Indigenous languages of the Americas facts for kids

The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages spoken by the native peoples of the Americas before people from other continents arrived. More than a thousand of these languages are still used today. Sadly, many others have completely disappeared. These languages don't all come from the same origin; instead, they belong to about a hundred different language families. Some are even "language isolates," meaning they aren't related to any other known language.

Many ideas have been suggested about how these languages might be connected. One famous idea was the "Amerind hypothesis," but most experts don't agree with it because it had some problems.

According to UNESCO, most Indigenous languages in the Americas are in danger of disappearing. Many are "dormant," meaning they don't have native speakers anymore, but some people are trying to learn them as a heritage language. The most widely spoken Indigenous languages are Southern Quechua (in Peru and Bolivia) and Guarani (in Paraguay), each with about six or seven million speakers. Guarani is even an official language in Paraguay, alongside Spanish!

Only a few other languages have more than a million speakers. These include Aymara and Nahuatl (almost two million each), and the Mayan languages like Kekchi, Quiché, and Yucatec (about one million each). In the United States, about 372,000 people spoke an Indigenous language at home in 2010. In Canada, this number was 133,000 in 2011. In Greenland, about 90% of people speak Greenlandic, which is the most common Eskaleut language.

A Look at the Past

Before Europeans arrived, over a thousand different languages were spoken by various groups across North and South America. The first Europeans came around the 11th century (with the Norse in Greenland) and later in the late 15th century (with Christopher Columbus). Some Indigenous cultures, like the Maya, even had their own writing systems, such as the famous Maya script.

The number of speakers for these languages varied a lot. Some, like Quechua, Aymara, Guarani, and Nahuatl, had millions of speakers. Others had only a few hundred. After Europeans arrived, some new "creole languages" developed. These were mixtures of European, Indigenous, and African languages.

European countries and the new nations they formed had different ideas about Indigenous languages. For example, in Brazil, some religious leaders learned and promoted the Tupi language. In many Spanish colonies, missionaries learned local languages to share their religious messages. In the British colonies, John Eliot translated the Bible into the Massachusett language, publishing the first Bible printed in North America.

However, Europeans also tried to stop Indigenous languages from being used. They made their own languages official, destroyed texts in other languages, and insisted that Indigenous children learn European languages in schools. This led to many Indigenous languages losing speakers and facing cultural suppression. By the 18th and 19th centuries, European languages like Spanish, English, and Portuguese became the main languages of the new countries in the Americas.

Today, many Indigenous languages are in danger, but others are still strong and used daily by millions. Some Indigenous languages have even become official languages, like Guaraní in Paraguay. In other places, official status is limited to certain regions where the languages are most spoken. For example, in Greenland, Kalaallisut became the only official language in 2009. In the United States, Navajo is the most spoken Native American language, with over 200,000 speakers. During World War II, Navajo men were even recruited as code talkers because their language was so unique.

How Languages Started

Scientists have different ideas about where Indigenous languages in the Americas came from. One main idea is that people arrived in the Americas in a few different groups, and each group spoke a different language. Another idea suggests that people came in many different waves, each speaking a unique language. Some even think that languages arrived already diversified from the "Old World" (Europe, Asia, Africa).

One theory by Roger Blench (2008) suggests that different groups of people from northeastern Asia traveled along the Pacific coast. These groups already spoke various languages, which then spread and developed in the Americas.

How Many People Speak Them

Many countries in the Americas, like Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Guyana, officially recognize most of their native Indigenous languages. Bolivia and Venezuela have even made all Indigenous languages official in their constitutions. Other countries, like Canada and the United States, let their provinces or states decide their own language policies.

Here is a list of some widely spoken and officially recognized Indigenous languages:

Language Families and Groups

Indigenous languages are grouped into many different families. Some languages are "extinct," meaning they are no longer spoken. Others are "language isolates," which means they don't seem to be related to any other known language family.

Languages in North America

Pre-contact: distribution of North American language families, including northern Mexico

Bilingual stop sign in English and the Cherokee syllabary (transcription: ᎠᎴᏫᏍᏗᎭ – "alehwisdiha"), Tahlequah, Oklahoma

North of Mexico, there were about 296 Indigenous languages spoken or formerly spoken. Most of these belong to 29 language families. The largest families by number of languages are Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million), mainly because of the 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl in Mexico.

North America is known for having a huge variety of languages, especially in California. This area alone has 18 language families with 74 languages! This is a lot compared to Europe, which only has four main language families.

Many North American languages have a small number of vowels (like three to five). Languages in the western part of North America often have many different consonant sounds. Some languages in the Pacific Northwest have very complex sound rules, where words can even exist without any vowels!

Here are some of the language families and isolated languages found in Northern America:

Languages in Central America and Mexico

The Indigenous languages of Mexico that have more than 100,000 speakers

The Mayan languages

The Chibchan languages

In Central America, the Mayan languages are very important. At least six million Indigenous Maya people speak them, mostly in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala officially recognized 21 Mayan languages! The Mayan language family is one of the most studied in the Americas. Modern Mayan languages come from "Proto-Mayan," a language believed to have been spoken over 4,000 years ago.

Here are some of the language families and isolated languages found in Central America and Mexico:

Languages in South America and the Caribbean

Some of the greater families of South America: dark spots are language isolates or quasi-isolate, grey spots unclassified languages or languages with doubtful classification. (Note that Quechua, the family with most speakers, is not displayed.)

A Urarina shaman, 1988

South America has an incredible variety of languages, with about 350 still spoken today. Many more were spoken when Europeans first arrived but are now extinct. It's harder for researchers to study and classify these languages compared to North America because there's less information available. Many languages might disappear before they can be fully documented.

Because of this, many relationships between languages are still being figured out. Some proposed connections are strong, while others are still uncertain.

Here are some of the language families and isolated languages found in South America and the Caribbean:

Writing Systems

Most Indigenous languages today use the Latin alphabet for writing. However, some languages developed their own unique writing systems after learning about the Latin alphabet, often through missionaries. All the writing systems used before Europeans arrived are no longer in use.

Images for kids

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  Yucatec Maya writing in the Dresden Codex, ca. 11–12th century, Chichen Itza

See Also

• Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Language families and languages
• List of endangered languages in Canada
• List of endangered languages in Mexico
• List of endangered languages in the United States
• List of indigenous languages of South America
• Mesoamerican languages