere is mutually intelligible with Buglé, and because it is above all a spoken language, its spelling has only been recently standardized with the Spanish alphabet. If you want to greet someone in Ngäbere, you say ñantörö, which means “hello.”
Buglé
In the past, Buglé was called Buglere. As we mentioned, Buglé is part of the Guaymí family of languages spoken in Costa Rica and Panama, and between the two countries, there are about 3,000 people who speak it. Buglé is considered to be a tonal language, which means that grammatical aspects of the language are conveyed not just by words but by the speaker’s pitch. The word for “water” in Buglé is chi. If you want to learn a few more words, take a look at this list.
Other languages of Costa Rica
Jamaican Patois
This English-based language–with influences from indigenous, African, Asian, and European tongues–is spoken not just in Jamaica but in a wide range of places around the world, including Costa Rica. Its Costa Rican dialect is called Limonese Creole because it is used in the province of Limón on the east coast. Jamaicans who arrived to work on the railroads and plantations introduced the language to Costa Rica where it took on a local variant. Limonese Creole is also known as Mekatelyu, coming from the phrase “make I tell you.”
Explore Costa Rica’s nation of languages
Costa Rica is a small country of two coasts with a population of just over 5 million people, yet its diversity in languages, vegetation, and wildlife is rich beyond comparison. Thus its name: Costa Rica or “Rich Coast.” Known for being a country of high human development and happiness, Costa Rica earns its place on the bucket list!
Spanish is the obvious choice for Costa Rican-bound travelers looking to learn a language, but why stop there? Rosetta Stone has immersive, bite-sized lessons in 25 languages that can help you connect with every community—and our Unlimited Languages gives you access to learning for life.
Written by Rowena Galavitz
Rowena Galavitz is a Spanish translator, bilingual copy editor, and language and literature instructor with three master’s degrees who loves Spanish and all things Mexico.
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