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n recent publication of National Population Council (Conapo), The demographic situation of Mexico 202512 articles are included that privilege the analysis of issues related to indigenous communities, in order to expand knowledge, guide public policies aimed at this population and vindicate the historical role of indigenous women in the Year of the Indigenous Women.
In a previous collaboration I summarized one of the sections, the one that addresses indigenous feminicide. On this occasion I present the article “Women speaking indigenous languages in Mexico and digital strategies in the preservation of intangible heritage”, prepared by Alberto Carrera Portugal, academic from the Humanities Coordination of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The text analyzes the precepts, projects, strategies and challenges detected in the safeguarding of indigenous languages, considering the central role that indigenous women have in its achievement, the importance that digital communication and information technologies have acquired and the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play. National and international projects and experiences are contemplated in which the capabilities of digital tools are combined in favor of the conservation of indigenous languages and the relevance of the role of indigenous women in their family and community nuclei.
Every two weeks a language disappears and takes with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage; It is estimated that there are 8,324 languages in the world and about 7,000 are still in use, hundreds have a place in educational systems and the public domain, and less than 100 are used in the digital world (Unesco). In Latin America and the Caribbean, it is estimated that there are 560 living languages, at least one in five indigenous communities has stopped using them and 26 percent of the native languages are in imminent danger of extinction (World Bank, 2019). For its part, the Regional Observatory of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples pointed out that 500 living languages in Latin America are going through a context of lesser to greater threat or risk and that 25 percent are in clear danger of disappearing. The minimum estimated population to ensure the transmission of a language from generation to generation is approximately 100 thousand speakers. Among the multiple factors of language extinction are those related to the processes of intergenerational transmission or recreation of oral traditions, human mobility, forced migration and displacement due to climatic events or violence.
In Mexico, 7.4 million people ages 3 and older are indigenous language speakers (HLI, 5.9 percent of the population); The federal entities that concentrate the highest percentages of HLI are: Oaxaca (27.3 percent), Yucatán (26.1), Chiapas (23.4), Quintana Roo (14.1) and Guerrero (13.9) (National Survey of Demographic Dynamics, Enadid, 2023). The role of indigenous women is relevant in at least two senses: as social actors with agency in promoting language rescue and preservation projects, and as citizens in the full exercise of political, social, economic and cultural rights. Nowadays, it is essential not to lose sight of the field of digital technologies (ICT) as part of the challenges. It is necessary to articulate, accompany and link the construction of the civic exercise of indigenous women with the preservation of mother tongues in the platforms and spaces configured by ICT. Currently, indigenous youth take advantage of digital tools and platforms to preserve languages at risk of disappearing: they create online dictionaries, applications and multimedia resources that they promote on social networks to connect young people with regular speakers. The National Institute of Indigenous Languages has developed materials in indigenous languages to prevent diseases and promote their use in the media and digital platforms, and the National Indigenous Languages Fair is organized, with in-person and digital activities. See the full article at https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/1019976/Libro_LSDM_2025_02sep2025-111-122.pdf.
During this year, various actions of the Women of Maíz program were developed, at the initiative of President Claudia Sheinbaum, with the aim of valuing the mother tongue as fundamental for cultural identity, as well as dismantling the lies woven around Malitzin and placing in its correct historical dimension the person who was slandered and branded as a traitor. As Jesusa Rodríguez pointed out in the presentation of the program at the Presidency of the Republic: “Malitzin, the most misunderstood interpreter in the history of Mexico (…), spoke five languages and knew how to take advantage of her gift of languages to free herself from her condition as a slave and rescue her contemporaries (…). Neither heroine nor traitor; she broke patterns to open a space previously closed to women (…). Malitzin: they wanted to steal our sun, they took the gold; they wanted “They took our souls, they took the silver; they wanted to strip us of our beauty, they didn’t find the jade or the quetzal (…) they wanted to tear out our tongues, we kept theirs.”
*Conapo technical secretary
