Zapotec

The Zapotec languages are a group of around 50 closely related indigenous Mesoamerican languages that constitute a main branch of the Oto-Manguean language family, spoken by the Zapotec people of the southwestern-central highlands of Mexico. A 2020 census reported nearly half a million speakers, most in the state of Oaxaca, with further Zapotec-speaking communities in the neighboring states of Puebla, Veracruz and Guerrero and, through labor migration, in the United States, particularly California and New Jersey. Most Zapotec-speaking communities are highly bilingual in Spanish.