The people

Colourful mixture

Honduras has about 7.3 million inhabitants. The population can be divided into 3 groups: Ladinos, Indigenes und Afro-Hondurans (Garifuna for example). These groups are distinguishable by their outer appearance as well as by culture and language.

Ladinos

The ladino group consist of whites, which are mestizos of Indian European origin as well as culturally assimilated Indigene- descendants. The term for this part of the population derives from their mother tongue Spanish that originates from Latin (Latin – latino – ladino). The Ladinos are by far the largest group of the population (about 90% of the population).

Mostly integrated into the group of Ladinos is the smaller number of descendants of Christian Palestinian immigrants, who are misleadingly known as “turcos”(Turks) in Honduras. The few families who number themselves among this group (altogether between 175.000 and 300.000 persons strong) are mainly concentrated in and around San Pedro Sula, which is the economical centre of the country.  They don’t mark a cultural foreign matter in society, as most of the families that immigrated around 1900/1920 and in a second wave around 1947 (foundation of Israel) are conform to language and customs.

Indígenas

The indigenous communities represent about 7% of the whole population of Honduras. They differ socio cultural strongly from the rest of the society as they mostly live in the remote parts of the country (for example the Mosquitia, which is mostly unexplored primeval forest region or the highlands in the border area of Guatemala). The Indigena communities try to preserve not only their cultural peculiarities (language, religion and so on) but also to keep their traditional forms of living together and managing.

They are mainly descendants of the Maya and distinguish themselves into at least nine subcategories. The Lenca are thereof numerically the most important. Other people are the Miskitos, Chortí, Pech, Xicaque, Paya, Tolupan, Tawahka and Nahoa.

Afro-Hondurans & Garífunas

About 3% of the Honduran population has black collared skin. Approximate half of them are called Garifunas. The live in mainly self-sustained at the Caribbean coast and the Islands Roatan, Utila and Guanaja and similar to the Indigenas they kept their traditional way of living, including there own language and culture.

The interesting history of the Garifunas began at the 17th century with a shipwreck of two slave ships and the escape of the imprisoned Africans to the Caribbean Island St. Vincent. They mixed up with the native people there and the descendants of them were deported by the British to Roatan at the end of the 18th century. Their villages are spread along the Caribbean coast, so you can find Garifunas communities at Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua today. 

The English speaking Afro-Hondurans are also mainly settled at the Caribbean coast and the offshore islands (as a result of this their official name is “isleños” which comes from the Spanish word “isla” = island ) This part of the population has no large difference besides there language to the Ladino population. But most isleños even speak English and Spanish. There socio cultural life is about the same as of the Ladino majority. They don’t have this strong group identity as Garifunas do. 

The living together

Surprisingly there are very little conflicts between the different population groups and they all accept and respect each other. But still it was commend till like 10 years ago that a Garifuna was married to a Garifuna and not for example to a Pech. But this doesn’t really matter any more to the younger generation, as the different cultures get more and more mixed.