The Otomanguean (also spelled Oto-Manguean) language
superfamily (often called
stock) includes about thirty major
indigenous Latin American languages (and many more minor languages and dialects.) This family extends throughout
Mexico and into
Nicaragua. Like most Mesoamerican language families, the name Otomanguean comes from combining its northern-most language,
Otomí with its southern-most language,
Mangue.
Because this is a super-family, like
Indo-European, there is a lot of variety within the languages, and generalizations are difficult. However, one interesting feature is that (almost?) all Otomanguean languages are
tonal.
Most languages in this family are
endangered, meaning that there are fewer children learning the languages than there are speakers of it dying, though there are still 261,000 speakers of Otomanguean languages. Many of the languages are
moribund, where children are not learning the language and the language will likely be
dead within another generation or two.
Field linguists are working to preserve these languages, while it is still possible.
The major Otomanguean families are:
References:
Summer Institute of Linguistics. http://www.sil.org/mexico/24i-Population.htm
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/la_langs.html