What Are the Most Spoken Indigenous Languages in Mexico?

At first glance, Mexico is a country heavily associated with the Spanish language. It is spoken as a first or second language by more than 90 percent of the population. Mexico is, however, a large country with a widely diverse population. It has a history of many native peoples whose culture and language survived the colonial onslaught wrought by the Spanish Empire.

Many of these cultures and languages still exist today, and add to the unique ethno-linguistic landscape of a dynamic and fascinating country. So, which of these native languages is the most widely spoken today?

Despite the initial onslaught of the conquistadors, the devastating effects of disease on the native people, and the massive efforts to Christianize the new colony, the native languages of Mexico were initially not targeted for annihilation. Missionaries attempted to instruct the native people in their own language. 

For over a century and a half, this dynamic existed, until 1696 when Charles II decreed all instruction was to be carried out in Spanish. Thus began a long period of Hispanization that carried on after independence, with the goal of integrating native populations into the general Spanish-speaking culture of Mexico. This state of affairs continued through the 20th century, while initiatives to preserve native culture and languages gathered more support. In 2003 a law was passed to safeguard indigenous languages, and thus began a new era of embracing diversity rather than enforcing monocultural ideas.

Languages and Numbers

Mexico has a population of 130 million people and just under 12 million of them are identified as indigenous, while a total of 23 million identify as culturally indigenous. This is equivalent to around 19 percent of the country’s population.

Not all of them, however, speak indigenous languages. 7.4 million Mexicans speak an indigenous language either as a first or second language (6.4 percent of the total population of Mexico), while around 870 000 only speak an indigenous language and are not bilingual. The vast majority of Mexico’s indigenous languages and cultures are in the south of the country, with the areas most densely populated by indigenous peoples being the states of Oaxaca and Yucatan. 

The most widely spoken indigenous language in Mexico is Náhuatl. According to a 2020 census, there are 1.7 million Nahuatl speakers. Náhuatl is part of the Uto-Aztecan language family, and is mainly spoken in the south central region of Mexico. It was the language of the Mexica who ruled the Aztec Empire. With its history and lion’s share of the indigenous language-speaking community, Náhuatl is a language of indigenous prestige in Mexico.

The indigenous language with the second-highest number of speakers in Mexico is Yucatec-Maya, which is spoken by around 800 000 people. While there are small communities in Belize and the United States, the majority of Yucatec-Maya speakers live in the Yucatan Peninsula of southern Mexico. Although often referred to simply as “Maya”, it should be noted that Maya is a language group that contains many linguistic variants. Tzeltal Maya and Tzotzil Maya are widely spoken in the state of Chiapas, and both have over half a million speakers.  

There are many other indigenous languages that have significant representation in Mexico. Otomí is spoken by almost 300,000 people, most of whom live in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Ch’ol, spoken in the south, is a member of the Mayan family, and is spoken by around 250,000 people. The Mixtec and Zapotec language families also represent many variants and each family has around half a million speakers. 

The Mexican government recognizes 63 indigenous languages within its borders. Drawing lines and distinguishing languages and dialectic boundaries can be difficult in that language is a continuum in reality rather than something easily categorized and defined. Nevertheless, according to Ethnologue, published by SIL (The Summer Institute of Linguistics), Mexico is the country with the seventh highest number of languages in the world.

SIL’s most recent estimate lists 292 languages in Mexico. While many of the smaller languages are likely to go extinct in the near future, major languages such as Náhuatl and Yucatec-Maya have significant representation and are likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future.