# Persistence of African languages in Latin America  
The data currently being obtained through fieldwork among Afro-Hispanic and Afro-Brazilian-speaking communities is of great importance, since there is still information it can provide on contact from far-flung eras.  
The African languages of the Afro-Brazilian cults have a liturgical function and their use is restricted to initiates and practitioners. In this context, the term 'language' must be understood as a symbolic vehicle of expression rather than an actual manifestation of linguistic competence (Castro, 2001, p. 80). These 'languages' consist mainly of a lexicon related to the religious world generically referred to as candomblé in Brazil as a whole (and in Bahia especially), batuque in Rio Grande do Sul, xangô in Pernambuco and tambor de mina in Maranhão.  
In Cuba, the terms 'Afro-Cuban religions' or 'religions of black-African origin' involve a wide variety of religious manifestations originating from sub-Saharan Africa, syncretized with the Catholicism of the colonizers. This makes them too wide-ranging, as they encompass hundreds of manifestations. Several sub-Saharan languages have mingled with Spanish and have become an important element of the linguistic foundations of the four Afro-Cuban cults still in existence today (Bernal, 2008, pp. 60-61): Regla de Palo Monte, Regla de Ocha e Ifá, Regla Arará and Sociedade Abakwa.