The federal government officially recognizes sixty-eight linguistic groups and 364 varieties of indigenous languages. It is estimated that around 8.3 million citizens speak these languages, with Nahuatl being the most widely spoken by more than 1.7 million, followed by Yucatec Maya used daily by nearly 850,000 people, Tzeltal and Tzotzil, two variants of the Mayan languages, are spoken by around half a million people each, primarily in the southern state of Chiapas. Mixtec and Zapotec, both with estimated 500,000 native speakers each, are two other well-known language groups. Since its creation in March 2003, the National Indigenous Languages Institute has been in charge of promoting and protecting the use of the country's indigenous languages, through the General Law of Indigenous Peoples' Linguistic Rights, which recognizes them ''de jure'' as "national languages" with status equal to that of Spanish. Notwithstanding, in practice, indigenous peoples often face discrimination and are unable to have proper access to public services such as education and healthcare, as well as the justice system, as Spanish is the prominent language.