Otomi Language - History - Current Speaker Demography and Vitality

Current Speaker Demography and Vitality

Currently, Otomi dialects are spoken by circa 239,000 speakers — some 5 to 6 percent of whom are monolingual — in widely scattered districts (see map). The highest concentration of speakers is found in the Valle de Mezquital region of Hidalgo and in the southern portion of Querétaro, where some municipalities have concentrations of Otomi speakers as high as 60–70%. Because of recent migratory patterns, small populations of Otomi speakers can be found in new locations throughout Mexico and in the United States. In the second half of the 20th century speaker populations began to increase again, although at a slower pace than the general population, so that while absolute numbers of Otomi speakers continue to increase, their numbers relative to the rest of the Mexican population are falling.

Although Otomi is vigorous in some areas, with children acquiring the language through natural transmission (e.g. in the Mezquital valley and in the Highlands), overall it is an endangered language. Three dialects in particular have reached moribund status: those of Ixtenco (Tlaxcala state), Santiago Tilapa (Mexico state), and Cruz del Palmar (Guanajuato state). On the other hand, the level of monolingualism in Otomi is as high as 22.3% in Huehuetla, Hidalgo, and 13.1% in Texcatepec, Veracruz). Monolingualism is normally significantly higher among women than among men. Due to the politics from the 1920s to the 1980s that encouraged the "Hispanification" of indigenous communities and made Spanish the only language used in schools, no group of Otomi speakers today has general literacy in Otomi, while their literacy rate in Spanish remains far below the national average.