Languages of Mexico
| Languages of Mexico | |
|---|---|
| Official languages | None at federal level |
| Main languages | Spanish |
| Minority languages | Catalan, Plautdietsch, Chipilo Venetian dialect |
| Main immigrant languages | English |
| Main foreign languages | German, Greek, Italian, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, English |
| Sign languages |
Mexican Sign Language Yucatan Sign Language Plains Sign Talk American Sign Language |
| Common keyboard layouts |
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Several different languages are spoken in Mexico, with a large majority of the population fluent in Spanish while some indigenous Mexicans are monolingual in indigenous languages. Most Mexicans are monolingual Spanish-speakers.
The government of Mexico uses Spanish for most official purposes, but in terms of legislation its status is not that of an official language. The Law of Linguistic Rights establishes Spanish as one of the country's national languages, along with 68 distinct indigenous languages (from seven different families, and other four isolated languages). The law, promulgated in 2003, requires the state to offer all of its services to its indigenous citizens in their mother tongues, but in practice this is not yet the case. Note that the actual number of spoken languages in Mexico is much higher than the 68 groups mentioned here; National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) identifies only macro-languages and distinct ethnic groups for the purposes of political classification. For instance, Mixtec is identified as a single language within this list of 68 languages. However, there are at least 12 distinct Mixtec dialect regions, each which includes a language that is not-mutually intelligible with the other dialect regions (Josserand, 1983). The Ethnologue currently states that 287 distinct languages are currently spoken in Mexico (Lewis et al. 2013).
Due to the long history of marginalization of indigenous groups, most indigenous languages are endangered, with some languages expected to become extinct within years or decades, and others simply having populations that grow slower than the national average. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), while 10–14% of the population identifies as belonging to an indigenous group, around 6% speak an indigenous language.
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