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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Nearly 60 percent of Mexico’s original languages ​​are at risk of disappearing due to the government’s disinterest in defending them, globalization and the lack of a budget to protect cultural heritage and linguistics, a group of representatives of indigenous organizations warned Monday, Feb. 14.

Of the more than 7,000 languages currently spoken worldwide, half are under threat of disappearance or extinction, Mexico’s Pluralidad Indígena said in a press release to announce the 10th International Indigenous Forum, slated to take place Monday, Feb. 21, the International Day of Mother Languages.

Mexico currently has 68 languages, with 364 linguistic variants.

Pluralidad Indigena said that, according to data from the 2020 population and housing census, there are now 7.4 million people in Mexico age 3 and above who speak an indigenous language, the most widely spoken being Nahuatl, with 1.725 million speakers, followed by Mayan, with 859,000 speakers.

But within the next 10 years, Pluralidad Indigena said that the number of indigenous language speakers could drop by 60 percent.