English. Most GUatemalans are of the peon class and live in the frontier State of Chiapas. There is a considerable emigration of Mexicans, chiefly unskilled labourers, to the United States, although this is shown by the Mexican official statistics in an indirect way only, 2,392 Mexicans being given as residing in foreign countries, of whom are are in the United States; on the other hand 83,376 are said to live abroad, without specification of the country of their residence, which is evidently the United States. The total figures for emigration and immigration, between 1911 and 1923, are 752,338 for the former and 1,041,975 for the latter, but they are somewhat open to question and could hardly, therefore, lead to any kind of con clusion.
Of the Mexican population, the mixed element, partly Indian, partly white, seems to be numerically in the lead, its propor tion having passed from 22%, according to the 1810 census, to 4o% (5900) and 43% (1921) ; but the value of such figures must not be put too high. The Indian element has fallen from 62% to 38%, while the white has changed little, mount ing from 18% to 19%. Any other racial element is entirely negligible in Mexico. Economic conditions in the republic are not favourable to the settling of large numbers of white workmen or farmers, while the Indian element, being the most ignorant (death rate of Indian children at least 5o%) and the least adaptable, has little chance of displacing the more modern and more active mestizo.
Non-Spanish Europeans rarely reached Mexico, since there was a law against their settling there, with a temporary exception for the Portuguese. However, it is known that some Flemish, French and Italians lived in Mexico during colonial times, two or three of whom even played an important role, but they had hispanified their names and were supposed to have come from the peninsula. Only men migrated, and, as they were young and intended to stay, they invariably married local women, while the converse could not, of course, take place. The modern half-breed is therefore a product of this type of crossing. During the colonial regime the name mexicano was applied to the Indian only, the creole, or mestizo, being called americano. The white man, even when born in Mexico, was always called espano/, though another name gachupin (he who wears shoes) was also applied by the other inhabitants. It is easy to understand, on account of the conditions explained above, that few of those esPanoles were of pure white blood, and that the 70,000 who were supposed to be in Mexico in 1811 were simply individuals whose complexions approximated to whiteness.
Indians were, from the begin ning, classified on the basis of their speech. According to Orozco y Berra there are 192 lan guages and dialects in Mexico, be sides 62 that have become extinct since the conquest. Francisco Belmar reduced this number to a much smaller figure, while, ac cording to Cyrus Thomas and John R. Swanton, whose work is the most recent on the subject, the modern Mexicans speak 59 tongues divided into 20 families.
The leading family, by far, is the Nahuatlan, of which the Aztec or Mexican, is a dialect. The latter is spoken by about 650,000 individuals, which means about one-fourth of the Mexican popula tion of Indian tongue, and it is found in the States of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, part of San Luis Potosi, Nayarit, Jalisco, Guerrero, Morelos, part of Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and extends into Central America as far as Chiriqui. The second group in importance is that of the Maya, spoken by at least 400,000 individuals, if we include the Huastecos in the group, it covers part of Veracruz, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi (Huastecas), most of Tabasco and Chiapas and all of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, besides the larger part of Guate mala, British Honduras and a small part of Spanish Honduras. The Zapotecan, found in Oaxaca and parts of the neighbouring States, is the language of some 350,000 Indians; while the Oto mian, which one hears in the States of San Luis Potosi, Guana juato, Queretaro, Hidalgo and Mexico, is spoken by about the same number. Other important tongues are the Totonacan, of Veracruz (75,000), and the Tarascan of Michoacan and sur rounding States (40,000).
Some dialects are now spoken by only a few individuals and the number of the extinct tongues is constantly increasing. Accord ing to R. Bonaparte, more than one-half of Mexico is entirely Hispanified, while the States of Nayarit, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chi apas, Campeche and Yucatan are still largely Indian, if we take into consideration the use of aboriginal languages. Five of these linguistic groups of Mexican Indians had civilizations of their own at the time of the conquest. One may still find abundant remains of these, such as more or less well-preserved monuments of all kinds. The Mayas reached the highest degree of culture, not only in Mexico, but in America; while the Aztecs, who built up a militaristic empire, came next, to be followed by the Zapotecs, the Tarascos and the Totonacs. In physical characteristics the Mexican Indians differ a great deal, though they all have, with the only exception of the wavy-haired Huauchinangos of Puebla, black, coarse and stiff hair.