World Language Map

Salishan languages map

12 Salishan languages are on the map, most of them in Canada and United States. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Interior Salish (7 languages). The best-known members include Thompson, Halkomelem and Comox. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Salishan family at a glance

  • 12languages
  • 6drawn as areas
  • 6shown as points
  • 2main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Salishan alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Salishan languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Thompson spoken? (about 440 speakers)
  2. Where is Halkomelem spoken? (about 285 speakers)
  3. Where is Comox spoken? (about 40 speakers)
  4. Where is Coeur d'Alene spoken? (about 4 speakers)
  5. Where is Squamish spoken? (about 1 speakers)

Branches of Salishan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Interior Salish (7)
  • Coast Salish (4)

Where Salishan languages are spoken

Countries with the most Salishan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 12 Salishan languages, A to Z

Questions about Salishan languages

How many Salishan languages are there?

12 living Salishan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Interior Salish (7 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Salishan languages spoken?

Canada (9) and United States (5) have the most Salishan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Salishan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Thompson (about 440), Halkomelem (about 285) and Comox (about 40). These figures differ between sources and years.

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