Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas

Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI)
The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) or (The National Institute for Indigenous Languages) is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March, 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law of Indigenous Peoples' Linguistic Rights) by the administration of President Vicente Fox Quesada. It is a decentralized agency of the Federal Public Administration, attached to the Secretariat of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, or SEP). Its supreme organ is the National Council, of which the Secretary of Public Education serves as president, with a Director General in charge of its day-to-day activities.

INALI works to promote and protect the use of Mexico's indigenous languages, which it divides into 68 living "linguistic groups" and hundreds of "linguistic varieties". While many of the "groups" have traditionally been considered single languages, INALI recommends that the "varieties" be considered as separate languages in all matters of justice, education, health, and civil administration or information. One of INALI's main tasks is to prevent the disappearance and extinction of indigenous languages that have survived from pre-Hispanic times.



Each year INALI publishes a catalogue of indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, officially, Catalogo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales: Variantes Lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones  y referencias geoestadísticas (Catalogue of the Nacional Indigenous Languages: Linguistic Varieties of Mexico with their Self-Appeltations and Geo-Statistical References), a useful resource for statistical information on the number, age, and regional location of indigenous language speakers in Mexico, indicating the usage of each language on a yearly basis. '''

INALI also funds and directs pograms across Mexico that support local indigenous language activism, hosts annual conferences and seminars, and has established an acredited diploma granting program in the state of Nayarit for the teaching of indigenous language interpreters.

Links for INALI
Webiste for the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas