Venezuela Culture & Language

Venezuelan culture is Caribbean, Spanish, African and indigenous in roughly that order of visibility, and it is unusually musical.

El Sistema

Jose Antonio Abreu began the national youth orchestra system in 1975 with eleven children in a garage, on the principle that free, intensive orchestral training should be available to everyone including the poorest. It has taught music to hundreds of thousands, been copied in dozens of countries, and produced players and conductors working at the top of the profession. It is probably the most influential thing Venezuela has given the world in the last fifty years.

Music

Joropo, driven by harp, cuatro and maracas, comes from the plains and is the national form. Gaita from Maracaibo belongs to Christmas, and salsa and merengue fill the cities.

Bolivar

Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas in 1783 and led the independence of six countries. He is a national cult figure — on the currency, in every town square, and invoked by every political faction, which is part of the trouble.

Food

The arepa, a split maize cake filled with anything, is eaten daily and has travelled with the diaspora. Also pabellon criollo of shredded beef, black beans, rice and plantain, cachapa corn pancakes, and hallacas at Christmas.

Beauty pageants, of all things

Venezuela has won more international beauty titles than almost any other country, and for decades the national contest was among the most watched programmes on television, with a training academy that operated like a sports institute. It says something real about the country — a spectacle taken entirely seriously, in a place where it was one of the few reliable routes out — and Venezuelans discuss it with a mixture of pride and exasperation.

Craft and art

Kinetic art — Jesus Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez — is a strong Venezuelan tradition, and Warao basketry and Wayuu woven bags are the best-known indigenous crafts.

Spanish is the official language, in a Caribbean variety — fast, with dropped final consonants and a great deal of local slang. Chamo for mate, chevere for great, and vaina as an all-purpose word for thing are heard constantly.

More than thirty indigenous languages are recognised as official within their territories, including Wayuu, Pemon and Warao, and in the Gran Sabana and the delta these are first languages.

English is spoken by some guides, in the tourism trade and among educated Venezuelans, but far less widely than in neighbouring Caribbean countries. Functional Spanish is genuinely useful here and closer to necessary than in most of South America, given how little formal tourism infrastructure remains.

Useful: buenos dias, gracias, por favor, cuanto cuesta for how much, and disculpe to get attention.