The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least six million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory.
The Nahuas are one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico. They are a Mesoamerican ethnicity. The Mexica (Aztecs) are of Nahua ethnicity, as are their historical enemies, the Tlaxcallans (Tlaxcaltecs). The Toltecs which predated both groups are often thought to have been Nahua as well. However, in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity.
Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. 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 diffusion 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 sprachbund is commonly referred to as the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
The Kaqchikel are one of the Indigenous Maya peoples of the midwestern highlands of Guatemala and of southern Mexico. They constitute Guatemala's third largest Maya group. The name was formerly spelled in various other ways, including Cakchiquel, Kakchiquel, Caqchikel, and Cachiquel.
The Ch'ol (Chol) language is a member of the western branch of the Mayan language family used by the Ch'ol people in the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and Campeche in Mexico. This language, together with Chontal, Ch'orti', and Ch'olti', constitute the Cholan language group.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Native Mexicans or Mexican Native Americans, are those who are part of communities that trace their roots back to populations and communities that existed in what is now Mexico before the arrival of Europeans.
Yokotʼan (self-denomination), also known as Chontal Maya, is a Maya language of the Cholan family spoken in 2020 by around 60,000 Chontal Maya people of the Mexican state of Tabasco. According to the National Catalog of Indigenous Languages of Mexico-INALI, Yokotʼan has at least four dialects: Nacajuca (Central), Centla (Northern), Macuspana (Southern) and Tamulte (Eastern).
Ixil (Ixhil) is a Mayan language spoken in Mexico and Guatemala. It is the primary language of the Ixil people, which mainly comprises the three towns of San Juan Cotzal, Santa María Nebaj, and San Gaspar Chajul in the Guatemalan highlands and numerous towns in the states of Campeche and Quintana Roo in southeast México. There is also an Ixil speaking migrant population in Guatemala City, Mexico City and the United States. Although there are slight differences in vocabulary in the dialects spoken by people in the three main guatemalan Ixil towns, they are all mutually intelligible and should be considered dialects of a single language. According to historical linguistic studies Ixil emerged as a separate language sometime around the year 500AD.
Otomi is an Oto-Pamean language spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Otomi consists of several closely related languages, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The word Hñähñu has been proposed as an endonym, but since it represents the usage of a single dialect, it has not gained wide currency. Linguists have classified the modern dialects into three dialect areas: the Northwestern dialects are spoken in Querétaro, Hidalgo and Guanajuato; the Southwestern dialects are spoken in the State of Mexico; and the Eastern dialects are spoken in the highlands of Veracruz, Puebla, and eastern Hidalgo and villages in Tlaxcala and Mexico states.
Popoluca is a Nahuatl term for various indigenous peoples of southeastern Veracruz and Oaxaca. Many of them speak languages of the Mixe–Zoque family. Others speak the unrelated Mazatecan languages, in which case the name in English and Spanish is generally spelled Popoloca.
Chatino is a group of indigenous Mesoamerican languages. These languages are a branch of the Zapotecan family within the Oto-Manguean language family. They are natively spoken by 45,000 Chatino people, whose communities are located in the southern portion of the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Sayula Popoluca, also called Sayultec, is a Mixe language spoken by around 5,000 indigenous people in and around the town of Sayula de Alemán in the southern part of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Almost all published research on the language has been the work of Lawrence E. Clark of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. More recent studies of Sayula Popoluca have been conducted by Dennis Holt (lexico-semantics) and Richard A. Rhodes, but few of their findings have been published.
The Mazahua language is an Oto-Pamean language spoken in the central states of Mexico by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Mazahua but calls itself the Hñatho. It is a Mesoamerican language and has many of the traits of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In 2003, along with some 62 other indigenous languages, it was recognised by a statutory law of Mexico as an official language in the Federal District and the other administrative divisions in which it is spoken, and on an equal footing with Spanish. The largest concentration of Mazahua is found in the municipality of San Felipe del Progreso, State of México, near Toluca.
The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas better known by its acronym INALI, is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas by the administration of President Vicente Fox Quesada.
Nahuatl, Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States.
The Indigenous people of Oaxaca are descendants of the inhabitants of what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, who were present before the Spanish invasion. Several cultures flourished in the ancient region of Oaxaca from as far back as 2000 BC, of whom the Zapotecs and Mixtecs were perhaps the most advanced, with complex social organization and sophisticated arts.
The state of Oaxaca, Mexico has a total population of about 3.5 million, with women outnumbering men by 150,000 and about 60% of the population under the age of 30. It is ranked tenth in population in the country. Fifty three percent of the population lives in rural areas. Most of the state’s population growth took place between 1980 and 1990. Life expectancy is 71.7 for men and 77.4 for women, just under the national average. Births far outpace deaths. In 2007, there were 122,579 births and 19,439 deaths. Approximately 85% profess the Catholic faith.
The Tzeltal are a Maya people of Mexico, who chiefly reside in the highlands of Chiapas. The Tzeltal language belongs to the Tzeltalan subgroup of Maya languages. Most Tzeltals live in communities in about twenty municipalities, under a Mexican system called “usos y costumbres” which seeks to respect traditional indigenous authority and politics. Women are often seen wearing traditional huipils and black skirts, but men generally do not wear traditional attire. Tzeltal religion syncretically integrates traits from Catholic and native belief systems. Shamanism and traditional medicine is still practiced. Many make a living through agriculture and/or handcrafts, mostly textiles; and many also work for wages to meet family needs.
The Nahuatl language in the United States is spoken primarily by Mexican immigrants from indigenous communities and Chicanos who study and speak Nahuatl as L2. Despite the fact that there is no official census of the language in the North American country, it is estimated that there are around 140,800 Nahuatl speakers. During the last decades, the United States has carried out many educational initiatives aimed at teaching Nahuatl as a language of cultural heritage.
The history of the Nahuatl, Aztec or Mexicano language can be traced back to the time when Teotihuacan flourished. From the 4th century AD to the present, the journey and development of the language and its dialect varieties have gone through a large number of periods and processes, the language being used by various peoples, civilizations and states throughout the history of the cultural area of Mesoamerica.
