World Language Map

Barbacoan languages map

4 Barbacoan languages are on the map, most of them in Ecuador and Colombia. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Awa-Southern Barbacoan (3 languages). The best-known members include Guambiano, Awa-Cuaiquer and Cha'palaa. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Barbacoan family at a glance

  • 4languages
  • 3drawn as areas
  • 1shown as points
  • 2main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Barbacoan alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Barbacoan languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Guambiano spoken? (about 21,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Awa-Cuaiquer spoken? (about 12,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Cha'palaa spoken? (about 10,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Tsafiki spoken? (about 2,300 speakers)

Branches of Barbacoan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Awa-Southern Barbacoan (3)
  • Coconucan (1)

Where Barbacoan languages are spoken

Countries with the most Barbacoan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 4 Barbacoan languages, A to Z

Questions about Barbacoan languages

How many Barbacoan languages are there?

4 living Barbacoan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Awa-Southern Barbacoan (3 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Barbacoan languages spoken?

Ecuador (3) and Colombia (2) have the most Barbacoan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Barbacoan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Guambiano (about 21,000), Awa-Cuaiquer (about 12,000) and Cha'palaa (about 10,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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