page_title: Mazatecan languages
hierarchical_section_title: Mazatecan languages
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Oto-Manguean languagesFrançais&#160;: Carte des langues oto-mangues
context_page_description: The Mazatecan languages are a group of closely related indigenous languages spoken by some 200,000 people in the area known as the Sierra Mazateca, which is in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, as well as in adjacent areas of the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
  The group is often described as a single language called Mazatec, but because several varieties are not mutually intelligible, they are better described as a group of languages. The languages belong to the Popolocan subgroup of the Oto-Manguean language family. Under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, they are recognized as "national languages" along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico and Spanish.
  The Mazatec language is vigorous in many of the smaller communities of the Mazatec area, and in many towns, it is spoken by almost everyone; however, the language is beginning to lose terrain to Spanish in some of the larger communities like Huautla de Jiménez and Jalapa de Díaz.
  Like other Oto-Manguean languages, the Mazatecan languages are tonal; tone plays an integral part in distinguishing both lexical items and grammatical categories.
context_section_description: The Mazatecan languages are a  group of closely related indigenous languages spoken by some 200,000 people in the area known as the Sierra Mazateca, which is in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, as well as in adjacent areas of the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
  The group is often described as a single language called Mazatec, but because several varieties are not mutually intelligible, they are better described as a group of languages. The languages belong to the Popolocan subgroup of the Oto-Manguean language family. Under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, they are recognized as "national languages" along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico and Spanish.
  The Mazatec language is vigorous in many of the smaller communities of the Mazatec area, and in many towns, it is spoken by almost everyone; however, the language is beginning to lose terrain to Spanish in some of the larger communities like Huautla de Jiménez and Jalapa de Díaz.
  Like other Oto-Manguean languages, the Mazatecan languages are tonal; tone plays an integral part in distinguishing both lexical items and grammatical categories. The centrality of tone to the Mazatec language is exploited by the system of whistle speech, used in most Mazatec communities, which allows speakers of the language to have entire conversations only by whistling.
caption: The Mazatecan language, number 7 (olive), center-east.
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