Indigenous Mexico: Past and Present
Everything you wanted to know about Mexico's languages, but were afraid to ask
By
John P. Schmal
Published on LatinoLA:
March 8, 2003
1. How many people in Mexico speak indigenous languages today?
In the 2000 census, 6,044,547 persons five years of age and older spoke indigenous languages in all of Mexico. Another 1,233,455 persons between the ages of 0 and 4 live in a household of an indigenous speaking head of household. In addition, there are 1,103,312 persons living in Mexico who are considered of indigenous origin but do not speak an indigenous languages. Thus, we can say that 8,381,314 people in Mexico are considered to be indigenous out of a total population of 97,483,412, representing 8.6% of the total population. This figure does not count the large majority of the Mexican people who have mixed origins (Spanish, Indigenous and other ethnic groups).
By comparison, in 1930, 2,251,086 people over the age of 5 spoke indigenous languages. This represented 16.03% of Mexico's total population five years and over (14,042,201). This figure has been dropping gradually. By 1960, Mexico boasted a total of 3,030,254 indigenous speakers, who then represented 10.4% of the Mexican Republic's population five years of age and older (29,146,382).
2. What are the most widely spoken languages of Mexico?
In the year 2000, 1,448,936 persons 5 years of age and older spoke the N?huatl language. They represented an enormous 23.97% of Mexico's total indigenous-speaking population. The next most common languages of Mexico are:
2. Maya (800,291 speakers) 13.24%
3. Mixteco (437,873) 7.25%
4. Zapoteco (421,796) 6.98%
5. Tzotzil (297,561) 4.92%
6. Otom? (291,722) 4.83%
By comparison, 649,853 persons spoke N?huatl at the time of the 1895 census, representing 32.17% of the total indigenous-speaking population of Mexico. The Mayan language followed with 249,929 speakers (12.37%), with Zapoteco in third place with 229,911 speakers (11.38%).
3. What states have the largest number of indigenous people in all of Mexico?
According to the 2000 census, the state of Yucat?n had 549,532 indigenous speakers five years of age and older, a figure that represented 37.32% of its total population. So, Yucat?n has the highest percentage of indigenous speakers. However, Oaxaca - with 1,120,312 indigenous speakers in the 2000 census - has the greatest number of indigenous people, who represent 37.11% of the state's total population.
Chiapas, with 809,592 indigenous speakers - or 24.62% - is the state that possesses the third largest percent of indigenous speakers. Hidalgo follows with 17.22%, and Campeche with 15.45%.
By comparison, in 1930, the indigenous speaking population of Yucat?n made up 72.25% of the state's total population. Oaxaca's indigenous peoples, by comparison, made up 56.40% of the state population in the same year, followed by Campeche (43.65%), Quintana Roo (40.60%) and Hidalgo (33.62%).
4. What are the most widely spoken languages in Baja California Norte?
In the 2000 census, the population of Baja California Norte had only 37,685 indigenous languages speakers who were 5 years of age or more. This small group constituted only 1.52% of Baja California's total population of 2,487,367.
The most widely spoken languages of this number were the Mixteco, Zapoteco, N?huatl, and Pur?pecha.
5. Does that mean that Mixteco, Zapoteco, N?huatl and Pur?pecha are languages that are indigenous to Baja?
No, definitely not. Most of the original aboriginal population of Baja California - both north and south - is nearly extinct and some tribes have disappeared completely. The Mixteco and Zapoteco speakers come from Oaxaca, the N?huatl from many parts of Mexico, and the Pur?pecha is mainly from Michoac?n. Baja California is a center of attraction for migrant labor from Oaxaca and other southern Mexican states and this explains their presence in Baja.
6. How many people living in Chihuahua speak indigenous languages?
84,086 persons five years of age and older speak indigenous languages. They represent only 3.21% of Chihuahua's total population aged five and older (2,621,057).
7. What are the most common languages spoken in Chihuahua?
The most widely spoken languages of Chihuahua are: the Tarahumara (70,842 speakers), Tepehu?n (6,178), N?huatl (1,011), Guarijio (917), Mazahua (740), Mixteco (603), Pima (346) and Chinanteco (301). Of these groups, the Tarahumara and Tepehu?n, Guarijio, and Pima are aboriginal languages within the borders of present day Chihuahua. The rest are the results of migrant labor from other states.
8. What were the names of the indigenous peoples who occupied Jalisco in the 1520s when Nu?o de Guzm?n and other Spanish explorers entered the area?
The indigenous people of Jalisco may have spoke as many as 60 or 70 languages in the 1520s, but the primary linguistic groups were: Bapames, Caxcanes, Coras, Cocas, Guachichiles, Cuyutecos (a Nahua language), Huicholes, Otom?es, Pinomes, Pur?pecha, Tecuexes, Tepehuanes, and Tecos. Almost all of these groups are culturally extinct and no traces of their original languages remain. By the time of the 2000 census, 39,259 people living in Jalisco were still speaking indigenous languages, a mere 0.71% of the total population of Jalisco. The largest indigenous groups in Jalisco today are the Huicholes (10,976 speakers), N?huatl (6,714), Pur?pecha (3,074), Mixteco (1,471), Otom? (1,193), and Zapoteco (1,061). The Mixteco and Zapoteco are migrant languages from Oaxaca.
9. What is the most widely spoken language in Michoac?n de Ocampo? A total of 121,849 persons in Michoac?n five years of age and over speak indigenous languages, representing 3.5% of the total population five years and over. The primary language spoken is the Pur?pecha languages, with a total of 109,361 persons. The Pur?pecha are sometimes called Tarascan by some Americans, but Pur?pecha is the name which these people call themselves, and the term Tarascan actually has a derogatory implication.
About
John P. Schmal :
John P. Schmal is an historian and genealogist. He recently coauthored "Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico" with his friend, Donna Morales (published by Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, Maryland).
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