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to accept that they have a common language. The only
                  way to determine the number of languages there are
                  and where they are spoken is to carry out a detailed
                  sociolinguistic study.

                  Mazahua and Pame consist of two languages and Zapotec
                  of as many as forty. This illustrates that, in general, what
                  was previously defined as a language with
                  a name occupied since colonial times, i.e.     commitment
                                                                 (n.): compromiso
                  Mixtec or Totonac, is in reality a family of languages.
                  The constituents of these language families often
                  go unnamed. In a sense, INALI’s commitment to
                  the protection of languages has resulted in over-
                  differentiation and to the classific tion of dialects as
                  separate languages. This needs to be kept in mind
                  when looking at the maps in this Atlas because in many
                  cases we have used the names provided by INALI.

                  The language classific tion in Campbell (1997) is
                  what INALI uses.However, instead of what linguists
                  consider a stock, the term "language family" is used.
                  "Linguistic group" is substituted for what linguists would
                  normally call a family, and "language or language
                  variety" replaces what linguists would call languages
                  or transformed dialects. The classific tions have been
                  determined as 11 stocks, or "language families", 68
                  families, or "linguistic groups" and 364 languages or
                  transformed dialects, or "varieties".

                  The INALI publications we’ve mentioned above and an
                  unpublished INALI article form the basis of the research
                  that was undertaken for this Atlas. The unpublished
                  article includes both the number of adult
                  and child speakers of a given language.          undertaken
                                                                    Glossary on
                                                                    page 86


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