Simplify the following text for a Grade 9 native English-speaking person.
Original: Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana , is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean . Guyana has been a former colony of the British , Dutch , French and for 200 years the Spanish .
Simplified: Guyana is a republic with commonwealth .