Research Guides: North American Indigenous Linguistics, Languages & Language Revitalization: Language Maps

Ask A Librarian

Email: libraries@colorado.edu

Description

This section of the guide highlights maps of Indigenous languages, and initiatives mapping the geographic boundaries of Indigenous language families. These digital resources can serve as starting points for language acquisition and revitalization, as well as further research development.

Featured Indigenous Language Maps

Native Land Digital
Native Land is a growing, interactive app to help map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages. This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question. You can use it directly by entering your address, or by mousing or clicking around on the map to see the relevant territories in a location. Once you click, a number of links will appear with different nation names. By clicking on those links, you will be taken to a page specifically about that nation, language, or treaty, where you can view some sources, give feedback, and learn a little more. It is created by Native Land Digital, a Canadian not-for-profit, Indigenous-led organization that is always trying to expand their resources on these pages.
Indigenous Languages of North America
Indigenous Languages of North America is a talk Jack Martin prepared for Randi Moore’s course Language Patterns, April 2020. The idea is to listen to the audio recording while scrolling through the text and maps.
Native Languages & Language Families of North America
Native Languages and Language Families of North America," compiled by Ives Goddard, is a resource detailing the linguistic diversity of Indigenous peoples in North America at the time of first contact with Europeans. It identifies major language families like Algic (Algonquin), Iroquoian, Muskogean, Siouan, Athabaskan, Uto-Aztecan, Salishan, and Eskimo-Aleut, along with numerous smaller families.
Ságastallamin: Arctic Indigenous Languages Map
The map broadly demonstrates Arctic Indigenous languages spoken by members of the Arctic Council Permanent Participant organizations (Indigenous Peoples Secretariat, 2019). The borders between the language families and locations are illustrative and not entirely precise. Most languages are written in English and not in their traditional orthographies. Different dialects are marked in italics to demonstrate diversity within languages. The present map is under further improvement with the help of a network of linguists and Indigenous language experts. The goal is to create a comprehensive online educational resource.
National Atlas of Indigenous Tribes, Cultures & Languages

Mapping Indigenous Languages around the World

First Languages Map of British Columbia
British Columbia is home to 204 First Nations communities and an amazing diversity of Indigenous languages; approximately 50% of the First Peoples’ languages of Canada are spoken in B.C. To access information on all the First Nations languages and communities in B.C., use the search bar at the top of the page or click on any of the tabs below. Please note that language boundaries overlap because of interactions between speakers of neighbouring languages. Overlapping language boundaries do not necessarily reflect territory overlap.
Council of Yukon First Nations: Languages
According to oral tradition, the Yukon First Nation peoples have lived in this land since Crow, a mythological creature of the time, made the world and set it in order. Archeologists calculate that the first humans inhabited the Yukon more than 10,000 years ago, crossing the Bering land bridge, from Asia. Today, the First Nations peoples belong to the Athapaskan or Tlingit language families.

Indigenous Peoples & Languages of Alaska
This map shows the indigenous language regions of Alaska. Related languages of neighboring Canada and Russia are also shown. The language boundaries represent traditional territories at approximately 1900, though some shifts in language boundaries have occurred since that time. Boundaries are defined based on the similarity of sound systems and the ability of speakers from different regions to understand each other.
California Language Maps
A selection of maps of California languages, both contemporary and historical, curated by the California Language Archive, housed in the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

First Languages Map of Australia
First Languages Australia is working with regional language centres nationally to develop a map of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages that reflects the names and groupings favoured by community.
Paman Languages of Cape York
There are around 149 language varieties in Cape York Peninsula, belonging to 55 language variety groups. As you will notice, some language variety groups are named, but most of them are identified simply by a number. The language varieties of Cape York Peninsula belong to the Paman language group, named after the word for “person” – “pama” – forms of which these languages all share. Paman languages are members of a larger family called Pama-Nyungan. The Pama-Nyungan language family covers 90 per cent of the continent excluding northern NT and the Kimberley. It is now known that all Australian languages are related. All Cape York Peninsula languages are shifting and most are imminently endangered.
Sámi Languages and Dialects Map | Nordregio
This map shows the traditional catchment areas of the various Sámi languages. The current language situation, defined by national law, is also included. Estimates of the number of Sámi people by language are further divided by language skills.
Mapping Sámi Languages
The map shows Sápmi, the territory inhabited by the Sámi, the Indigenous peoples of Northern Europe. Their homeland encompasses the Lapland region in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Kola peninsula in Russia. The choropleth map aims to show the different Sámi languages in a simple way using the traditional Sámi colors. Also, it presents the municipalities where their language is officially recognized and important point features showing Sámi settlements, cultural centers, and the locations of the Sámi parliaments.
1909 Linguistic Map of Mexico and Central America
Unlike our other web map indexes, this web app features one intricate 1909 Linguistic Map of Mexico and Central America. This historic map depicts over 90 Indigenous languages throughout the entirety of Mexico and Central America. It was created to document the location and span of as many Indigenous languages as the project surveyors could pinpoint.