Honduras Culture & Language

Copán is the cultural anchor: a Maya city known for the finest sculpture of the Maya world and a hieroglyphic stairway carrying the longest known Maya inscription.

The Garífuna of the Caribbean coast are descended from shipwrecked Africans and Indigenous Caribs, deported here from St Vincent in 1797. Their language, music and dance are UNESCO-listed, and punta is their best-known musical form.

Indigenous peoples including the Lenca, Miskito and Tolupán maintain distinct identities, and Lenca pottery from the western highlands is the country’s best-known craft.

Everyday food centres on the baleada — a wheat tortilla folded over beans, cheese and cream — which is eaten by everyone at any time of day, and on coffee, which is now the country’s leading export.

Spanish is the official language. English is spoken on the Bay Islands, where an English-based creole is the historic language, and by some in tourism on the mainland — elsewhere it is limited.

Garífuna, Miskito and Lenca are spoken in their communities.

Buenos días, por favor, gracias and greeting on entering are expected. Hondurans are warm and formal in address, and courtesy carries weight.