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Language Lineage

Huastecan

The first branch to leave, and the only Mayan language far from the Maya area: Huastec (Teenek) is spoken hundreds of kilometres north of any other Mayan language.

c. 2nd millennium BCE – presentThe Huasteca on the Gulf coast of Mexico (Veracruz and San Luis Potosí); Chicomuseltec in Chiapas
On this page
  1. Far to the North
  2. Teenek Today
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points

01

Far to the North

Huastec, whose speakers call it Teenek, is spoken in the Huasteca region of the Mexican Gulf coast, separated from all other Mayan languages by Nahuatl- and Totonac-speaking areas. It split from the rest of Mayan earliest, and how its speakers came to be so far north is not known: they may have moved up the coast, or the Mayan languages in between may have been replaced.

Its closest relative, Chicomuseltec, was spoken in Chiapas near the Guatemalan border and became extinct in the late 20th century. Huastec itself is still spoken by around 170,000 people, and in the 15th century the Huastec region was conquered by the Aztecs and absorbed many Nahuatl loanwords.

02

Teenek Today

Huastec, or Teenek, is spoken in two main areas: the eastern part of the state of San Luis Potosí, around towns such as Tancanhuitz and Aquismón, and northern Veracruz, around Tantoyuca. The two varieties differ enough in sounds and vocabulary to be treated as separate dialects, and some classifications count them as separate languages. Mexico's 2020 census recorded about 170,000 speakers aged three and over.

Over three thousand years of separation have made Huastec the most divergent Mayan language. It has lost the uvular stops of Proto-Mayan, merging them with k, and it has developed rounded velar consonants, kw and k'w, found nowhere else in the family. Its vocabulary also carries the marks of long contact with Nahuatl, whose speakers share the Huasteca region.

Since 2003 Huastec has been one of Mexico's recognised national languages under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and it is taught in bilingual primary schools. As elsewhere, children increasingly grow up speaking Spanish, and language shift is more advanced in some communities than in others.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Mexicoc. 170,000

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Splitc. 2nd millennium BCEContested

    To the Gulf coast

    The ancestors of the Huastec separate from the other Mayan speakers and end up on the northern Gulf coast. The route and the date are unknown, and glottochronological estimates are unreliable.

    Sources (1)
    • Kaufman, Terrence. 1976. Archaeological and linguistic correlations in Mayaland and associated areas of Meso-America. World Archaeology 8(1).
  2. Contact15th century onward

    Aztec conquest and Nahuatl

    The Aztec empire conquers the Huasteca, and Nahuatl becomes a neighbouring and administrative language. Huastec absorbs Nahuatl vocabulary, and Nahuatl-speaking communities settle within the region.

    Sources (1)
    • Aissen, Judith, Nora C. England & Roberto Zavala Maldonado, eds. 2017. The Mayan Languages. London: Routledge.
  3. ExtinctionLate 20th century

    Chicomuseltec falls silent

    Chicomuseltec, the only other Huastecan language, loses its last speakers in Chiapas. It is documented only in short word lists and notes.

    Sources (1)
    • Campbell, Lyle & Terrence Kaufman. 1985. Mayan linguistics: Where are we now? Annual Review of Anthropology 14.