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Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in Kʼicheʼ Maya, Nabʼee Mayaʼ Tzij ("the old Maya Language"). [4] The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Qʼanjobalan is spoken today. [5]
The Mayan languages are a group of languages spoken by the Maya peoples. The Maya form an enormous group of approximately 7 million people who are descended from an ancient Mesoamerican civilization and spread across the modern-day countries of: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Although 93% of Guatemalans can speak Spanish and it is the sole official language of the country, it is not spoken by the entire population, or even used as a second language. [1] There are twenty-four distinct indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala. Kʼicheʼ: Mayan: Kiche' 1,000,000 5.7927
This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect . For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties , and so they are sometimes considered language families instead.
Among these Oto-Manguean and Mayan families account for the largest numbers of speakers by far – each having speakers numbering more than a million. Many Mesoamerican languages today are either endangered or already extinct, but others, including the Mayan languages, Nahuatl, Mixtec and Zapotec, have several hundred thousand speakers and ...
The only indigenous language spoken by more than a million people in Mexico is the Nahuatl language; the other Native American languages with a large population of native speakers (at least 400,000 speakers) include Yucatec Maya, Tzeltal Maya, Tzotzil Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec.
In the 21st century in the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo), between 750,000 and 1,200,000 people speak Mayan. However, three times more than that are of Maya origins, hold ancient Maya surnames, and do not speak Mayan languages as their first language.
Though the official language is Spanish, it is often the second language among the Indigenous population. Approximately 23 additional Amerindian languages are spoken by more than 40% of the population. [34] 21 Mayan languages, one indigenous, and one Arawakan are spoken in Guatemala. [35]