Mesoamerican languages are the
languageA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
s
indigenousThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
to the
MesoamericaMesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries...
n cultural area, which covers southern
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, all of
GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
and
BelizeBelize , is a country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language...
and parts of
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
and
El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
. The area is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity containing several hundred different languages and seven major language families. Mesoamerica is also an area of high linguistic
diffusionMolecular diffusion, often called simply diffusion, is a net transport of molecules from a region of higher concentration to one of lower concentration by random molecular motion. The result of diffusion is a gradual mixing of material...
in that long-term interaction among speakers of different languages through several millennia has resulted in the convergence of certain linguistic traits across disparate language families. The Mesoamerican
sprachbundA Sprachbund , from the German word for “language union”, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated,...
is commonly referred to as the
Mesoamerican Linguistic AreaThe Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
.
The languages of Mesoamerica were also among the first to evolve independent traditions of
writingWriting is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as magnetic tape audio.In Eurasia writing began as a...
. The oldest texts date to approximately 1000 BCE while most texts in the indigenous scripts (such as
MayaThe Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
) date to ca. 600 - 900 CE. Following the
arrival of the SpanishThe Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
in the 16th century, and continuing up until the 19th century, most Mesoamerican languages were written in Latin script. Many Mesoamerican languages today are either
endangered or already extinctIn linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language idiom is decreased...
, but others, including the
Mayan languagesThe Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
, Nahuatl,
MixtecThe Mixtecan languages constitute a branch of the Otomanguean language family of Mexico. The Mixtecan branch includes the Trique languages, spoken by about 24,500 people; Cuicatec, spoken by about 15,000 people; and the large group of Mixtec languages proper, spoken by about 511,000 people...
and
ZapotecThe Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán....
, have several hundred thousand speakers and remain viable.
Language vs. Dialect
The distinction between related
languageA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
s and
dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by scholars of language. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other...
s is notoriously vague in Mesoamerica. The dominant Mesoamerican socio-cultural pattern through millennia has been centered around the town or city as the highest level community rather than the nation, realm or people. This has meant that within Mesoamerica each city-state or town community, called in Nahuatl an
altepetlThe altepetl, in Pre-Columbian and Spanish conquest-era Aztec society, was the local, ethnically based political entity. The word is a combination of the Nahuatl words ā-tl, meaning water, and tepē-tl, meaning mountain.
...
, has had its own language standard which, in the typical case, has evolved separately from closely related but geographically remote languages. Even geographically close communities with closely related, mutually intelligible languages have not necessarily seen themselves as being ethnically related, or their language as being a unifying factor between them. The relative
endogamyEndogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class or social group, rejecting others on such bases as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships...
of the town community has also resulted in a large linguistic diversification between communities despite geographical and linguistic proximity, often resulting in a low intelligibility between varieties of the same language spoken in adjacent communities. The exception to this rule is when a common “
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
” has evolved to facilitate communication between different linguistic groups. This has been the case for
Classical NahuatlClassical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
and Classical Maya, both of which, at different times in history, have been used as a common language between different ethnic groups. Further complicating matters are the semi-
nomadNomadic people are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in...
ic lifestyle of many Mesoamerican peoples, and political systems which often have used relocation of entire communities as a political tool. Dialect or variant
“chaining”A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. Dialects separated by great geographical distances may not be...
is common, where any adjacent two or three towns in a sequence are similar enough in speech to understand each other fairly well, but those separated more widely have trouble understanding each other, and there are no clear breaks naturally separating the continuum into coherent sub-regions.
All of these factors together have made it exceedingly difficult to distinguish between what constitutes a language or a dialect in Mesoamerica. Linguistic
isoglossAn isogloss refers to a specific type of language border. It is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature , the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature. Major dialects are typically demarcated by whole bundles of isoglosses, e.g...
es do not coincide often or strongly enough to prove very useful when trying to decide, and sociological factors often further cloud the picture. The significance of measurements of intelligibility (which is itself difficult to measure) depends very much on analysts' purposes and theoretical commitments. In
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
the word “
dialecto” has often been used generically about indigenous languages in order to describe them as inherently inferior to the European languages. In recent years this has caused an aversion to the term “dialect” among Spanish-speaking linguists and others, and the term “
variante” has often been applied instead.
Many Mesoamerican linguistic groupings have not had different names in common usage for their different languages and some linguistic groups known by a single name show a sufficiently significant variation to warrant division into a number of languages which are quite low in mutual intelligibility. This is the case for example for the Mixtecan, Zapotecan and Nahuan linguistic groups, which all contain distinct languages that are nonetheless referred to by a single name. Sometimes a single name has even been used to describe completely unrelated linguistic groups, as is the case with the terms "
PopolucaPopoluca or Popoloca is a name applied to some indigenous languages of Mexico, the term is however confusing because it used for several different unrelated languages...
" or "
ChichimecaChichimeca was the name that the Nahuas generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico and southwestern United States, and carried the same sense as the European term "barbarian". The name was adopted with a pejorative tone by the Spaniards...
". This shortage of language names has meant that the convention within Mesoamerican linguistics when writing about a specific linguistic variety is to always mention the name of the broad linguistic group as well as the name of the community, or geographic location in which it is spoken, for example
Isthmus-Mecayapan NahuatlIsthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl or Isthmus Nahuat is a modern variety of Nahuatl spoken by about 20,000 people in Mecayapan and Tatahuicapan, Veracruz, Mexico.-Vowels:-Consonants:-Writing system:...
, Zoogocho Zapotec or Usila Chinantec. Some language groups however have been more adequately named. This is the case of the Mayan languages, with an internal diversity that is arguably comparable to that found between the
Nahuatl dialectsNahuatl, a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family, consists of a large number of dialects, many of which belong to one or another dialect continuum. As of 2008, the Mexican government recognizes thirty that are spoken in Mexico . Some specialists exclude Pipil...
, but many of whose linguistic varieties have separate names, such as
K'iche'The K'iche' language is a part of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by many K'iche' people in the central highlands of Guatemala. With close to a million speakers , it is the second most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish...
,
TzotzilTzotzil Tzotzil Tzotzil (native name: Bats'i k'op; is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to an (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática) 2005 census, there are 329,937 speakers of Tzotzil in Mexico, making it...
or
HuastecThe Wastek or Huastec language is a Mayan language of Mexico, spoken by the Huastecs living in rural areas of San Luis Potosí and northern Veracruz. Though relatively isolated from them, it is related to the Mayan languages spoken further south and east in Mexico and Central America...
.
Geographical overview
Mesoamerica can be divided into smaller linguistic subareas wherein linguistic diffusion has been especially intense, or where certain families have extended to become predominant. One such subarea would be the
Maya area covering the
Yucatán PeninsulaThe Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of the states of
ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
and
TabascoTabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west, Chiapas to the south, and Campeche to the north-east. To the east Tabasco borders with the Petén department of Guatemala, and to the north with the Bay of Campeche...
, where Mayan languages have been highly predominant. In Chiapas and on the Guatemalan Pacific coast, speakers of Mixe-Zoquean languages were initially dominant, but with the spread of Mayan languages they were pushed out on the fringes of the areas, or into isolated pockets, and the same was the case for speakers of
XincaXinca may refer to:* Xinca people — an indigenous people in southern Guatemala* Xinca language — their indigenous Mesoamerican language...
and
LencaThe Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of...
which were probably also spoken in the area in the preclassic period. Another linguistic area is
Oaxaca, which is dominated by speakers of
Oto-Manguean languagesOto-Manguean languages are a large family comprising several families of Native American languages. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but Oto-Manguean languages that are now extinct were spoken as far south as Nicaragua...
; here Mixe-Zoque speakers were also gradually displaced by speakers of
Zapotecan languagesThe Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán....
, as well as by speakers of
Huave and
TequistlatecanThe Tequistlatecan languages, also called Chontal of Oaxaca, consists of three distinct languages. One called Huamelultec or Lowland Oaxaca Chontal, Tequistlatec , and Highland Oaxaca Chontal...
languages. Oaxaca is the most linguistically diverse area of Mesoamerica and its 36,820 sq. miles contain at least 100 mutually unintelligible linguistic variants. The subarea commonly called
Central Mexico, covering valleys and mountainous areas surrounding the
Valley of MexicoThe Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a center for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
, originally contained mostly northern Oto-Manguean (Oto-Pamean) languages; however, beginning in the late classic these languages were gradually displaced by Nahuatl, which is now the predominant indigenous language of the area. The
Western area was inhabited mostly by speakers of
P'urhépechaThe P'urhépecha, sometimes referred to as Tarascan or Purépecha are an indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of the Mexican state Michoacán, principally in the area of the cities of Uruapan and Patzcuaro...
and some
Uto-Aztecan languagesUto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
such as
HuicholThe Huichol or Wixáritari are an indigenous ethnic group of western central Mexico, living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango. They are best known to the larger world as the Huichol, however, they refer to themselves as Wixáritari ...
and Nahuatl. The
Northern Rim area has been inhabited by semi-nomadic speakers of Uto-Aztecan languages (the
TepimanPiman refers a group of languages within the Uto-Aztecan family that are spoken by ethnic groups spanning from Arizona in the north to Durango, Mexico in the south.The Piman languages are as follows :...
and
CoraThe Cora language is an indigenous language of Mexico of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora but who refer to themselves as Naáyarite. The Cora inhabit the northern sierra of the Mexican state Nayarit which is named after its...
-
HuicholThe Huichol language is an indigenous language of Mexico which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is spoken by the ethnic group widely known as the Huichol , whose mountainous territory extends over portions of the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Durango, mostly in Jalisco...
groups) as well as
PameThe Pames are an indigenous people of central Mexico living in the state of San Luis Potosí. They call themselves Xi'úi. They speak the Pame language, which belongs to the Oto-Pamean group of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family....
an (Oto-Mangue), and other languages that are now extinct. The
Gulf area is traditionally the home of speakers of
Totonacan languagesThe Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo in Mexico...
in the northern and central area and Mixe-Zoque in the southern area. However, the northern gulf area became home to the speakers of Huastec in the preclassic period, and the southern area fell under Nahuan dominance in the post-classic period. The
Central American area was originally inhabited by speakers of
MisumalpanThe Misumalpan languages are a small family of Native American languages spoken on the east coast of Nicaragua and nearby areas. Joseph Greenberg considers them to constitute a subfamily of the nuclear Chibchan group, but his classification is generally rejected...
, Jicaquean and
Chibchan languagesThe Chibchan languages make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama...
which became subject to dominance and linguistic influence by Maya speaking groups in the classic period.
Guerrero does not really constitute its own linguistic area; however, it has been influenced from the Oaxacan, Western or central Mexican area at different times of its history.
Linguistic prehistory
The linguistic history of Mesoamerican languages can roughly be divided into
pre-ColumbianThe Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the...
,
colonialColonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole...
and modern periods.
Pre-Columbian period
The first human presence in Mesoamerica is documented around 8000 BCE, during a period referred to as the
Paleo-IndianIn the History of Mesoamerica, the stage known as the Paleo-Indian period is the era in the scheme of Mesoamerican chronology which begins with the very first indications of human habitation within the Mesoamerican region, and continues until the general onset of the development of agriculture...
. Linguistic data, however, including language reconstruction derived from the
comparative methodHistorical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;...
, do not reach further back than approximately 5000 years (towards the end of the Archaic period). Throughout the history of Mesoamerica, an unknown number of languages and language families became extinct and left behind no evidence of their existence. What is known about the pre-Columbian history of the Mesoamerican languages is what can be surmised from linguistic, archeological and
ethnohistoricalEthnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today....
evidence. Often, hypotheses concerning the linguistic prehistory of Mesoamerica rely on very little evidence.
Archaic period (- 2000 BCE)
Three large language families are thought to have had their most recent common homelands within Mesoamerica. The time frames and locations in which the common ancestors of these families, referred to by linguists as
proto-languageA proto-language is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead....
s, were spoken are reconstructed by methods of historical linguistics. The three earliest known families of Mesoamerica are the Mixe-Zoquean languages, the
Oto-Manguean languagesOto-Manguean languages are a large family comprising several families of Native American languages. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but Oto-Manguean languages that are now extinct were spoken as far south as Nicaragua...
and the
Mayan languagesThe Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
. Proto-Oto-Manguean is thought to have been spoken in the
TehuacánTehuacán is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2005 census reported a population of 238,229 in the city and 260,923 in its surrounding municipality of the same name, of which it serves...
valley between 5000 and 3000 BCE, although it may only have been one center of Oto-manguean culture, another possible Oto-Manguean homeland being Oaxaca.
Proto-MayanProto-Mayan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 30 living Mayan languages, as well as the extinct Classic Maya language documented in the Maya Hieroglyphical inscriptions.-Phonology:...
was spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of
GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
around 3000 BCE. Proto-Mixe-Zoquean was spoken on the gulf coast and on the
Isthmus of TehuantepecThe Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, and prior to the opening of the Panama Canal was a major shipping route known simply as the Tehuantepec Route...
and on the Guatemalan Pacific coast around 2000 BCE, in a much larger area than its current extension.
Totonacan languagesThe Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo in Mexico...
, P'urhépecha, Huave and the Tequistlatecan languages can also be assumed to have been present in Mesoamerica at this point although it is unknown.
Preclassic period (2000 BCE- 200 CE)
The first
complex societyIn anthropology and archaeology, a complex society is a social formation that is otherwise described as a formative or developed state .-Concept:...
in Mesoamerica was the
Olmec civilizationThe Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian civilization living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
, which emerged around 2000 BCE during the
Early Preclassicalign=right style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em;"||}Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into a number of named successive eras or periods, from the earliest evidence of human habitation through to the early Colonial period which followed the Spanish colonization of the...
. It is documented that around this time many Mesoamerican languages adopted loanwords from the Mixe-Zoquean languages, particularly loanwords related to such culturally fundamental concepts as
agricultureAgriculture is the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and...
and
religionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
. This has led some linguists to believe that the carriers of Olmec culture spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language and that words spread from their language into others because of their potential cultural dominance in the Preclassic period, though the relationship between the Olmec and other Preclassic groups is still debated (see
Olmec influences on Mesoamerican culturesThe causes and degree of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures has been a subject of debate over many decades. Although the Olmecs are considered to be the first Mesoamerican civilization, there are questions concerning how and how much the Olmecs influenced cultures outside the Olmec heartland...
). During this time the Oto-Manguean languages diversified and spread into
OaxacaThe Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located in the southern part of the country, west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec...
and central
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. In the Valley of Oaxaca, the Oto-Manguean
Zapotec cultureThe Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
emerges around ca. 1000 BCE. The splitting of Proto-Mayan into the modern Mayan languages slowly began at roughly 2000 BCE when the speakers of Huastec moved north into the Mexican
Gulf Coast regionThe Gulf Coast of Mexico stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from the border with the United states at Matamoros all the way to the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula at Cancún. It includes the coastal regions along the Bay of Campeche. Major cities include Veracruz, Tampico, and Coatzacoalcos....
.
Uto-Aztecan languagesUto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
were still outside of Mesoamerica during the Preclassic, their speakers living as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers on the northern rim of the region and co-existing with speakers of Coracholan and
Oto-Pamean languagesThe Oto-Pamean language group is a subdivision of the Oto-Manguean languages which includes the Otomian languages Otomi and Mazahua, Matlatzinca, Pamean, and Chichimeca. The Oto-Pamean languages are spoken in central Mexico....
.
Classic period (200 - 1000 CE)
During the Classic period the linguistic situation simultaneously becomes both clearer and more obscure. While the Maya actually left examples of their writing, researchers have been unable to determine the linguistic affiliations of several important Classic civilizations, including
TeotihuacanTeotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
,
XochicalcoXochicalco is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the western part of the Mexican state of Morelos. The name Xochicalco may be translated from Nahuatl as "in the house of Flowers". The site is located 38 km southwest of Cuernavaca, about 76 miles by road from Mexico City...
,
CacaxtlaCacaxtla is an archaeological site located near the southern border of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala.-History:Cacaxtla was the capital of region inhabited by the Olmeca-Xicalanca people...
, and
El TajínEl Tajín is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the northern Gulf Coast of Mexico region. It was the major site of the Classic Veracruz culture and one of the largest cities in Mesoamerica during the Classic era...
. During this time it is well established that Mixtec languages were spoken at
TilantongoTilantongo was a Mixtec citystate in the Mixteca Alta region of the State of Oaxaca which is now visible as an archeological site and a modern town of Santiago Tilantongo. It is located at 17°15' N. Lat. and 97°17' W. Long...
and Zapotec at
Monte AlbánMonte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca where the latter's northern Etla, eastern Tlacolula, and southern Zimatlán/Ocotlán ...
(in the
Valley of OaxacaThe Valley of Oaxaca is a geographic region located within the modern day State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. The valley, which is located within the Sierra Madre Mountains, is shaped like a distorted and almost upside-down “Y,” with each of its arms bearing specific names: the northwestern Etla...
). The linguistic situation of the Maya area is relatively clear - Proto-Yucatec and Proto-Cholan were established in their respective locations in Yucatán and in the Tabasco area. Around 200 CE speakers of the Tzeltalan branch of Proto-Cholan moved south into Chiapas displacing speakers of Zoquean languages. Throughout the southern part of the Maya area and the highlands the
eliteElite is taken originally from the Latin, eligere, "to elect". In sociology as in general usage, the elite is a relatively small dominant group within a large society, having a privileged status perceived as being envied by others of a lower line of order.The elite at the top of the social strata...
of the Classic Maya centers spoke a common prestige language based on Cholan, a variant often referred to as Classic Ch'olti'an.
An important question that remains to be answered is what language or languages were spoken by the people and rulers of the empire of Teotihuacan. During the first part of the Classic period Teotihuacan achieved dominance over central Mexico and far into the Maya area. Possible candidates for the language of Teotihuacan have been Nahuatl, Totonac or Mixe-Zoque.
Terrence KaufmanTerrence Kaufman is an American linguist specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena. He is currently a professor at the department of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh....
has argued that Nahuatl is an unlikely candidate because Proto-Nahuan did not enter Mesoamerica until around the time of the fall of Teotihuacan (ca. 600 AD), and that Totonac or Mixe-Zoque are likely candidates because many Mesoamerican languages have borrowed from these two languages during the Classic period. Others find Mixe-Zoque an unlikely candidate because no current Mixe-Zoque settlements are found in central Mexico. Around 500 - 600 CE a new language family entered Mesoamerica when speakers of Proto-Nahuan, a southern
Uto-Aztecan languageUto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
, moved south into central Mexico. Their arrival, which coincides with the decline of Teotihuacan and a period of general turmoil and mass migration in Mesoamerica, has led scientists to speculate that they might have been involved somehow in the fall of the Teotihuacan empire.
What is known is that in the years following Teotihuacan’s fall Nahuan speakers quickly rose to power in central Mexico and expanded into areas earlier occupied by speakers of Oto-Manguean, Totonacan and Huastec. During this time Oto-Manguean groups of central Mexico such as the
ChiapanecChiapanec is the name of an indigenous Mexican language of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family. In 1990 the Ethnologue reported 17 living speakers of the language in southern Chiapas but since later investigations failed to find any speakers at all it is now considered to be probably extinct by...
,
ChorotegaChorotega is the name of an indigenous people of Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The ethnic population number around 795 according to the ethnologue 2000 survey...
and
SubtiabaSubtiaba is an extinct Oto-Manguean language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua. In 1925 Edward Sapir wrote an article based on scant evidence arguing for the inclusion of Subtiaba in his hypothesized Hokan group. Others have linked Subtiaba to the Jicaque and Tol languages, but...
migrated south some of them reaching the southern limits of Mesoamerica in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Also some speakers of Nahuan moved south, some settling on the coast of Oaxaca where their speech became the language
PochutecPochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1917 it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered the language nearly extinct...
, and others moving all the way to El Salvador, becoming the ancestors of the speakers of modern
PipilPipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest. It is on the verge of extinction in western El Salvador and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America...
.
Postclassic period (1000 - 1521 CE)
In the Postclassic period Nahuan languages diversified and spread, carried by the culture commonly known as
ToltecThe word Toltec refers to populations and polities that inhabited pre-Columbian central Mexico. The word has been used in different ways in Mesoamerican studies by different scholars to refer to the ancestors mentioned in the mythical/historical narratives of the Aztecs...
. In the early Postclassic period feuds between royal lineages in the Yucatán Peninsula caused the forefathers of the
ItzaThe Itza are a Guatemalan ethnic group of Maya affiliation speaking the Itza' language. They inhabit the Petén department of Guatemala in and around the city of Flores on the Lake Petén Itzá. Although there are still around 30,000 ethnic Itza, which retain their indigenous culture, the Itza...
' to move south into the Guatemalan jungle. In northwestern Oaxaca speakers of Mixtec and
ChochoChocho is a language of the Popolocan branch of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family spoken in Mexico in the following communities of Oaxaca: Santa María Nativitas, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca, San Miguel Tulancingo...
-
Popolocan languagesThe Popolocan languages are a subfamily of the Oto-Manguean language family of Mexico, spoken mainly in the state of Oaxaca.The Popolocan languages should not be confused with the languages called Popoluca spoken in the state of Veracruz, which belong to the unrelated Mixe-Zoquean language family...
built successful
city-stateA city-state is an independent republican country whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as part of another local government....
s, such as Teotitlan del Camino, which did not fall under Nahuan subjugation. Speakers of Otomian languages (
OtomiOtomi is an Oto-Manguean language and one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, therefore it is in...
,
MazahuaThe Mazahua language is an indigenous language of Mexico, spoken in the country's central states by the ethnic group widely known as the Mazahua but who refer to themselves as Hñatho. Mazahua is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits which define the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area...
and
MatlatzincaThe Matlatzinca language, also called Tlahuica or Ocuiltec, is an indigenous language of Mexico spoken by the Matlatzinca people in the southern part of the State of Mexico. It is an oto-Manguean language of the Oto-Pamean subgroup...
) were routinely displaced to the edges of the Nahuan states. The
OtomiThe Otomi are an indigenous people of central Mexico. Some groups of Otomí self-identify as Hñähñu , but the exact autonym depends on which variety of the Otomi language they speak.-Language:...
of Xaltocan, for example, were forcibly relocated to Otumba by the early Aztec empire.
As Nahuatl, carried by the Toltec and later the
AztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Often the term...
culture, became a lingua franca throughout Mesoamerica even some Mayan states such as the
K'iche' Kingdom of Q'umarkajThe K'iche' Kingdom of Q'umarkaj was a state in the highlands of modern day Guatemala which was founded by the K'iche' Maya in the thirteenth century, and which expanded through the fifteenth century until it was conquered by Spanish and Nahua forces led by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524.The K'iche'...
adopted Nahuatl as a prestige language. In Oaxaca Zapotec and Mixtec peoples expanded their territories displacing speakers of the
TequistlatecanThe Tequistlatecan languages, also called Chontal of Oaxaca, consists of three distinct languages. One called Huamelultec or Lowland Oaxaca Chontal, Tequistlatec , and Highland Oaxaca Chontal...
languages slightly. During this time the
P'urhépechaThe Tarascan state was a state in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, roughly covering the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico it was the second-largest state in Mexico. The state was founded in the early 14th century and lost its...
(Tarascans) consolidated
their empireThe Tarascan state was a state in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, roughly covering the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico it was the second-largest state in Mexico. The state was founded in the early 14th century and lost its...
based at
TzintzuntzanTzintzuntzan is a Mesoamerican archaeological site in Mexico and a former capital of the pre-Columbian Tarascan state. The site is located in the modern-day state of Michoacán in the municipio also called Tzintzuntzan, on the eastern shore of Lake Pátzcuaro.The city was founded in the 13th century...
. They were resistant to other states of Mesoamerica and had little contact with the rest of Mesoamerica. Probably as a result of their isolationist policy the
P'urhépecha languageP'urhépecha is a language isolate or small language family spoken by more than 100,000 P'urhépecha people in the highlands of the Mexican state of Michoacán...
is the only language of Mesoamerica to not show any of the traits associated with the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In
GuerreroThe State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
the
TlapanecsThe Tlapanec people is an ethnic group indigenous to the Mexican state of Guerrero.Their language, Me'phaa, is a part of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family and its closest relation is the Subtiaba language of Nicaragua...
of Yopitzinco speaking the Oto-Manguean
Tlapanec languageTlapanec is a Mexican indigenous language spoken by around 75,000 Tlapanec people in the states of Guerrero and Morelos. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, it is tonal and has complex inflectional morphology. The Tlapanec themselves call their language Me'phaa.Tlapanec was long regarded as...
remained independent of the Aztec empire as did some of the Oaxacan cultures such as the Mixtecs of
TututepecTututepec is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the lower Río Verde valley of the Oaxacan highlands that formed the nucleus of an extensive Mixtec state during the Late Postclassic period Tututepec is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the lower Río Verde valley of the Oaxacan...
and the Zapotec of
ZaachilaZaachila is a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, 6 km from the city of Oaxaca. It is also an archaeological site consisting of the remains of an important post-classic Zapotec city of the same name. A large unexplored pyramid mound sits near the center of the town...
. In the late postclassic around 1400 CE Zapotecs of Zaachila moved into the
Isthmus of TehuantepecThe Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, and prior to the opening of the Panama Canal was a major shipping route known simply as the Tehuantepec Route...
creating a wedge of Zapotec speaking settlements between the former neighbors the
MixeThe Mixe or Mije is an indigenous group inhabiting the eastern highlands of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. They speak the Mixe languages which are classified in the Mixe-Zoque family, and are more culturally conservative than other indigenous groups of the region, maintaining their language to this...
and the
Huave who were pushed into their current territories on the edges of the Isthmus..
Colonial period (1521 - 1821)
The Spanish arrival in the new world turned the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica upside down. And from then on the indigenous languages have been subject to varying policies imposed on them by the colonial rule. The first impact came from the decimation of the indigenous population by diseases brought by the Europeans. Within the first two centuries of Spanish rule Mesoamerica experienced a dramatic population decline and it is well documented that at several small linguistic groups became completely extinct already during the 16th century. The policies that contributed most to a change in the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica were the policies used for conversion of Indians to Christianity. The first victim of this process was the native writing systems which were banned and prohibited and the existing texts destroyed - the pictorial scripts were see as an idolatry by the Catholic Church. At first missionaries favoured the teaching of Spanish to their prospect converts but from 1555 the first Mexican Council established the policy that the Indians should be converted in their own languages and that parish priests should know the indigenous language of their parishioners. This called for a massive education of clergymen in native languages and the church undertook this task with great zeal. Institutions of learning such as the
Colegio de Santa Cruz de TlatelolcoThe Real Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico, was the first European school of higher learning in the Americas. Built by the Franciscan order at the initiative of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and Bishop Juan de Zumárraga on the site of an Aztec school for the children of nobles , it was...
which was inaugurated in 1536 and which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests were opened. And missionary grammarians undertook the job of writing grammars for the indigenous languages in order to teach priests. For example the first grammar of Nahuatl, written by
Andrés de OlmosAndrés de Olmos , Franciscan priest and extraordinary grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's Indians, was born in Oña, Burgos, Spain, and died in Tampico in New Spain...
, was published in 1547 - three years before the first grammar of French. During this time some literacy in indigenous languages written in the Latin script began to appear. In 1570
Philip II of SpainPhilip II was King of Spain and Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, during his wife Mary Tudor's reign, King of England and Ireland...
decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of
New SpainThe Viceroyalty of New Spain , was the political unit of Spanish territories in North and Central America, and Asia-Pacific. The territory included the present-day California, Southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America , the Caribbean, and the Philippines. It was ruled by a viceroy from...
in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. Throughout the colonial period grammars of indigenous languages were composed, but strangely the quality of these were highest in the initial period and declined towards the ends of the 18th century. In practice the friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible and they began to focus on Nahuatl. During this period the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica was relatively stable. However, in 1696
Charles IICharles II , was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the ruler of nearly all of Italy , the Spanish territories in the Southern Low Countries, and Spain's overseas Empire, stretching from Mexico to the Philippines...
made a counter decree banning the use of any languages other than Spanish throughout the
Spanish EmpireThe Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in world history, and one of the first global empires. It included territories and colonies in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania, from the 15th century through—in the case of its African holdings—the latter portion of the 20th century...
. And in 1770 a decree with the avowed purpose of eliminating the indigenous languages was put forth by the Royal Cedula. This put an end to the teaching of and writing in indigenous languages and began a strict policy of hispanization of the Indians. However the fact that today around five million people in Mesoamerica still speak indigenous languages suggest that this policy wasn't as effective after all. The most important factor towards the decline of indigenous languages in this period has probably been the social marginalization of the native populations and their languages - and this process has been particularly effective during modern times.
Modern period (1821 -)
In the modern period what has affected the indigenous languages most has been the pressure of social marginalization put on the indigenous populations by a growing mestizo class and a growing institutionalization of Hispanic society. Indigenous languages have been seen by the governing classes as a hindrance to building homogeneous nation states and as an impediment to social progress. These viewpoints sparked a renewed interest in the hispanization of indigenous communities and while the introduction of compulsory education in Spanish has undoubtedly resulted in a more homogeneous society it has also done much for the decline of indigenous languages throughout the 20th century. In a number of indigenous communities it has become practice to learn Spanish first and the indigenous language second. Parents have refrained from teaching their children their own language in order not to subject them to the social stigma of speaking an Indian language - and youths have learned their languages only when they came of age and started taking part in the adult society.
Within the last 20 years there has been an overt change in the policies of governments of Mesoamerican countries towards the indigenous languages. There has been official recognition of their right to existence and some kind of governmental support, to the point of recognizing them as national languages. Bilingual (rather than monolingual Spanish) education has been recognized as desirable even if not always actually achieved in practice. In Guatemala the recognition of the indigenous languages as official languages and a valuable part of the country’s identity came after the
Civil WarThe Guatemalan Civil War, the longest civil war in Latin American history, ran from 1960 to 1996. It had a profound impact on Guatemala.Several thousand people disappeared during the war and approximately 200,000 were killed. Felipe Cusanero became the first person to be sentenced for this in 2009...
which ended in 1996. In Mexico shifting governments had talked about the value of the country’s indigenous heritage but it was not until 2002 that the
"Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas" established a framework for the conservation, nurturing and development of indigenous languages.
Despite these official changes, old attitudes persist in many spheres, and indigenous languages are not in any practical sense on a par with Spanish. At present the linguistic situation of Mesoamerican languages is most difficult in the Central American countries like Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua where indigenous languages still do not enjoy the rights or privileges now granted them elsewhere, and are still subject to social stigmatization.
Writing
MesoamericaMesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries...
is one of the relatively few places in the world where writing has developed independently throughout history. The Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are logosyllabic combining the use of logograms with a
syllabaryA syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound.-Languages using syllabaries:...
, and they are often called hieroglyphic scripts. Five or six different scripts have been documented in Mesoamerica but archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was earliest and hence the forebear from which the others developed. Candidates for being the first writing system of the Americas are Zapotec writing, the
Isthmian or Epi-Olmec scriptThe Isthmian script is a very early Mesoamerican writing system in use in the area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from perhaps 500 BCE to 500 CE, although there is disagreement on these dates...
or the scripts of the
IzapaIzapa is a very large pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the Mexican state of Chiapas; it was occupied during the Late Formative period. The site is situated on the Izapa River, a tributary of the Suchiate River, near the base of the Tacaná volcano), the fourth largest mountain in...
n culture. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and hence the most widely known, is the classic
Maya scriptThe Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...
. Post-Classic cultures such as the
AztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Often the term...
and
MixtecThe Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean linguistic family....
cultures did not develop true writing systems at all, but instead used semasiographic writing although they did use phonetic principles in their writing by the use of the
rebusA rebus is a kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. For example:other:walk in park...
principle. Aztec name glyphs for example do combine logographic elements with phonetic readings. From the colonial period on there exists an extensive
Mesoamerican literatureThe traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a...
written in the Latin script.
Literary traditions
The literature and texts created by indigenous Mesoamericans are the earliest and well-known from the Americas for two primary reasons. First, the fact that native populations in Mesoamerica were the first to interact with Europeans assured the documentation and survival of literature samples in intelligible forms. Second, the long tradition of Mesoamerican writing contributed to them readily embracing the
Latin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.During the...
used by the Spanish and resulted in many literary works written in it during the first centuries after the
Spanish conquest of MexicoThe Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
. Some important literary works in Mesoamerican languages are: The mythological narrative of the
Popol VuhPopol Vuh is a corpus of mythological narratives and regnal genealogies of the Post-Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community", "Book of Counsel", or more literally as "Book of the Mat"...
and the theatrical dance-drama the
Rabinal AchíThe Rabinal Achí is a Maya theatrical play performed in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Its original name is Xajooj Tun meaning, Tun Dance. Rabinal Achí is a dynastic Maya drama from the fifteenth century and a rare example of pre-Hispanic traditions...
both written in Classical K'iche' Maya. The ethnographical mammoth work in the
Florentine CodexThe Florentine Codex is the name given to 12 books created under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1585. It is a copy of original source materials which are now lost, perhaps destroyed by the Spanish authorities who confiscated Sahagún's manuscripts...
and the beautiful songs of the
Cantares MexicanosThe Cantares Mexicanos is the name given to a manuscript collection of Nahuatl songs or poems recorded in the 16th century. The 91 songs of the Cantares form the largest Nahuatl song collection, containg over half of all known traditional Nahuatl songs...
both written in
Classical NahuatlClassical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
. The prophetical and historical accounts of the books of
Chilam BalamThe Mayan Chilam Balam books are the eponymous 'town books' of small Yucatec towns. Usually these consist of disparate texts in which Mayan and Spanish traditions have coalesced. The Yucatec Mayas ascribed these to a chilam 'oracular priest' called Balam 'Jaguar'...
written in the Yucatec Maya language. As well as numerous smaller documents written in other indigenous languages throughout the colonial period. No true literary tradition for Mesoamerican languages of the modern period has yet emerged.
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
Throughout the millennia in which speakers of different Mesoamerican languages were engaged in contact the languages began to change and show similarities with one another. This has resulted in Mesoamerica evolving into a linguistic area of diffusion, a "
SprachbundA Sprachbund , from the German word for “language union”, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated,...
", where most languages, even though they have different origins share some important linguistic traits. The traits defining the Mesoamerican sprachbund are few but well established: the languages use
relational nounRelational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as nouns but conveying the meaning of adpositions...
s to express spatial and other relations, they have a
base 20 (Vigesimal)The vigesimal or base- numeral system is based on twenty .- Places :...
numeral system, their syntax is never verb-final and as a consequence of this they don't use
switch referenceIn linguistics, switch-reference describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses co-refer...
, they use a distinct pattern for expressing nominal
possessionPossession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other....
and they share a number of semantic calques]. Some other traits are less defining for the area, but still prevalent such as: the presence of
whistled languageWhistled languages use whistling to emulate speech and facilitate communication. A whistled language is a system of whistled communication which allows fluent whistlers to transmit and comprehend a potentially unlimited number of messages over long distances...
s,
incorporationIncorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound with, for instance, its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function....
of bodypart nouns into verbs, the derivation of locatives from bodypart nouns, grammatical indication of
inalienable or intimate possessionInalienable possession in linguistics is a relationship between two objects indicating that they are connected in some way that cannot be changed...
. Terrence Kaufman has worked with documenting the process of this linguistic convergence and he argues that the most probable donor languages of the borrowings into other Mesoamerican languages are the Mixe-Zoquean and Totonacan languages, this supports a theory of either or both of these cultures having a prominent role as a dominating power in early Mesoamerican history.
Uto-AztecanUto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
(Other branches are outside Mesoamerica.)
- Corachol • Nayarit
Nayarit is one of Mexico’s 31 states and is located on the central west coast, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Nayarit is surrounded by the states of Sinaloa to the northwest, Durango to the north, Zacatecas to the northeast and Jalisco to the south with the Pacific Ocean bordering it to the west...
- Huichol
The Huichol language is an indigenous language of Mexico which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is spoken by the ethnic group widely known as the Huichol , whose mountainous territory extends over portions of the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Durango, mostly in Jalisco...
• 20,000 native speakers
- Cora
The Cora language is an indigenous language of Mexico of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora but who refer to themselves as Naáyarite. The Cora inhabit the northern sierra of the Mexican state Nayarit which is named after its...
• 15,000
- Aztecan
- Nahuan 1,380,000
- Pochutec
Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1917 it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered the language nearly extinct...
— Coast of Oaxaca († EXTINCT)
- General Aztec (Nahuatl)
- Western periphery • Michoacán
Michoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo , is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. It borders the states of Colima and Jalisco to the west, Guanajuato and Querétaro to the north, México to the east, Guerrero to the south-east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south.Michoacán has an area of...
, Durango,GuerreroThe State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
- Eastern periphery • S Veracruz, N Oaxaca, Tabasco
Tabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west, Chiapas to the south, and Campeche to the north-east. To the east Tabasco borders with the Petén department of Guatemala, and to the north with the Bay of Campeche...
- Huasteca • N Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo
- Center • México (state)
Mexico State or State of Mexico is a state in the center of the country of Mexico...
,MorelosMorelos is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about , making it the second-smallest of the country's states. Morelos is bordered by Mexico State to the north-east and north-west, the Federal District to the north, Puebla to the east, and Guerrero to the south-west...
, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Hidalgo
- Pipil
Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest. It is on the verge of extinction in western El Salvador and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America...
Pacific coast of ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
, GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
, El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
Oto-MangueanOto-Manguean languages are a large family comprising several families of Native American languages. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but Oto-Manguean languages that are now extinct were spoken as far south as Nicaragua...
- Otopamean
- Otomian
- Otomi
Otomi is an Oto-Manguean language and one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, therefore it is in...
• Hidalgo, Guanajuato, N México (state)Mexico State or State of Mexico is a state in the center of the country of Mexico...
, QuerétaroQuerétaro is a state in central México.Its capital is the city of Santiago de Querétaro, although in general parlance the name "Querétaro" is used for both the city and the state....
• 350,000
- Mazahua
The Mazahua language is an indigenous language of Mexico, spoken in the country's central states by the ethnic group widely known as the Mazahua but who refer to themselves as Hñatho. Mazahua is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits which define the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area...
• MichoacánMichoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo , is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. It borders the states of Colima and Jalisco to the west, Guanajuato and Querétaro to the north, México to the east, Guerrero to the south-east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south.Michoacán has an area of...
, W México (state)Mexico State or State of Mexico is a state in the center of the country of Mexico...
• 150,000
- Pamean
- Chichimec • Guanajuato •
- Pame • San Luis Potosí, NW Hidalgo • 4200
- Chichimeca Jonaz
- Matlatzinca-Ocuilteco
- Matlatzinca
Matlatzinca is a name used to refer to different indigenous ethnic groups in the Toluca Valley in the state of México, located in the central highlands of Mexico. The term is applied to the ethnic group inhabiting the valley of Toluca and to their language, Matlatzinca.When used as an ethnonym,...
• SW México (state)Mexico State or State of Mexico is a state in the center of the country of Mexico...
• 3,000
- Ocuilteco
- Chinantecan (perhaps closest to Otopamean)
- Chinantec • N Oaxaca • 100,000
- Supanecan
- Tlapanec
Tlapanec is a Mexican indigenous language spoken by around 75,000 Tlapanec people in the states of Guerrero and Morelos. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, it is tonal and has complex inflectional morphology. The Tlapanec themselves call their language Me'phaa.Tlapanec was long regarded as...
(Yopi) • GuerreroThe State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
• 44,000
- Subtiaba
Subtiaba is an extinct Oto-Manguean language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua. In 1925 Edward Sapir wrote an article based on scant evidence arguing for the inclusion of Subtiaba in his hypothesized Hokan group. Others have linked Subtiaba to the Jicaque and Tol languages, but...
• NicaraguaNicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of...
, El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
• EXTINCT
- Manguean (perhaps closest to Supanecan)
- Chiapanec • Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• EXTINCT
- Chorotegan • Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
• EXTINCT
- Mangue • Nicaragua
Nicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of...
• EXTINCT
- Nicoyan • Costa Rica
Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
• EXTINCT
- Popolocan
- Mazatec
The Mazatec are an indigenous people who inhabit an area of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, close to the border with Puebla and Veracruz.-Language family:...
) • SE Puebla, N Oaxaca • 145,000
- Ixcatec
Ixcatec is a language spoken by the people of the Mexican village of Santa María Ixcatlán, in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca. The number of speakers was given to be 119 in the early 1980s. The Ixcatec language belongs to the Popolocan branch of the Oto-manguean linguistic...
- Popoloc • SE Puebla, NW Oaxaca • 37,000
- Chocho
-Plants:* Andean Lupin * Chayote * Horse-eye beans -Other:* Chocho people, an indigenous people of Mexico* Chocho language, their language...
- Zapotecan languages
The Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán....
(perhaps closest to Popolocan)
- Zapotec
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
• Oaxaca • 500,000
- Chatino
The Chatino language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, which is classified under the Zapotecan branch of the Oto-Manguean language family...
• SW Oaxaca • 28,000
- Soltec-Papabuco • Elotepec Oaxaca • EXTINCT
- Mixtecan
- Mixteco-Cuicateco
The Mixtecan languages constitute a branch of the Otomanguean language family of Mexico. The Mixtecan branch includes the Trique languages, spoken by about 24,500 people; Cuicatec, spoken by about 15,000 people; and the large group of Mixtec languages proper, spoken by about 511,000 people...
- Mixtec • E Guerrero
The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
, S Puebla, W Oaxaca • 500,000
- Cuicatec • NE Oaxaca • 20,000
- Trique
The Trique language is an Oto-Manguean language of Mexico spoken by the Trique indigenous group of the state of Oaxaca and elsewhere...
• W Oaxaca • 19,000
- Amuzgo (perhaps closest to Mixtecan)
- Amuzgo
Amuzgo is an Oto-Manguean language spoken in the Costa Chica region of the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca by about 44,000 speakers. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, Amuzgo is a tonal language...
• E GuerreroThe State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
, W Oaxaca • 20,000
Mixe-ZoqueanThe Mixe-Zoque languages constitute a language family whose living members are spokenin and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Mexican government recognizes three distinct Mixe-Zoquean languages as official: Mixe or ayook with 188,000 speakers, Zoque or o'de püt with 88,000 speakers,...
- Mixean
- E & W Mixe
The Mixe languages are languages of the Mixean branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico. The languages of this branch that are spoken in Oaxaca are called Mixe while their relatives in Veracruz are called Popoluca...
• E Oaxaca • 75,000
- Olutec
Oluta Popoluca also called Olutec is a moribund Mixe-Zoquean language of the Mixean branch spoken by a few elderly people in the town of Oluta in Southern Veracruz, Mexico....
& SayultecSayula Popoluca, also called Sayultec, is a Mixe-Zoquean language of the Mixean branch spoken by around 3-4,000 indigenous people in and around the town of Sayula de Alemán in the southern part of the state of Veracruz, Mexico....
• S Veracruz • EXTINCT?
- Tapachultec • SE Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• EXTINCT
- Zoquean
- Zoque languages
The Zoque languages are languages of the Zoquean branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico.The Zoque languages are spoken in the in northern Chiapas and far eastern Chiapas around Chimalapa, and in Ayapa Tabasco altogether by around 88,000 indigenous Zoque people...
• TabascoTabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west, Chiapas to the south, and Campeche to the north-east. To the east Tabasco borders with the Petén department of Guatemala, and to the north with the Bay of Campeche...
, ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
, E Oaxaca • 35,000
- Sierra Popoluca
Sierra Popoluca, also sometimes referred to as Soteapanec, Soteapan Zoque, or Highland Popoluca, is a Mixe-Zoquean language of the Zoquean branch. It is spoken by around 30,000 indigenous Popoluca people in and around the town of Soteapan in the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas in southern Veracruz, Mexico...
& Texistepec PopolucaTexistepec Popoluca also called Texistepec Zoque is a Mixe-Zoquean language of the Zoquean branch spoken by around 400 indigenous Popoluca people in and around the town of Texistepec in Southern Veracruz, Mexico....
• S Veracruz • 25,000
- Chimalapa
TotonacanThe Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo in Mexico...
- Totonac
The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained...
• Puebla, Veracruz • 250,000
- Tepehua
Tepehua is an indigenous language of Mexico, spoken across a number of central Mexican states by the Tepehua ethnic group. Tepehua belongs to the Totonacan language family and is not to be confused with the language called Tepehuán which is Uto-Aztecan. Tepehua is a Mesoamerican language and shows...
• Hidalgo, Veracruz • 10,000
Tequistlatecan (Chontal)
- Huamelultec (Lowland Oaxaca Chontal) • SE Oaxaca • 1000
- Tequistlatec EXTINCT ?
- Highland Oaxaca Chontal • 3600
MayanThe Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
- Huastecan
- Huastec
The Wastek or Huastec language is a Mayan language of Mexico, spoken by the Huastecs living in rural areas of San Luis Potosí and northern Veracruz. Though relatively isolated from them, it is related to the Mayan languages spoken further south and east in Mexico and Central America...
• N Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, NE Hidalgo • 120,000
- Chicomuceltec • S Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• EXTINCT
- Yucatecan
- Yucatec (• Yucatán
Yucatán is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. The Yucatan peninsula includes three states: Yucatán, Campeche, and Quintana Roo; all three modern states were formerly part of the larger historic state of Yucatán in the 19th century. The state capital of...
, Campeche, Quintana RooQuintana Roo is a state of Mexico, on the eastern part of the Yucatán Peninsula. It borders the States of Yucatán and Campeche to the north and west, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the nation of Belize to the south...
, BelizeBelize , is a country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language...
, N GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 750,000
- Mopán
Mopan is a language that belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. It is spoken in Belize and Guatemala.The other Yucatecan languages are Yucatec, Lacandon , and Itza....
• N GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
, BelizeBelize , is a country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language...
• 11,000
- Itzá • N Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• EXTINCT?
- Lacandón
The Lacandon are one of the Maya peoples who live in the jungles of the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the southern border with Guatemala. Their homeland, the Lacandon Jungle, lies along the Mexican side of the Usumacinta River and its tributaries. The Lacandon are one of the most isolated and...
• ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• 1000
- Western
- Greater Tzeltalan
- Cholan
- Chol
Ch'ol is a member of the western branch of the Mayan language family used by the Ch'ol people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. There are two main dialects:...
• TabascoTabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west, Chiapas to the south, and Campeche to the north-east. To the east Tabasco borders with the Petén department of Guatemala, and to the north with the Bay of Campeche...
, ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• 135,000
- Chontal • Tabasco
Tabasco is a state in Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the west, Chiapas to the south, and Campeche to the north-east. To the east Tabasco borders with the Petén department of Guatemala, and to the north with the Bay of Campeche...
• 55,000
- Chorti • Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
, E GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 30,000
- Tzeltalan • Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
- Tzeltal
Tzeltal is a Mayan language spoken in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It is most closely related to the Tzotzil language. This living language has about 280,000 speakers in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, though some researchers would argue that parts of Tzeltal territory extend as far...
• 215,000
- Tzotzil
Tzotzil Tzotzil Tzotzil (native name: Bats'i k'op; is a Maya language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to an (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática) 2005 census, there are 329,937 speakers of Tzotzil in Mexico, making it...
• 265,000
- Greater Kanjolabalan • NW Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
, ChiapasChiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
- Chujean
- Chuj
Chuj is a language belonging to Q'anjobalan-Chujean family of Mayan languages spoken by around 40,000 people in Guatemala and 10,000 in Mexico. Chuj together with the languages of Tojolab'al, Mocho', Akateko, Q'anjob'al and Popti' form the western branch of the Mayan family of languages. Chuj...
• NW GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 50,000
- Tojolabal • Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
• 35,000
- Kanjolabal (Q’anhob’al) • NW Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
- Solomec • 80,000
- Acatec • 60,000
- Jacaltec • 100,000
- Mochó (Cotoque) • SE Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
-
- Motozintlec • EXTINCT?
- Tuzantec • EXTINCT?
- Eastern
- Greater Mamean
- Mamean
- Mam
The Mam language is a member of the Mamean branch of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by the Mam people of the highlands of western Guatemala....
• W GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 535,000
- Tektiteco • Chiapas
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country. Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.Chiapas has an area of...
-GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
border • 2300
- Ixilan • NW Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
- Ixil
Ixil is a Mayan language. It is the primary language of the Ixil Triangle -- the three villages of San Juan Cotzal, Santa Maria Nebaj, and San Gaspar Chajul -- in the highlands of Guatemala. Possibly it is three different languages.-Grammar:...
• 70,000
- Aguacatec (Awakateko) • 18,000
- Greater Quichean
- Quichean • C Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
- Quiché • 2,420,000
- Cakchiquel • 450,000
- Tz'utujil
The Tz'utujil are a Native American people, one of the 21 Maya ethnic groups that dwell in Guatemala. Together with the Xinca, Garífunas and the Ladinos, they make up the 24 ethnic groups in this relatively small country. Approximately 100,000 Tz'utujil live in the area around Lake Atitlán...
• 85,000
- Sacapultec • 35,000
- Sipacapan • 8000
- Kekchi
The Q'eqchi' language is one of the Mayan languages, natively spoken within Q'eqchi' communities in Guatemala and Belize. In Guatemala, Q'eqchi' is spoken in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Petén, Izabal, Baja Verapaz, and El Quiché...
• C & E GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 420,000
- Pocom • C & E Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
- Pocomchi • 90,000
- Pocomam • 50,000
- Uspantec • NW Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• 3000
ChibchanThe Chibchan languages make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama...
(other branches are outside Mesoamerica)
- Paya (Pech) • N Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
• 1000
MisumalpanThe Misumalpan languages are a small family of Native American languages spoken on the east coast of Nicaragua and nearby areas. Joseph Greenberg considers them to constitute a subfamily of the nuclear Chibchan group, but his classification is generally rejected...
- Miskito
Miskito is a Misumalpan language spoken by the Miskito people in northeastern Nicaragua, especially in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, and in eastern Honduras....
• NicaraguaNicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of...
• 185,000
- Sumo
Sumo is the collective name for a group of Misumalpan languages spoken in Nicaragua and Honduras. Hale & Salamanca classifies the Sumu languages into a northern composed of the Twahka and Panamahka dialects and southern Sumu consisting of the Ulwa language...
• 7000
- Matagalpa • EXTINCT
Isolates
- P'urhépecha
P'urhépecha is a language isolate or small language family spoken by more than 100,000 P'urhépecha people in the highlands of the Mexican state of Michoacán...
(Tarascan) • SW MichoacánMichoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo , is one of the 31 constituent states of Mexico. It borders the states of Colima and Jalisco to the west, Guanajuato and Querétaro to the north, México to the east, Guerrero to the south-east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south.Michoacán has an area of...
• 120,000
- Cuitlatec
Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people also known as Cuitlatec.-Classification:...
• GuerreroThe State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. With an area of , it occupies about 3.3% of Mexican territory. It borders the Pacific Ocean to the south , Michoacán to the west , Oaxaca to the east , and Mexico State , Morelos , and Puebla to the north...
• EXTINCT
- Huave
Huave is a language isolate spoken by the indigenous Huave people on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is spoken in four villages on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southeast of the state, by around 18,000 people...
(Wabe) • SE Oaxaca • 14,000
- Xinca
The Xinca language is a Mesoamerican language spoken by the indigenous Xinca people from communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador and in the mountainous region to the north...
• SE GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
• EXTINCT
- Lenca
The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of...
• SW HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
, El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
• EXTINCT?
Proposed stocks
- Hokan (other branches in North America)
- Tolatecan
Tolatecan is a proposal by Campbell and Oltrogge linking two language families of Mesoamerica, Tequistlatecan of Oaxaca and Tolan of Honduras....
(including Tequistlatecan)
- Macro-Mayan
Macro-Mayan is a proposal linking the clearly established Mayan family with neighboring families that show similarities to Mayan.The first proposals of this hypothesis were made by Norman McQuown in 1942 who linked Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean...
(Penutian affiliation now considered doubtful.)
- Totonacan
- Huave
- Mixe-Zoque
- Mayan
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
- Macro-Chibchan
Macro-Chibchan is a proposal linking languages of Colombia and Nicaragua. These languages were once included in the Chibchan family itself, but were excluded pending further evidence as that family became better established. The modern Chibchan family is well established, and Kaufman finds...
- Chibchan
- Misumalpan
- Xinca
The Xinca language is a Mesoamerican language spoken by the indigenous Xinca people from communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador and in the mountainous region to the north...
- Lenca
External links