M

Ancient Macedonian
Was the tongue of the Ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedon during the 1st millennium BC, and is believed to have disappeared some time before the start of the Common Era. It is believed to have been spoken predominantly in the inland regions away from the coast. It is as yet undetermined whether the language was a separate yet sibling language which was most closely related to Greek, a dialect of Greek or an independent Indo-European language not especially close to Greek.

Macedonian
Is a language in the Eastern group of South Slavic languages and is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia. It is also officially recognized in the District of Korçë in Albania. Macedonian is also spoken in Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and in the Macedonian diaspora in Western Europe, North America and Australia.

Macedo-Romanian
Is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians. It was formed after the Romanization of the Balkans and shares many features with Romanian, having similar grammar and morphology. The most important dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the vocabulary, which in the case of the former has been influenced to a greater extent by its neighbouring Slavic languages, while Aromanian has borrowed much vocabulary from the Greek language with which it has been in close contact throughout its history.

Magadhi
(Also known as Magahi) is a language spoken in India. Magadhi is closely related to Bhojpuri and Maithili and these languages are sometimes referred to as a single language, Bihari. These languages, together with several other related languages, are known as the Bihari languages, which form a sub-group of the Eastern Zone group of Indo-Aryan languages. Magadhi has approximately 13 million speakers. It is spoken primarily spoken in the Magadh area of Bihar state. This area includes Patna, Gaya, Nalanda, and other surrounding districts. It is also spoken in some areas of Hazaribagh, Giridih, Palamau, Munger, and Bhagalpur, with some speakers in the Malda District of West Bengal. It is generally written using Devanagari script.

Maguindanaon
Is an Austronesian language spoken by majority of the population of Maguindanao Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken by sizable minorities in different parts of Mindanao such as the cities of Zamboanga, Davao, and General Santos, and the provinces of North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, Sarangani, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga-Sibugay, as well as metropolitan Manila in the National Capital Region.

Mahicans
(Also Mohicans) are a Native American tribe who were living in and around the Hudson Valley at the time of their first contact with Europeans in 1609. Over the next hundred years, tensions between the Mahicans and the Mohawks as well as the Europeans caused the Mahicans to migrate eastward; many settled in what would eventually become the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. For this reason this group of Mahicans has also frequently been known as the Stockbridge Indians. The now extinct Mahican language belonged to the Eastern Algonquian branch of the Algonquian language family.

Mahl
Also known locally as Maliku Bas, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the people of Minicoy (Maliku), India. It is very similar to (and mutually intelligible with) Dhivehi, the official language of Maldives, but differentiated in name for political reasons. Linguists agree that Mahl is an Indo-Aryan language closely related to Hindi, Marathi and its most closest sister is Sinhalese. Dhivehi represents the southernmost Indo-Aryan language and even the southern most Indo-European language. Together with the closely related Sinhalese, Mahl (Divehi) establishes a special sub group within the West and Southwest group of the Modern Indo-Aryan languages.

Maithili
Is of the family of Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal. It is considered by many to be a dialect of Hindi, and thus not a separate language. Nevertheless, a movement to give the language official status in the Indian Constitution so that it could be used in education, government, and other official contexts, resulted in Maithili being given official status in 2003.

Makassar
(Sometimes spelled Makasar or Macassar) is both a language and a writing system used by the people in South Sulawesi island (Celebes) in Indonesia. The Makassar language is a member of the Austronesian language family, and closely related to Buginese. Although Makassarese is now often written with the Roman alphabet, it is still widely written in its own distinctive script, also called Lontara, which once was used also to write important documents in Bugis and Mandar, two related language from Sulawesi.

Makhuwa-Meetto
(Also known as Meto or Imeetto) is a Bantu language spoken by about 800,000 people in northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. It is a member of the Makhuwa group (P.30 in Guthrie's classification).

Makua
Is a Bantu language spoken by 5 million Makua people, who live north of the Zambezi River in Mozambique. It is the most important indigenous language of Mozambique.

Malagasy
Is the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, spoken on Madagascar, where it is an official language. The Malagasy language is related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The name Malagasy is also used to refer to the indigenous people of Madagascar, who make up some 36 tribes and are of mixed Indonesian and African descent.

Malay
Also known locally as Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, and parts of the coast of Borneo. It is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. It is also used as a working language in East Timor. It is very similar to (and mutually intelligible with) Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, but differentiated in name for political reasons. The official standard for Malay, as agreed upon by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, is the form spoken in the Riau Islands just south of Singapore, long considered the birthplace of the Malay language.

Malayalam
Is the language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, spoken by around 30 million people. A native speaker of Malayalam is called a "Malayalee" (or sometimes a "Keraleeyan" or "Keralite"). Malayalam is also spoken in the Lakshadweep Islands of India. It belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. Both the language and its writing system are closely related to Tamil. Malayalam has a script of its own.

Malaysian Sign Language
Or Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia (BIM), is the sign language in every day use in many parts of Malaysia. MSL has many dialects, differing from state to state. American Sign Language (ASL) has had a strong influence on MSL, but the two are different enough to be considered separate languages. Other sign languages in use in Malaysia are Penang Sign Language (PSL), Selangor Sign Language (SSL or KLSL), and Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia or Manually Coded Malay (KTBM), and Chinese Sign Languages.

Maldivian
Is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 300,000 people in the Republic of Maldives where it is the official language of the country and in the island of Minicoy (Maliku) in neighbouring India where it is known as Mahl. Dhivehi is thought to be a descendent of Maharashtri, one of the Prakrit languages which developed from Sanskrit. Dhivehi is closely related to Sinhala. Many languages have influenced the development of Dhivehi through the ages, Arabic being one of the main ones. Others include Sinhala, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, French, Persian, Portuguese, and English.

Maltese
Is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It is the national language of Malta, and an official language of the European Union. It is derived from, and most closely related to, Arabic. Apart from its phonology, Maltese bears considerable similarity to urban varieties of Tunisian Arabic. Maltese also shares similarities with other North African Arabic dialects; however in the course of Malta's recent history, the language has adopted many loanwords, and even phonetic and phonological features, from Southern Italian, Sicilian, and English. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form. It is also the only Semitic language native to a geopolitically European country, although, geophysically, Malta is generally regarded as forming part of the African continental plate.

Malvi
Is the language of the Malwa region of India, with more than a million speakers. The language is also sometimes known as Malavi, Ujjaini, etc. Malvi is classified with the Rajasthani languages, with Nimadi, spoken in the Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh and in Rajasthan, being its closest cousin. The dialects of Malvi are, in alphabetical order, Bachadi, Bhoyari, Dholewari, Hoshangabadi, Jamral, Katiyai, Malvi Proper, Patvi, Rangari, Rangri and Sondwari. A survey in 2001 found only 4 dialects: Ujjaini (Ujjain, Indore, Dewas, Sehore districts), Rajawadi (Ratlam, Mandsaur, Neemuch districts), Umadwadi (Rajgarh district) and Sondhwadi (Jhalawar District, Rajasthan). About 55% of the population of Malwa can converse in Hindi, which is the official language of the Madhya Pradesh state, and literacy rate in second language (Hindi) is about 40%

Mam
Is a member of the Mamean branch of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by the Mam people of the highlands of western Guatemala. There are at least three major divisions in the language: Northern Mam spoken in the province of Huehuetenango, Southern Mam spoken in and around Quetzaltenango and Central Mam spoken in and around San Marcos. Because of a lack of literacy skills and interaction, the language can vary widely from village to village, even though the villages may be separated by just a few miles. Nonetheless, all native speakers of the Mam language are typically able to understand one another, though perhaps with some difficulty.

Manchu
Is a member of the Tungusic languages of Altaic family; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. However, there are about 40,000 speakers of Sibe (Xibo), which is in almost every respect identical to classical Manchu. However, Sibe speakers, who live in far western Xinjiang, are ethnically distinct from Manchus and lay claim as well to the distinctiveness of their language.

Mandaic
Is the liturgical language of the Mandaean religion; a vernacular form is still spoken by a small community in Iran around Ahwaz. It is a variety of Aramaic, notable for its use of vowel letters and the striking amount of Iranian influence in its grammar and lexicon.

Mandarin
Or Beifanghua or Guanhua is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin dialects have more speakers than any other language.

Mandinka
Is a Mandé language spoken by some 1.2 million Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau; it is the main language of The Gambia. It belongs to the Manding branch of Mandé, and is thus fairly similar to Bambara.

Meithei
(Also Manipuri, Meetei, Meitei, Meiteilon) is the predominant language and lingua-franca in the state of Manipur, in northeastern India. It is the official language in government offices. Meithei is also spoken in Assam, Bangladesh, Tripura, and Myanmar Meithei has proven to be a large integrating factor among all ethnic groups in Manipur who use it to communicate among themselves.

Mansi
Also known as Vogul language (obsolete), is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in Khantia-Mansia, along the Ob River and its tributaries, and parts of Sverdlovsk Oblast in Russia. According to the 1970 census, there were some 4,000 Mansi-speaking people in Russia.

Manx
(Gaelg or Gailck), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Goidelic language spoken on the Isle of Man. It is a descendant of Old Irish, particularly similar to the old East Ulster and Galloway dialects.

Manyika
Is a sub-dialect of the Shona language. Largely spoken by the manyika people in the eastern part of Zimbabwe and across the border in Mozambique. Manyika differs from the more predominant Zezuru dialect in a variety of small ways. Certain variations in local vocabulary and word prefixes exist. For example the prefix 'va-' (used in Shona before male names to signify seniority and respect) is instead 'sa-' in the Manyika language.

Maori
Or Te Reo Maori, commonly shortened to Te Reo (literally the language) is an official language of New Zealand. An Eastern Polynesian language, it is closely related to Tahitian and the languages of the Cook Islands; slightly less closely to Hawaiian and Marquesan; and more distantly to the languages of Western Polynesia, including Samoan, Niuean and Tongan.

Mapudungun
(Also Mapudungu, Araucano, Araukano, Mapuche, Araucanian) is a language isolate spoken in central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche (mapu is 'earth' and che means 'people') people. It is also known as Mapudungu, Araucano (the name given to the Mapuche people by the Spanish, it sometimes has a negative connotation) and Mapuche. Its speakers number 440,000, with 400,000 in the Central Valley of Chile and 40,000 in the Argentinian region of Patagonia. Some 200,000 people use the language regularly.

Maranao
Is an Austronesian language spoken in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines.

Marathi
Is one of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Maharashtrian people of Western India. It serves as the official language of the state of Maharashtra, with roughly ninety million native speakers in this state. Marathi is at least one thousand years old, and derives its grammar and syntax from the older Sanskrit. The Marathi language is also known as Maharashtri, Maharathi, Malhatee or Marthi.

Mari
Spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group and is part of the Volgaic subgroup of the Finnic languages together with Mordvin (though this relationship is contested; see Klima 2004 for discussion). It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vjatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals. Mari speakers, known as the Mari are found also in the Tatarstan, Udmurtia, and Perm regions.

Maria
Is a Dravidian language spoken in India. And also is a Manubaran language spoken in the "bird's tail" of Papua New Guinea.

Marquesan
Is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines. The North Marquesan dialects are spoken on the islands of Ua Pu and Nuku Hiva, and South Marquesan dialects on the islands of Hiva `Oa, Tahuata and Fatu Hiva.

Marshallese
Or Ebon is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Marshall Islands.

Masbatenyo
Is a Visayan language spoken by more that 600,000 people, primarily in the province of Masbate in the Philippines.

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL)
Is a sign language (now extinct), once widely used on the island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, U.S, from the early 18th century to the late 20th century. It was remarkable for its use by both deaf and hearing people in the community; consequently, deafness did not become a barrier to participation in public life. Martha's Vineyard Sign Language is also notable for the role it played in the development of American Sign Language.

Masaba
(Lumasaaba) sometimes Lugisu, after one of its dialects, is a Bantu language spoken by about 750,000 people in eastern Uganda in the administrative region of Bugisu on the border to Kenya. The language is closely related to, and mutually intelligible with Bukusu, spoken in western Kenya. Its speakers, formerly known as the Bagisu, prefer to be called Bamasaba. Masaba is the local name of Mount Elgon. Like other Bantu languages, Masaba has a large set of prefixes used as noun classifiers. This is similar to how gender is used in many Germanic and Romance languages, except that instead of the usual two or three, there is around eighteen different noun classes, most of them rather only generally defined. The language is tonal and has a quite complex verb morphology.

Mator
Or Motor is a Uralic language belonging to the southern group of the Samoyedic languages. The other Southern Samoyedic languages include Selkup and Kamassian.

Mauritian Creole
Is a creole language or dialect from Mauritius. Almost all of its vocabulary stems from French while the rest of the words come from diverse backgrounds such as English and Portuguese. It is the lingua franca of the country although standard French is widely understood and learnt. It is spoken widely by Mauritians throughout all parts of the island by all classes of people. However, for administrative purposes, the French language predominates whereas in places like Parliament, Court or academic institutions, a combination of the English and French languages is used.

Maya
May refer to:
Mayan languages, a group of related languages spoken by the Maya peoples of Mesoamerica
Yucatec Maya language, specifically, is frequently referred to simply as Maya language
Maya language (Brazil), an unclassified language of Brazil that may be related to the Panoan languages.

Mazandarani
Or Tabari is an ancient Iranian language of the northwestern branch. Spoken in Iran's Mazandaran province, it is claimed to be unintelligible with respect to Persian. Among the living Iranian languages, Mazandarani boasts one of the longest written traditions from the 10th to 15th centuries. The rich literature of this language includes books such as Marzban Nameh (later translated to Persian) and the poetry of Amir Pazevari. The usage of Mazandarani, however, has been in decline. Its literary and administrative rank was lost to Persian perhaps long before the ultimate integration of Mazandaran into the national administration in the early 17th century. An overwhelming majority of the population of the Mazandaran Province are now bilingual, also speaking Persian.

Meänkieli
Is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in the most northern parts of Sweden, around the valley of the Torne River. From a linguistic point of view Meänkieli is a mutually intelligible dialect of Finnish, but due to historical reasons it has the status of a minority language in Sweden. In Swedish both the official and informal name is tornedalsfinska ("Torne Valley Finnish").

Megleno-Romanian
(Known as Vlaheshte by speakers and Moglenitic, Meglenitic or Megleno-Romanian by linguists) is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian, spoken in the Moglená region of Greece, in a few villages in Republic of Macedonia and a village in Romania. Spoken by the Moglenite Vlachs, it is considered an endangered language.

Megrelian
Or Mingrelian is a language spoken in northwest Georgia. The language was also called Iverian (Georgian iveriuli ena) in the early 20th century.

Mehri
Or Mahri is a Semitic language spoken by minority populations in the eastern part of Yemen and western Oman and is a remnant of the ancient indigenous language group spoken in the southern Arabian Peninsula before the spread of Arabic along with the Islamic religion in the 7th century AD. It is also spoken today in Kuwait by guest workers originally from these areas. Given the dominance of the Arabic language in the region and bilingualism with Arabic among Mehri speakers, Mehri is at risk of extinction. It is primarily a spoken language with little existing in print and almost no literacy in the written form among native speakers.

Menominee
Is an Algonquian language spoken on the Menominee Nation lands in Northern Wisconsin in the United States. Menominee is a highly endangered language, with only a handful of elderly speakers left. According to a 1997 report by the Menominee Historic Preservation Office, 39 people speak Menominee as their first language, 26 as their second language, and 65 others have learned some of it for the purpose of understanding the language and/or teaching it to others.

Mentawai
Is a Austronesian language, spoken by the Mentawai-people of the Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra. The dialects of the language include: Simalegi, Sakalagan, Silabu, Taikaku, Saumanganja, North Siberut, South Siberut, Sipura, Pagai.

Meroitic
Was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period (about 300 BC-400 AD), and is now extinct. It was written in the Meroitic alphabet. It is not very well understood due to the paucity of bilingual texts; the few words whose meanings have been confirmed are inadequate to determine its genetic affiliation, but some linguists have tentatively suggested that it may be Nilo-Saharan, while others see it as a language isolate.

Merya
Was the Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Merya tribe, which lived in what is today the Moscow region. Next to nothing is known about the language, but it was probably related to the other Finno-Ugric languages of the region. Meryan probably became extinct in the Middle ages, as the Meryas were assimilated by the Slavs. Traces of the language can be found in place names, such as the rivers Moskva < moska "litter, crud", and Volga < valk(ea) "white".

Mescalero
(Or Mescalero Apache) is a Native American tribe of Southern Athabaskan heritage currently living on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in southcentral New Mexico where they live with other Chiricahua and Lipan Apaches. The Reorganization Act of 1936 consolidated the tribes onto this reservation, which currently has an Apache population of 4000. The population is integrated with the rest of Lincoln County, New Mexico and nearby Ruidoso, New Mexico, which include ranching and tourism as major sources of income. The Mescalero language is an Southern Athabaskan language which is a subfamily of the Athabaskan and Na-Dené families. Mescalero lies on the southwestern branch of this subfamily and is very closely related to Chiricahua and more distantly related to Navajo and Western Apache.

Messapian
(Also known as Messapic) is an extinct Indo-European language of South-eastern Italy, once spoken in the regions of Apulia and Calabria. It was spoken by the Messapians, Iapyges and other Iapygian tribes in the region. The language, a centum language, has been preserved in about 260 inscriptions dating from the 6th to the 1st century BC.

Miami
Is a Native American language formerly spoken in the United States, primarily in northern Indiana and Ohio by members of the Miami tribe. Miami is a Central Algonquian language of the Algic phylum. It is part of a larger language grouping referred to as Miami-Illinois, and is extensively documented in written materials for over 200 years. The language is currently considered extinct, although efforts are underway to revive it.

Michif
(Also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif) is the language of the Métis people of Canada and the northern United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women (mainly Cree, Nakota and Ojibwe) and fur trade workers of European ancestry (mainly French Canadians). Michif emerged over two hundred years ago as a mixed language (similar to a creole but noticeably different). The language solidified sometime between 1820 and 1840. Michif combines Cree and Canadian French, with some additional borrowing from English and First Nation languages such as Ojibwe and Assiniboine.

Mi'kmaq
Is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by around 7,300 Mi'kmaq in Canada, and another 1,200 in United States, out of a total ethnic Mi'kmaq population of roughly 20,000.

Minangkabau
Is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Minangkabau-people of West Sumatra, in the western part of Riau and in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau, who often trade or have a restaurant. It is also spoken in a part of Malaysia.

Mlahsö
Is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. It was traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by members of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Mlahsö is closely related to the Turoyo language. It was spoken in the villages of Mlahsó and `Ansha near Lice, Diyarbakir, Turkey. The name of the village and the language comes from the Syriac word melho, 'salt'. The literary Syriac name for the language is Mlahthoyo. The native speakers of Mlahsö referred to their language simply as Suryö, or Syriac.

Moabite
Is an extinct Hebrew Canaanite dialect, spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela; this is sufficient to show that it was extremely similar to Biblical Hebrew, despite a few differences.

Mobilian Jargon
Was a pidgin trade language used as a lingua franca among Native American groups living along the Gulf of Mexico around the time of European settlement of the region. The name refers to the Mobile Indians of the central Gulf Coast. Mobilian was used from Florida westward as far as Texas to facilitate trade between tribes speaking different languages. European exploring parties, such as that of de Soto, often had Mobilian-speaking guides along as interpreters. Mobilian is a pidginized form of Choctaw and Chickasaw that also contains elements of Algonquian and colonial languages including English, Spanish, and French. It has a simplified syllable and sound structure and a simplified grammar as compared to Choctaw, its primary parent language.

Moghol
Is a Mongolic language spoken in Afghanistan by a few people around Herat. In the 1970s, when the German scholar Michael Weiers did fieldwork on the language, only a small number of people, mostly over the age of 40, knew the language, and in general, their knowledge of the language was passive. In all likelihood the Moghol language has fallen into desuetude.

Mohawk
Is a Native American language spoken in the United States and Canada. It is part of the Iroquoian family. Mohawk has two major dialects, Akwesasne and Kahnawake; the differences between them are largely phonological (e.g., Akwesasne has /l/ while Kahnawake has /r/).

Mohegans
Are a Native American tribe originally from southeastern Connecticut. Their descendants live in southeast Connecticut and Wisconsin, but are also situated throughout New England. The tribe was formed after Chief Uncas and his allies split from the Pequot tribe. The Pequot chief Sassacus began a war with the English, but Chief Uncas had a worthwhile trade with the English. He wanted no war with these people and formed a new tribe. These two branches thenceforward faced each other with continuing hostility. In the following war Uncas advanced himself as a true ally of the English, and was a great force toward the destruction of his erstwhile people. But Sassacus and some other Pequots managed to flee from the massacre. He went with his followers back to the Mahicans, with whom he hoped to hide. However, the Mahicans, in the meantime, had become subject to the Mohawks, who had conquered them. The Mohawks beheaded Sassacus and sent his head to Hartford, Connecticut as proof of their loyalty.

Mokshan
Is spoken in West part of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent Penza, Ryazan, Tambov, Saratov, Samara, Orenburg oblasts, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan republics, Siberia, Far East of Russia and also in Armenia and USA. The number of speakers is around 500,000. It is currently written using the Russian Cyrillic alphabet with no modifications to the variant used by the Russian language and Latin alphabet. In Mordovia, it is co-official with the Erzya language and Russian language. The language belongs to the Mordvinic branch of Finno-Volgaic languages a sub-branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. It is related to the Erzya language, but is quite distinct in its phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.

Molengue
(Also called Balengue, Molendji) is a Bantu language of southern Equatorial Guinea, spoken between Bata and the Gabon border near the coast. The speakers have come under increasing Fang influence. The Ethnologue describes it as a member of the B subgroup of Northwest Bantu, while Echegaray is more specific, saying that it is linguistically a member of the Sheke group.

Mon
Is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Myanmar and Thailand.

Mongolian
Is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family, and the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia. If the Altaic theory is correct, then Mongolian also belongs to the larger Altaic language family. It is also spoken in some of the surrounding areas in provinces of China and the Russian Federation. The majority of speakers in Mongolia speak the Khalkha (or Halh) dialect, while those in China speak the Chahar, Oyirad, and Barghu-Buryat dialect groups.

Mono
May refer to:
- Mono language (Congo), an Adamawa-Ubangi language spoken by 65,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Mono language (Solomon Islands), an South New Ireland-Northwest Solomonic language spoken on the Solomon Islands by fewer than 4000 people.
- Mono language (Native American), an endangered Native American language of the California River basin in the United States.


Motu
Is one of many Central Papuan languages spoken by the Motuans, native habitants of Papua New Guinea. After Tok Pisin and English, it is the third most commonly spoken language of the more than 800 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. Motu developed as a trade language in the Papuan region, in the South-East of the main island of New Guinea. It is still common today in the region, particularly around the capital, Port Moresby. Motu is classified as one of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and bears some linguistic similarities to the other Micronesian languages. Its sound also bears a resemblance to some of the Polynesian languages.

Mpre
Is a language spoken or once spoken in the village of Butie (8°52'N 1°15'W) in Ghana, near the confluence of the Black and White Voltas. It is known only from a 70-word list given in a 1931 article. It bears no close resemblance to its neighbours; it may be a Niger-Congo language, or a language isolate.

Mundari
Is a Munda language of the Austro-Asiatic language family, and is closely related to Santali. Mundari is primarily spoken by Munda tribal people in east India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Munji
Is a Pamir Language spoken in Badakshan in Afghanistan. It is similar to Yidgha which is spoken in the Upper Lutkuh Valley of Chitral, west of Garam Chishma in Pakistan.

Muromian
Was the Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Muromian tribe, in what is today the Murom region in Russia. Very little is known about the language, but it was probably closely related to the Mordvinic languages Moksha and Erzya. Muromian probably became extinct in the Middle ages, as the Muromians were assimilated by the Slavs.