World Language Map

Where is Kwak'wala spoken?

Kwak'wala is a Wakashan language, spoken in Canada. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

Tap or scroll to load the interactive map

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.

Where Kwak'wala is spoken

Kwak'wala is spoken in one country: Canada.

Country
Canada

Kwak'wala has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Kwak'wala?

Wikidata gives about 500 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2011). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Moribund. Glottolog lists it as moribund: the youngest speakers are middle-aged or older, and children are no longer learning it.

Where Kwak'wala sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Kwak'wala as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Wakashan
  2. Northern Wakashan
  3. Kwakiutlan
  4. Kwak'wala

Related languages

Other languages in the Kwakiutlan group:

More about Kwak'wala

Codes: ISO 639-3 kwk, Glottolog kwak1269. Glottolog macroarea: North America.

Questions about Kwak'wala

Where is Kwak'wala spoken?

Kwak'wala is spoken in Canada. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Kwak'wala?

Wikidata gives about 500 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2011). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Kwak'wala in?

Glottolog places Kwak'wala in the Wakashan family, in the branch Northern Wakashan and Kwakiutlan.

Embed this map

Copy this code into your web page. It is free to use. Please keep the link under the map, as it is how people find where the map comes from.