1
Yakut
A Turkic language of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia — the easternmost Turkic language, spoken by about 450,000 people.
If you've been searching for languages that start with Y, you'll find 6 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.
Table of contents
| Yakut | Yiddish | Yoruba | Yucatec Maya |
| Yuchi | Yue Chinese (Cantonese) |
List of Languages That Start With Y
2
Yiddish
A High German language with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic admixture — the historical mother tongue of Ashkenazi Jews and still spoken in Hasidic communities worldwide.
3
Yoruba
A Niger-Congo language spoken by about 47 million people in southwestern Nigeria and Benin — known for its rich oral tradition and tonal phonology.
4
Yucatec Maya
A Mayan language spoken across Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and Belize — the largest of the Mayan languages, with about 770,000 speakers.
5
Yuchi
A language isolate of the Yuchi people of Oklahoma — once spoken across the southeastern United States, now critically endangered.
6
Yue Chinese (Cantonese)
A southern Chinese branch centered on Guangzhou and Hong Kong — famous for preserving more tones and finals than Mandarin and for its prolific role in global Cantonese pop culture.
About languages starting with Y
That's our current list of languages starting with the letter Y. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite language starting with Y that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try languages that end with Y, or contain Y anywhere in the name.