Language Families
Native American languages do not belong to a single Amerindian family, but 25-30 small ones; they are usually discussed together because of the small numbers of natives speaking most of these languages and how little is known about many of them. There are around 25 million native speakers of the more than 800 surviving Amerind languages. The vast majority of these speakers live in Central and South America, where language use is vigorous. In Canada and the United States, only about half a million native speakers of an Amerind tongue remain.