North America

General American

also: Standard American English

The broad accent associated with national US broadcasting and most of the inland north and west. A reference point rather than a single regional variety.

Southern American English

also: Southern Drawl

The dialects of the US South, characterised by the Southern Vowel Shift, the pin-pen merger, and a distinct lexical tradition.

Canadian English

The English of English-speaking Canada. Closer to General American than to British English in most features, but with its own vocabulary and the well-known Canadian raising.

African American Vernacular English

also: AAVE, Black English, Ebonics

A widespread English variety with a coherent grammatical system, including aspectual habitual "be" and the zero copula. Spoken across the African American community throughout the United States.

New York English

also: NYC English, New Yorkese

The English of New York City and surrounding areas. Marked by the famous tense-lax split of short-a, raised /ɔ/, and (historically) non-rhoticity.

Eastern New England English

also: Boston English

The traditional English of Boston and eastern New England. Non-rhotic in conservative speech, with the cot-caught merger and the famously Boston-broad short-a.

Appalachian English

The English of the Appalachian mountains across West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and western North Carolina. Preserves several archaic Scotch-Irish features lost in other US varieties.

Cajun English

The English of the Cajun communities of southern Louisiana, descended from generations of French-English bilingualism. Distinguished by intonation, vowel realisations, and lexical borrowings from Cajun French.

Chicano English

also: Mexican-American English

A native English variety spoken in Mexican-American communities of the US Southwest, particularly Los Angeles. Despite its name, most speakers are monolingual English speakers.

Hawaiian Pidgin

also: Hawaii Creole English, Pidgin

An English-based creole that emerged on the plantations of Hawaiʻi in the late 19th century. Now native to a substantial share of the Hawaiʻi-born population, with influences from Hawaiian, Portuguese, Cantonese, and Japanese.

Newfoundland English

also: Newfie English

The most distinctive variety of Canadian English, descended from 17th- and 18th-century West Country and Hiberno-English settlers. Strongly divergent from mainland Canadian English in vowels and grammar.

Mexican Spanish

The most widely spoken Spanish variety in the world. Heavily shaped by Nahuatl and other indigenous languages, especially in lexicon, and exported widely through Mexican film and music.

Central American Spanish

The Spanish of Central America, centred on Guatemala City. Linguistically transitional between Mexican and Caribbean varieties, with widespread voseo verb forms.

Northern Mexican Spanish

also: Norteño Spanish

The Spanish of northern Mexico, centred on Monterrey and Chihuahua. Distinct from central Mexican Spanish in vowel realisation, intonation, and a distinct lexicon shaped by long contact with US English.

Yucatec Spanish

also: Yucatecan Spanish, Español yucateco

The Spanish of the Yucatán peninsula. Heavily shaped by contact with Yucatec Maya, with distinctive intonation, glottalised stops, and a substantial Mayan-derived lexicon.

Chicano Spanish

also: Mexican-American Spanish, US Spanish

The Spanish of Mexican-American communities across the US Southwest. Diverse and bilingual; shaped by long contact with English and characterised by code-switching (Spanglish).

Cuban-American Spanish

also: Miami Spanish

The Spanish of the Cuban-American community of Florida, especially Miami. A Caribbean Spanish variety with substantial English contact features and a distinctive bilingual code-switching register.

Quebec French

also: Québécois, Joual

The dominant French variety of Canada. Strongly distinct from European French in vowel realisation, lexicon, and the colloquial Joual register.

Acadian French

The French of the Maritime provinces, especially New Brunswick. Preserves several 17th-century features lost in both Quebec and Metropolitan French.

Cajun French

also: Louisiana French, Français cadien

The French of the Cajun communities of southern Louisiana, descended from 18th-century Acadian settlers expelled from the Maritimes. Endangered, with active revitalisation through CODOFIL and the Louisiana French immersion programme.

Franco-Ontarian

also: Ontario French, Français ontarien

The French of the historic Francophone communities of Ontario, especially around Sudbury, Ottawa, and the Northern shore. Closely related to Quebec French but with stronger English contact features.

Métis French

also: Mitchif Français, Prairie French

The French variety of the Métis Nation of the Canadian Prairies. Distinct from Quebec and Acadian French; not to be confused with Michif, the mixed Cree-French language of the same communities.

ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi

also: Hawaiian

The indigenous Polynesian language of the Hawaiian Islands. Co-official with English in Hawaiʻi and the focus of an ongoing revitalisation movement after near-extinction in the 20th century.

Diné Bizaad

also: Navajo

A Southern Athabaskan (Na-Dené) language spoken across the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The most-spoken Indigenous language north of Mexico, with around 170,000 speakers.

Plains Cree

also: Nēhiyawēwin, y-dialect Cree

The westernmost Cree variety, spoken across Saskatchewan and Alberta. The most populous Cree dialect and the basis of much published Cree literature.

Swampy Cree

also: n-dialect Cree, Maskēkowīhew

The Cree of the Hudson Bay lowlands across northern Manitoba and Ontario. Distinguished from Plains Cree by the use of /n/ where Plains Cree has /j/.

Eastern Cree

also: Iyiyiw-Iyimiwin, James Bay Cree

The Cree varieties of Quebec and Labrador, including the James Bay and Atikamekw communities. The Cree dialect cluster with the most active language-revitalisation infrastructure.

Central Ojibwe

also: Anishinaabemowin, Chippewa

The largest Ojibwe variety, spoken across Ontario, Manitoba, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. An Algonquian language with a continuous oral tradition and recent literary growth.

Odawa

also: Ottawa, Nishnaabemwin

The Ojibwe variety of Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula. Distinguished from Central Ojibwe by extensive vowel syncope and a distinct pronoun system.

Lakota

also: Lakȟótiyapi, Teton Sioux

A Western Siouan language spoken across the Sioux nations of the Great Plains, with major communities at Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Standing Rock. Distinct from Dakota in core vocabulary and pronouns.

Dakota

also: Dakhótiyapi, Santee-Sisseton

The eastern Siouan language closely related to Lakota. Spoken by the Santee, Sisseton-Wahpeton, and Yankton communities across Minnesota, the Dakotas, and southern Manitoba.

Eastern Cherokee

also: Kituwah, Tsalagi (Eastern Band)

The Cherokee of the Eastern Band in western North Carolina. Descended from the communities that escaped the 1838 Trail of Tears removal; spoken in the Qualla Boundary.

Western Cherokee

also: Otali, Cherokee Nation

The Cherokee of Oklahoma, descended from the communities forcibly removed from the Southeast in 1838. The basis of the modern Cherokee Nation's language programme and the Cherokee syllabary press.

Inuktitut

also: Eastern Canadian Inuktitut

The Inuit language of Nunavut and Nunavik. The largest Eastern Canadian Inuit variety and one of Nunavut's official languages, written in the Inuktitut syllabary.

Inuvialuktun

also: Western Canadian Inuit

The Inuit language of the Inuvialuit communities of the western Canadian Arctic. Smaller than Inuktitut and historically split between three sub-varieties: Sallirmiutun, Uummarmiutun, and Kangiryuarmiutun.

Kalaallisut

also: West Greenlandic, Greenlandic

The West Greenlandic standard and the official language of Greenland. The most-spoken Inuit variety, with continuous use in education, literature, and media.

Tunumiisut

also: East Greenlandic

The Inuit language of east Greenland, centred on Tasiilaq. So divergent from West Greenlandic in pronunciation and lexicon that the two are barely mutually intelligible; often classified as a separate language.

Inuktun

also: Polar Eskimo, Avanersuarmiutut

The Inuit language of north-western Greenland around Qaanaaq, the world's northernmost Indigenous language community. Linguistically closer to Canadian Inuktitut than to Kalaallisut.

Central Alaskan Yupʼik

also: Yugtun

The largest Yupʼik language, spoken across south-western Alaska. A sister language to Inuktitut within the Eskaleut family, with around 10,000 speakers.

Greenlandic Danish

The Danish of Greenland, co-official with Kalaallisut. Used widely in administration and education; carries some contact features from Kalaallisut.

Yucatec Maya

also: Maya, Mayaʼ tʼaan

The most-spoken Mayan language, used across the Yucatán peninsula by around 800,000 people. Direct linguistic descendant of the language used in the Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Classic period.

Kʼicheʼ

also: Quiché

The largest Mayan language of Guatemala, spoken across the western highlands. The language of the Popol Vuh, the foundational K'ichean creation epic.

Qʼeqchiʼ

also: Kekchi

A K'ichean Mayan language spoken in central Guatemala and southern Belize. The fastest-growing Mayan language, expanding across former Q'eqchi'-monolingual territory.

Mam

A Mamean Mayan language spoken across the western highlands of Guatemala and adjacent parts of Chiapas, Mexico. Around 600,000 speakers.

Nahuatl

also: Mexicano, Nawatlahtolli

The largest Uto-Aztecan language, spoken across central Mexico by around 1.6 million people. The language of the Aztec Empire, with literary records in Latin script since the 16th century.

Hopi

A Northern Uto-Aztecan language of the Hopi people of north-eastern Arizona. Around 5,000 speakers; the language famously analysed by Whorf in his work on linguistic relativity.

Shoshone

A Numic Uto-Aztecan language of the Great Basin, spoken by Shoshone communities across Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California.

Choctaw

also: Chahta anumpa

A Muskogean language with two surviving communities — the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, descendants of the Trail-of-Tears removal. Around 10,000 speakers.

Muscogee (Creek)

also: Mvskoke

A Muskogean language of the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations of Oklahoma and Florida. The historical lingua franca of the Southeastern Indigenous confederacy before forced removal.

Chickasaw

also: Chikashshanompa

A Muskogean language of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. Closely related to Choctaw; critically endangered with active revitalisation through the Chickasaw Nation Language Department.

Western Apache

also: Ndee biyáti

A Southern Athabaskan (Na-Dené) language of east-central Arizona, closely related to Navajo. Around 14,000 speakers across the White Mountain and San Carlos Apache reservations.

Tlingit

also: Lingít

A Na-Dené language of the Tlingit people of south-eastern Alaska and adjacent British Columbia and Yukon. Famous for its complex consonant system, including ejective fricatives.

Miʼkmaq

also: Mikmawisimk

An Eastern Algonquian language of the Miʼkmaq Nation across the Maritime provinces of Canada, Quebec, and Newfoundland, plus eastern Maine. Around 8,000 speakers, with a long oral and hieroglyphic tradition.

Blackfoot

also: Siksiká

A Plains Algonquian language of the Blackfoot Confederacy across southern Alberta and northern Montana. Around 5,000 speakers; one of the most divergent Algonquian languages.

Cheyenne

also: Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse

A Plains Algonquian language of the Northern and Southern Cheyenne tribes, in Montana and Oklahoma. Around 1,700 speakers; subject of substantial linguistic documentation since the 19th century.

Lushootseed

also: Puget Salish

A Salishan language of the Coast Salish peoples around Puget Sound in western Washington. Critically endangered; subject of an active revitalisation through the Tulalip and Muckleshoot tribes.

Halkomelem

also: Hulʼqʼumiʼnumʼ

A Coast Salishan language of the lower Fraser river valley and southeastern Vancouver Island. Around 200 fluent speakers across Upriver, Downriver, and Island dialect groups.

Kwakʼwala

also: Kwakiutl

The largest Wakashan language, of the Kwakwakaʼwakw peoples on northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent BC mainland. Famous to anthropology through Franz Boas's field documentation.

Nuu-chah-nulth

also: Nootka

A Wakashan language of the western coast of Vancouver Island. Internally diverse across 14 Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations; central to the early study of Pacific Northwest art and music.