Otomanguean

The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean ( OH-to-MANG-ghee-ən) languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of the Americas. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but the Manguean branch of the family, which is now extinct, was spoken as far south as Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Oto-Manguean is widely viewed as a proven language family.

The highest number of speakers of Oto-Manguean languages today is in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where the two largest branches, the Zapotecan and the Mixtecan languages, are spoken by almost 1.5 million people combined. In central Mexico, particularly in the states of Mexico, Hidalgo, and Querétaro, the languages of the Oto-Pamean branch are spoken: the Otomi and the closely-related Mazahua have over 500,000 speakers combined. In the linguistic world of Mesoamerica, the Otomanguean family stands out as the most diverse and extensively distributed.

Some Oto-Manguean languages are moribund or highly endangered; for example, both Ixcatec and Matlatzinca have fewer than 250 speakers, most of whom are elderly. Other languages, particularly of the Manguean branch, which was spoken outside Mexico, have become extinct; they included the Chiapanec language, which was declared extinct after 1990. Others, such as Subtiaba, which was most closely related to Me'phaa (Tlapanec), have been extinct longer and are known only from early-20th-century descriptions.

From Wikipedia · Oto-Manguean languages · CC BY-SA 4.0