1
Macedonian
A South Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian — official in North Macedonia, written in a distinctive Cyrillic alphabet.
If you've been searching for languages that start with M, you'll find 16 detailed languages below. We're not interested in giving you only a list of names — every entry on this page links to a full profile with the kind of detail you'd actually want to know.
For languages, that means family, writing scripts, native range, speaker counts, and status.
List of Languages That Start With M
2
Maghrebi Arabic
The collective vernacular Arabic varieties of northwest Africa — spoken across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania, often called Darija.
3
Malagasy
An Austronesian language spoken on Madagascar — uniquely related to languages of Borneo, 7,000 km away, brought by ancient seafarers across the Indian Ocean.
4
Malay
An Austronesian language and the national language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore — closely related to Indonesian, with a 1,500-year history as a regional trade lingua franca.
5
Malayalam
A Dravidian language of southwestern India and the official language of Kerala — known for its complex script and one of the highest literacy rates in India.
6
Manchu
A Tungusic language of the Manchu people of northeastern China — once the language of China's last imperial dynasty, today critically endangered.
7
Mandarin Chinese
The world's most-spoken first language, based on the Beijing dialect and codified as Standard Chinese (Putonghua) — the official language of mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore.
8
Mandinka
A Mande language spoken across the western Sahel — the most widely spoken language in The Gambia and a major language in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.
9
Manx
The Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man — extinct in 1974 with the death of its last native speaker, then revived from records and is now learnt anew.
10
Maori
An Eastern Polynesian language and the indigenous language of New Zealand — an official language of Aotearoa, undergoing active revitalization after late-20th-century decline.
11
Mapudungun
An indigenous Araucanian language of central-south Chile and Argentina — the Mapuche people's traditional language, with about 250,000 speakers.
12
Marathi
An Indo-Aryan language of western India and the official language of Maharashtra — written in Devanagari and famous for the poetry of saints like Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar.
13
Marshallese
A Micronesian language of the Marshall Islands — co-official with English in the central Pacific atoll nation.
14
Min Nan
A major Sinitic language of southeastern Fujian and the Chinese diaspora — known to its speakers as Hokkien, Hoklo, or Taiwanese.
15
Mohawk
An Iroquoian language of upstate New York and southern Canada — the easternmost language of the Iroquois Confederacy, now undergoing significant revival.
16
Mongolian
A Mongolic language and the official tongue of Mongolia — about 5.7 million speakers across Mongolia, Inner Mongolia (China), and Russia.
About languages starting with M
That's our current list of languages starting with the letter M. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite language starting with M that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try languages that end with M, or contain M anywhere in the name.