Languages
Hundreds of languages live here
The Americas hold one of the world's great concentrations of linguistic diversity, much of it under pressure, much of it fighting back. Reference pages are added language by language, with sources.
Across the hemisphere
Quechua
Andes: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and beyond
A family of related languages, runasimi, “the people's speech”, with about 8 million speakers, the most spoken Indigenous language family in the Americas. Peru's 2017 census counted 3.7 million speakers; official status in Peru and Bolivia.
The people who speak it →Aymara
Altiplano: Bolivia, Peru, northern Chile
The language of the Aymara nation of the high plateau: 1.6 million people declared themselves Aymara in Bolivia's 2012 census, 548,000 in Peru's 2017 census. Constitutionally official in Bolivia, and in Peru where it predominates.
The people who speak it →Mayan languages
Mesoamerica: Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras
A family of about thirty languages. K'iche' is Guatemala's largest, with over 1.6 million people; Yucatec Maya counts 774,755 speakers in Mexico's 2020 census. Taught, written and broadcast on both sides of the border.
The people who speak it →Diné bizaad
Southwest United States
The Diné (Navajo) language, roughly 170,000 speakers, the most spoken Native language in the United States, taught from immersion schools to the country's first tribally controlled college.
The people who speak it →Inuktut
Circumpolar Arctic
The Inuit language continuum across the Arctic: Inuktitut and related varieties in Canada, Iñupiaq in Alaska, and Kalaallisut in Greenland, where it is the official language.
The people who speak it →Guaraní
Paraguay & neighbouring lowlands
Unique in the hemisphere: an Indigenous language spoken by a whole nation. Co-official in Paraguay since 1992, used in about two of three Paraguayan households, while the Indigenous Guaraní peoples keep their own varieties alive across four countries.
The people who speak it →Nahuatl
Central Mexico
Mexico's largest Indigenous language, 1,651,958 speakers (2020 census), and among the best-documented on Earth, with four centuries of written annals, court records and poetry. Tomato, chocolate and coyote all began here.
The people who speak it →Zapotec languages
Oaxaca, Mexico
A family of related languages across Oaxaca's valleys, sierra and isthmus, 490,845 speakers (2020 census), heirs of one of Mesoamerica's earliest writing traditions at Monte Albán.
The people who speak it →Wayuunaiki
La Guajira: Colombia & Venezuela
The Arawakan language of the Wayuu, spoken across the desert peninsula by the most numerous Indigenous people of both Colombia and Venezuela.
The people who speak it →Cherokee
Oklahoma & North Carolina, United States
Written since 1821 in Sequoyah's syllabary: ᏣᎳᎩ. About 2,000 first-language speakers remain, with the Cherokee Nation's immersion schools working to raise the next generation of them.
The people who speak it →Anishinaabemowin
Great Lakes: Canada & United States
The Ojibwe language continuum of the Great Lakes country: 25,440 speakers counted in Canada alone (2021 census), with more in the United States, and one of the strongest revitalisation movements in North America.
The people who speak it →Cree
Canada, from the prairies to James Bay
The most spoken Indigenous language in Canada: 86,475 speakers across its plains, woods, swampy and East Cree varieties (2021 census), written in both syllabics and Latin letters.
The people who speak it →Mixtec languages
The Mixteca, Mexico
The languages of Ñuu Savi, the people of the rain: 529,593 speakers (2020 census) across dozens of local varieties, in Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero and the migrant towns of California.
The people who speak it →Lakȟótiyapi & Dakhótiyapi
Northern plains, United States & Canada
The languages of the Seven Council Fires, kept by elder speakers and taught again in immersion classrooms from Pine Ridge to Standing Rock.
The people who speak it →Purépecha
Michoacán, Mexico
A language isolate, related to no other in the Americas: 142,469 speakers (2020 census) in the meseta and lake towns of Michoacán.
The people who speak it →Dulegaya
Guna Yala, Panama
The language of the Guna, spoken across the island comarca whose autonomy was won in the Dule Revolution of 1925.
The people who speak it →Rapa Nui
Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
The easternmost Polynesian language, taught in the island's schools and carried by a community of under ten thousand people.
The people who speak it →
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