Native books
What's new on our site today!Native American Indian languages
Native books
What's new on our site today!
This chart lists the ten Central American languages with the most native speakers. Spanish is the most-spoken language in Central America, and is also the most-spoken language of each individual country there (although English is the official language of Belize, there are still more Spanish speakers there than English speakers.) Note that in several of these cases, a "language" may actually include several related, but not identical, languages. There are dozens of different Mayan languages, for example, which could be listed separately (we do list them separately on our website.) However, since these languages are not recorded separately on the census records of Central American countries, it becomes very difficult to compare the total estimated number of speakers at a finer level than "Mayan." A good source for demographic information about individual languages, sublanguages and dialects is the Ethnologue of Languages.
| Language name | Country/region spoken | Approximate number of speakers |
| 1. Spanish | Throughout Central America | 32 million |
| 2. Mayan languages | Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador | 4.5 million |
| 3. English Creoles | Panama, Belize, Nicaragua | 400,000 |
| 4. Miskito | Nicaragua and Honduras | 180,000 |
| 5. Ngäbere | Panama and Costa Rica | 150,000 |
| 6. Garifuna | Honduras and surrounding area | 120,000 |
| 7. English | Belize, also some in all countries | 120,000 |
| 8. Kuna | Panama | 50,000 |
| 9. Embera | Colombia and Panama | 10,000 |
| 10. Bribri | Costa Rica | 10,000 |
Go on to the most common languages of Latin America
Back to the most popular Native American languages
Learn more about Native American Indian culture
American Indian genealogy resources
American Indian arts
Abenaki tribe
Indian tattoos
Would you like to help support our organization's work with endangered American Indian languages?
Contacts and FAQ page