World Language Map

Otomanguean languages map

175 Otomanguean languages are on the map, most of them in Mexico. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Eastern Otomanguean (141 languages). The best-known members include Isthmus Zapotec, Western Tlacolula Valley Zapotec and San Jerónimo Tecóatl Mazatec. 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 Otomanguean family at a glance

  • 175languages
  • 8drawn as areas
  • 167shown as points
  • 2main branches

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

Biggest Otomanguean languages

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

  1. Where is Isthmus Zapotec spoken? (about 85,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Western Tlacolula Valley Zapotec spoken? (about 28,000 speakers)
  3. Where is San Jerónimo Tecóatl Mazatec spoken? (about 19,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Magdalena Peñasco Mixtec spoken? (about 7,400 speakers)
  5. Where is Mitlatongo Mixtec spoken? (about 2,800 speakers)
  6. Where is Yatzachi Zapotec spoken? (about 2,500 speakers)
  7. Where is Zacatepec Chatino spoken? (about 300 speakers)

Branches of Otomanguean

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Eastern Otomanguean (141)
  • Western Otomanguean (34)

Where Otomanguean languages are spoken

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

All 175 Otomanguean languages, A to Z

Questions about Otomanguean languages

How many Otomanguean languages are there?

175 living Otomanguean languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Eastern Otomanguean (141 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Otomanguean languages spoken?

Mexico (175) and United States (10) have the most Otomanguean languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Otomanguean languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Isthmus Zapotec (about 85,000), Western Tlacolula Valley Zapotec (about 28,000) and San Jerónimo Tecóatl Mazatec (about 19,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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