Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico
Name used by its speakers (Endonym): Mayan is not one language, but rather a family of related languages. The most widely spoken include Q’eqchi’, K’iche’, Yucatec Maya (maayaʼ t’aan), Mam, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil.
Native speakers (estimated): Over 6 million
Total speakers, including second-language (estimated): Over 6 million
Stone carving with Mayan glyphs
Where it’s spoken: The Mayan languages are indigenous to Central America, specifically the region which now includes southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Though the peoples now known as Maya did not all historically use the term, identifying instead with their own local group’s distinct language and culture, a shared Mayan identity began to develop in the 20th century—associated with increased knowledge about the ancient Maya civilization, as well as the Pan-Mayan Movement aimed at uniting an often marginalized community around a sense of shared ethnic pride. However, today there is no universally accepted standard Mayan language (over 30 are recognized in total), and different communities vary in their concepts of Mayan self-identity.
Maya girls wearing huipil dress, Mexico
The two Mayan languages with the most speakers are Q’eqchi’ and K’iche’, both spoken by over 1 million people mostly in Guatemala, where 42% of the population reported Maya ethnicity in the 2018 census. Though Spanish is the sole official language, Guatemala also recognizes 24 indigenous national languages—of which 22 are Mayan. The third most spoken is Yucatec Maya (maayaʼ t’aan to its 800,000 speakers), centered in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Officially there are 68 indigenous languages recognized by Mexican law, alongside Spanish (the de facto national language); of these eight are Mayan, and their combined number of speakers (2.5 million) exceeds that of Nahuatl. The Mam language counts over 600,000 speakers, mostly in Guatemala. Another 30,000 speakers of Mayan languages are estimated to live in Belize, where only English is an official language.
High rates of immigration from Mexico, Guatemala and other Central America countries to the US have established communities of Mayan language speakers, primarily in California, Texas, Florida and New York. While most immigrants from these countries speak fluent Spanish, many do not—which has led to Mam, K’iche’ (or Quiché) and Q’anjob’al becoming three of the top 25 languages spoken in US immigration court.1 One of the largest Maya Mam communities in America is found in and around Oakland, California—where an internet radio station offers broadcasts in the language, and over a thousand students speak Mam at home.
Tikal, Guatemala
Language family: Mayan. No clear relationship with other language families has been shown, though similarities have developed over time through proximity with other Mesoamerican languages.
Related languages include: The 30+ members of the Mayan family are divided into six branches, considered to be common descendants of Proto-Mayan, much as the Romance languages are commonly descended from Latin. For example, Yucatec Maya, K’iche’, Mam, and Q’anjob’al each belong to distinct branches of the family. Overall, thirteen Mayan languages each claim more than 100,000 native speakers.
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