Like other Oto-manguean languages, the Mazatecan languages are tonal. Because tone is so important in the phonology of the language, these languages are particularly well suited to be whistled.

The name Mazateco is an exonym and comes from Nahuatl, meaning "deer people". The Mazatec people refer to themselves in their own language(s) as Ha shuta Enima (or other variants), meaning approximately "workers of the mountains, humble people of custom".

The ISO 639-3 standard enumerates eight Mazatecan languages, which it calls

*Mazatec, Ayautla

*Mazatec, Chiquihuitlán

*Mazatec, Huautla

*Mazatec, Ixcatlán

*Mazatec, Jalapa de Díaz

*Mazatec, Mazatlán

*Mazatec, San Jerónimo Tecóatl

*Mazatec, Soyaltepec

Studies of mutual intelligibility between certain Mazatec-speaking communities revealed that some understand as little as 35% with others. The differences have certainly been sufficient to suggest that literacy programs must recognize local varieties.

In 2005 there were 206,559 speakers of Mazatecan languages according to INEGI Approximately 80% of these speakers know and use Spanish for some purposes. However, many Mazatec children know little or no Spanish when they enter school.

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Notes

References

• Mazateco Rosetta Project Entry
• SIL Ethnologue entry for the Mazatecan Languages
• Mazatec Languages - Some notes on two of the Mazatecan dialects plus numbers in three others.
• Eloxochitlán Mazatec ('Én Ngixó)