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the federal government, dedicated to promote the strengthening, preservation,
and development of 68 linguistic groupings and 364 variants, all organized
into 11 linguistic families, according to the Catalog of the National Indigenous
Languages (INALI; 2008).
According to the latest XIII Censo General de Población y Vivienda (2010)
nearly 7 million representatives of 62 indigenous peoples residing in the
country speak national indigenous languages. However, migratory movements
have prompted the dispersal of speakers of indigenous languages (SIL) on the
length and width of the country, without considering the significant presence
in the United States of America.
It should be noted that the SIL live mainly in the States of Oaxaca, Chiapas,
Veracruz and Yucatán, a million of them are still monolingual.
Náhuatl, Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tseltal and Tsotzil are linguistic groupings
which “concentrate” 54% of SIL, although it should be mentioned that only
these 6 groups add in total 184 linguistic variants, many of them as close as it can
be Spanish with other Romance languages such as French, Italian or Portuguese.
Diversity and Linguistic Rights in Mexico
In an international level, Mexico has signed the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948), the Convention 169 of the UN International Labour Organization
ILO (1989), and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(2007) among other instruments that recognize rights to indigenous peoples.
At the same time, at federal, state and municipal levels institutional changes are
still important, such as the reforms to Article 4 in 1992, and Article 2 in 2001, by
which the Mexican State has recognized at a constitutional level that: “The nation
has a pluricultural composition originally based on their indigenous peoples…”.
2003 witnessed the enactment of the Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate
Discrimination; the law of the National Commission for the Development of
Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and the General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous
Peoples; as well as the creation of new agencies, responsible for ensuring their
rights: CDI, INALI and National Council against Discrimination (CONAPRED).
It is up to the INALI to promote knowledge, recognition, evaluation and
appreciation of the national indigenous languages by the approach to
multilingualism and interculturalism. This institution has the following
strategic lines of action:
1. To promote public policies for indigenous languages, encouraging
the participation of all social agents (indigenous peoples, public and
private institutions, universities, research centers, experts, etc.),
usage of different means of communication and inter-institutional
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