World Language Map

Mayan languages map

31 Mayan languages are on the map, most of them in Guatemala and Mexico. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Core Mayan (30 languages). The best-known members include K'iche', Yucatec Maya and Kaqchikel. 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 Mayan family at a glance

  • 31languages
  • 23drawn as areas
  • 8shown as points
  • 2main branches

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

Biggest Mayan languages

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

  1. Where is K'iche' spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  2. Where is Yucatec Maya spoken? (about 706,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Kaqchikel spoken? (about 500,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Q'eqchi' spoken? (about 420,000 speakers)
  5. Where is Tzotzil spoken? (about 350,000 speakers)
  6. Where is Chol spoken? (about 180,000 speakers)
  7. Where is Huastec spoken? (about 150,000 speakers)
  8. Where is Ixil spoken? (about 92,000 speakers)
  9. Where is Chuj spoken? (about 43,000 speakers)
  10. Where is Popti' spoken? (about 33,000 speakers)

Branches of Mayan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Core Mayan (30)
  • Huastecan Mayan (1)

Where Mayan languages are spoken

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

All 31 Mayan languages, A to Z

Questions about Mayan languages

How many Mayan languages are there?

31 living Mayan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Core Mayan (30 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Mayan languages spoken?

Guatemala (24), Mexico (16), Belize (3), El Salvador (2) and Honduras (1) have the most Mayan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Mayan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: K'iche' (about 2 million), Yucatec Maya (about 706,000) and Kaqchikel (about 500,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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