Amuzgo, also spelled Amusgo, live near the Pacific Ocean, in the lower portions of the Sierra Madre del Sur, along the coasts of the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaco. Their language is related to that of the Mixtec, their neighbors to the north and west.
The name “Amuzgo” comes from a Nahuatl word to which various interpretations have been given. According to one version, the term derives from amoxtli, “place of books or papers”; another version—perhaps a more plausible one—translates the word amoxko to mean “place of clouded water” (the greenish slime floating on the surface of rivers).
In 1990 the number of Amuzgo speakers was calculated at 32,637: 27,629 in the state of Guerrero and 5,008 in Oaxaca.
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