Modern Indigenous Languages in Latin America

Thousands of Languages were spoken in Latin America in the pre-Columbia era. However, today, many of the indigenous languages are facing extinction or extinct. In Mesoamerica, which includes southern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Savador, has as many as several hundred different languages among six major language families. The six major language families of Mesoamerica include Mayan, Oto-Mangue, Mixe-Zoque, Totonacan, Uto-Aztecan and Chibchan. Along with these major languages, several smaller family of languages are also striving in today's world, that includes Tarascan, Huave, Tequistlatec and Misumalpan. Among all these languages, the Oto-Manguean and Mayan families have the largest numbers of speakers in today's Mesoamerica.

The following maps illustrated some of the indigenous languages that are spoken today, corresponding to the part of Mesoamerica that are speaking these languages.

Language clusters of Mexico with more than 100,000 speakers

The main European languages in South America today include Indo-European, Portuguese and Spanish.  The Following map illustrate the modern European languages that are spoken in South America today. 

Main European languages in South America

The main indigenous languages of South America include the Quechua languages in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. The Guarani language in Paraguay, and th Mapudungun language in certain parts of southern Chile and parts of Argentina. There are other indigenous languages scattered among South America, the natives have been trying to protect their native identities by conserving their native languages. The scatter of some of the more popular indigenous languages are shown in the following maps.