World Language Map

Tucanoan languages map

19 Tucanoan languages are on the map, most of them in Colombia and Brazil. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Eastern Tucanoan (15 languages). The best-known members include Cubeo, Desano and Kotiria. 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 Tucanoan family at a glance

  • 19languages
  • 17drawn as areas
  • 2shown as points
  • 2main branches

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

Biggest Tucanoan languages

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

  1. Where is Cubeo spoken? (about 6,300 speakers)
  2. Where is Desano spoken? (about 6,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Kotiria spoken? (about 2,600 speakers)
  4. Where is Koreguaje spoken? (about 2,100 speakers)
  5. Where is Barasana-Eduria spoken? (about 1,900 speakers)
  6. Where is Secoya spoken? (about 1,200 speakers)
  7. Where is Yurutí spoken? (about 1,200 speakers)
  8. Where is Macuna spoken? (about 1,032 speakers)
  9. Where is Tuyuca spoken? (about 570 speakers)
  10. Where is Siona-Tetete spoken? (about 550 speakers)

Branches of Tucanoan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Eastern Tucanoan (15)
  • Western Tucanoan (4)

Where Tucanoan languages are spoken

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

All 19 Tucanoan languages, A to Z

Questions about Tucanoan languages

How many Tucanoan languages are there?

19 living Tucanoan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Eastern Tucanoan (15 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Tucanoan languages spoken?

Colombia (18), Brazil (12), Peru (2), Venezuela (2) and Ecuador (2) have the most Tucanoan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Tucanoan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Cubeo (about 6,300), Desano (about 6,000) and Kotiria (about 2,600). These figures differ between sources and years.

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