1. Triqui
There are about 25,000 speakers of Triqui, with most of the speakers being indigenous people of the western part of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is also spoken in Baja California; native speakers are typically ethnically Trique. Somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 Triqui speakers have immigrated to the US, with communities in California, New York, and Washington state. There are four major varieties for Triqui: Triqui Bajo, Triqui Alto, Triqui Media, and Triqui de Copala with Triqui de Copala having the most speakers. There are also Triqui-language radio programs based in San Quintin, Baja California, and XETLA (an indigenous community radio station).

2. Mixteco
This is another Oto-Manguean set of languages, and is spoken by about 530,000 people from Oaxaca, Peubla, and Geurrero, Mexico. Immigrants from these areas can typically be found in New York, Arizona, and throughout California such as Baja, San Diego. Though people might think of Mixteco as a single language, some estimate that there are thirty or fifty variations of the language. Typically when they speak to each other though, they use Spanish, so even if they do not speak the same variation, they can communicate with each other.

3. Zapotec
Zapotec has about 490,000 native speakers with the majority of speakers in the United States based in California and New Jersey. The Mexican government officially recognizes sixty Zapotec dialects, and since there can be so much variance between them, it can be difficult for different dialect speakers to understand each other. However, most Zapotec speakers know Spanish as well, so they are still able to communicate with each other.

4. Purepecha/Tarasco
This is an indigenous language that is centered in the northwestern region of Michoacan, Mexico with a total population of about 141,177. In the United States, you can find most speakers in California, Oregon, and Washington. Purepecha is considered an endangered language due to the rate of speakers becoming bilingual rising with less than 10% of speakers being monolingual. Tarasco is another name for Purepecha, which comes from the fact that Tarasca is an exonym for Purepecha culture.

5. Nahuatl
This is a language where most of the speakers are in Central Mexico, but there are speakers of the language in the United States as well, primarily in California where it is the fourth indigenous language of Mexico, trailing Mixteco, Zapotec, and Triqui. The communities that speak the languages are mostly scattered and in rural areas, but there are over a million speakers, most of whom are Mexican immigrants from indigenous communities and Chicanos. Overall though, the exact number of speakers is unknown.

6. Chatino
Similarly, Chatino is another subset within Oto-Manguean languages, and it also originates from Oaxaca, Mexico. Chatino is at a high risk of disappearance, with between 30,000 and 45,000 native speakers. There are three languages that are a part of Chatino: Zenzontepec, Tataltepec, and Easter Chatino. Overall, the Chatinos have cultural and linguistic ties with Zapotec and is recognized as a national language in Mexico.

What moves Monterey Language Services forward every day is exactly this: providing translation and interpretation services to serve local, national, and global communities.

Community interpreting in a very basic sense already involves a lot of different settings, including public hearings, community workshops, doctors’ visits, parent school meetings, legal communications between lawyers, the court, and witnesses, and so on. Monterey Language Services serves Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito Counties and beyond.

Monterey Languages Services also covers all of California, including major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego. We also often provide services in smaller communities, like West Goshen, Alpaugh, Allensworth, Le Grand, El Centro, and many others.

Our service areas continue across the country as well, to Idaho, Texas, Michigan, Washington, D.C., New York and more. When we receive translation and interpretation requests from around the globe, for example from Italy, Japan, Korea, Latin and South America, it’s a real thrill and creates a great sense of contributing to global communication! Our role and mission in this profession have been completely fulfilled.

At Monterey Language Services, translation and interpretation services are offered in all languages, so we can always help make sure communication happens between people who need it. When we serve communities, we believe it’s our responsibility to send the best interpreters possible, based on their skill, experience, credentials, professionalism, and passion to serve.

It’s human nature that people are community-minded, and we all want to cooperate and serve to work towards a better world. That’s why we treasure each and every opportunity to serve communities, and it’s an honor to do what we are doing as a service provider of translation and interpretation!

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages. Please feel free to request a quote from us.