Spanish arrived in the territory of present-day Colombia with conquistadors in the early sixteenth century, most notably through the campaigns of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, who founded Santa Fé de Bogotá in 1538 on the Muisca-speaking Cundinamarca plateau. The highlands of the interior — particularly Bogotá — developed a variety of Spanish often regarded as exceptionally careful and conservative, partly due to the influence of the colonial audiencia courts and later the Royal Academy-trained intellectuals of the nineteenth century. Indigenous languages, especially Chibchan family languages such as Muisca, contributed place names and some vocabulary, while African languages influenced coastal dialects in the Caribbean and Pacific regions. Colombia's geography — mountain ranges dividing the country into isolated valleys — produced remarkable regional dialect diversity, from the costeño accent of the Caribbean coast (noted for its speed and consonant reduction) to the more formal bogotano of the capital. Colombia is also home to 68 recognized indigenous languages, the most widely spoken being Wayuunaiki, and is constitutionally plurilingual.
