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Most Common Mexican Languages
(by number of speakers today)

This chart lists the top thirty Mexican languages with the most native speakers. Note that in several of these cases, a "language" may actually include several related, but not identical, languages. For example, several of the Zapotec "dialects" are so different from each other that native speakers of two of them really can not understand each other (although both of them may be able to understand an intermediate form of their language.) There are also dozens of different Mayan languages, which could be listed separately (we do list them separately on our own website.) However, since the people themselves often self-report themselves as speaking only "Zapotec" or "Mayan," it becomes very difficult to compare the total estimated number of speakers at a finer level than this (especially comparing between countries, since most Central American censuses do not differentiate between Mayan speakers.) A good source for demographic information about individual languages, sublanguages and dialects is the Ethnologue of Languages.

Most Popular Mexican Languages

Language name Country/region spoken Approximate number of speakers
1. Spanish Throughout Mexico 110 million
2. Nahuatl Mostly central Mexico 2 million
3. English Throughout Mexico 2 million
4. Mayan languages Mostly southeastern Mexico 1.5 million
5. Mixtec Southwestern Mexico 475,000
6. Zapotec Oaxaca and surrounding area 450,000
7. Otomi Eastern Mexico 285,000
8. German and Plautdietsch Various communities throughout Mexico 275,000
9. Totonac Eastern Mexico 240,000
10. Mazatec Oaxaca and surrounding area 220,000
11. Mazahua Mexico State 150,000
12. Chinantec Oaxaca and Veracruz 135,000
13. Mixe Oaxaca 130,000
14. Purepecha Michoacan 125,000
15. Tlapanec Guerrero 120,000
16. Tarahumara Northwestern Mexico 85,000
17. Zoque Chiapas and surrounding area 60,000
18. Tojolabal Chiapas 50,000
19. Amuzgo Oaxaca and Guerrero 50,000
20. Chatino Oaxaca 45,000
21. Huichol Durango and surrounding area 45,000
22. Popoluca Veracruz and surrounding area 40,000
23. Mayo Sonora and Sinaloa 40,000
24. Tepehuan Durango and surrounding area 35,000
25. Triqui Oaxaca 30,000
26. Popoloca Puebla 20,000
27. Cora Nayarit 20,000
28. Huave Southeastern Mexico 18,000
29. Yaqui Sonora 17,000
30. Cuicatec Oaxaca 13,000



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