Oto-Manguean languages
language family
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.
The Oto-Manguean language family is the most diverse and most geographically-widespread language family that is represented in Mesoamerica.
“Oto-Manguean languages” enters the record as language family. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oto-Manguean, languages and language can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q33669. The Library of Congress control number is sh85096063. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oto-Manguean languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.