Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of dialects and sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in any other country in the world. Spanish is spoken by just over 99.2% of the population, being the mother tongue of 93.8% and the second language of 5.4%.

Variation

The territory of contemporary Mexico is not coextensive with what might be termed Mexican Spanish. The Spanish spoken in the southernmost state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala, resembles the variety of Central American Spanish spoken in that country, where is used. Meanwhile, to the north, many Mexicans stayed in Texas after its independence from Mexico. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo many Mexicans remained in the territory ceded to the U.S., and their descendants have continued to speak Spanish within their communities in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. In addition, the waves of 19th- and 20th-century migration from Mexico to the United States (mostly to the formerly Mexican area of the Southwest) have contributed greatly to making Mexican Spanish the most widely spoken variety of Spanish in the United States. The Spanish spoken in the Gulf coastal areas of Veracruz and Tabasco and in the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo exhibits more Caribbean phonetic traits than that spoken in the rest of Mexico. And the Spanish of the Yucatán Peninsula is distinct from all other forms in its intonation and in the incorporation of Mayan words.

The First Mexican Empire comprised what is present-day El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, aside from the mentioned present states of United States; thus dialects of Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Honduran, New Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran Spanish were originally included in the dialects of Mexican Spanish.

Regarding the evolution of the Spanish spoken in Mexico, the Swedish linguist Bertil Malmberg points out that in Central Mexican Spanish—unlike most varieties in the other Spanish-speaking countries—the vowels lose strength, while consonants are fully pronounced. Malmberg attributes this to a Nahuatl substratum, as part of a broader cultural phenomenon that preserves aspects of indigenous culture through place names of Nahuatl origin, statues that commemorate Aztec rulers, etc. The Mexican linguist Juan M. Lope Blanch, however, finds similar weakening of vowels in regions of several other Spanish-speaking countries; he also finds no similarity between the vowel behavior of Nahuatl and that of Central Mexican Spanish; and thirdly, he finds Nahuatl syllable structure no more complex than that of Spanish. Furthermore, Nahuatl is not alone as a possible influence, as there are currently more than 90 native languages spoken in Mexico, and they all contribute to the diversity of accents found throughout the country. For example, the intonation of some varieties of Mexican Spanish is said to be influenced by that of indigenous languages, including some which are tone languages (e.g. Zapotec). The tonal patterns and overlengthening of the vowels in some forms of Mexican Spanish were particularly strong among mestizos who spoke one of the native Mexican languages as their first language and Spanish as a second language, and it continues so today.

Phonetics

Consonants

Affricates

Due to influence from indigenous languages, such as Nahuatl, Mexican Spanish has incorporated many words containing the sequences and , corresponding to the voiceless alveolar affricate and the voiceless alveolar ''lateral'' affricate , present in many indigenous languages of Mexico, as in the words ('hardware store') and ('from he city of Coatzacoalcos').
Mexican Spanish always pronounces the and in such a sequence in the same syllable, a trait shared with the Spanish of the rest of Latin America, that of the Canary Islands, and the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, including Bilbao and Galicia. This includes words of Greek and Latin origin with such as and . In contrast, in most of Spain, the would form part of the previous syllable's coda, and be subject to weakening, as in , .

Some claim that in Mexican Spanish, the sequence is really a single phoneme, the same as the lateral affricate of Nahuatl. On the other hand, José Ignacio Hualde and Patricio Carrasco argue that is best analyzed as an onset cluster on the basis that Mexicans take the same amount of time to pronounce as they do to pronounce and . They predicted that if were a single segmented, it would have been pronounced quicker than the other clusters.

Fricatives

In addition to the usual voiceless fricatives of other American Spanish dialects (, , ), Mexican Spanish also has the palatal sibilant , mostly in words from indigenous languages—especially place names. The , represented orthographically as , is commonly found in words of Nahuatl or Mayan origin, such as (a station in the Mexico City Metro). The spelling can additionally represent the phoneme (also mostly in place names), as in itself (); or , as in the place name Xochimilco—as well as the sequence (in words of Greco-Latin origin, such as ), which is common to all varieties of Spanish. In many Nahuatl words in which originally represented , the pronunciation has changed to (or )—e.g. .

Regarding the pronunciation of the phoneme , the articulation in most of Mexico is velar , as in ('box'). However, in some (but not all) dialects of southern Mexico, the normal articulation is glottal (as it is in most dialects of the Caribbean, the Pacific Coast, the Canary Islands, and most of Andalusia and Extremadura in Spain). Thus, in these dialects, , and are respectively pronounced , , and . In dialects of Oaxaca, much of Chiapas and the southern Highland and interior regions, the pronunciation of is uvular . This is identical to the Mayan pronunciation of the dorsal fricative which, unlike the Spanish romanization , in Mayan languages is commonly represented orthographically by . (In Spanish spelling before the 16th century, the letter represented ; historical shifts have moved this articulation to the back of the mouth in all varieties of the language except Judaeo-Spanish.)

In Northern Western Mexican Spanish, Peninsular Oriental, Oaxaqueño, rural Michoacano and in eastern variants influenced by Mayan languages, , represented by , tends to be deaffricated to , a phonetic feature typical of both Mayan languages and southwestern Andalusian Spanish dialects.

All varieties of Mexican Spanish are characterized by yeísmo: the letters and correspond to the same phoneme, . That phoneme, in most variants of Mexican Spanish, is pronounced as either a palatal fricative or an approximant in most cases, although after a pause it is instead realized as an affricate .
In the north and in rural Michoacan, is consistently rendered as an approximant and may even be elided when between vowels and in contact with or , as in 'hen', 'chair, 'seal'.

As in all American dialects of Spanish, Mexican Spanish has seseo ( is not distinguished from ). Thus, 'house' and 'hunt' are homophones.

Also present in most of the interior of Mexico is the preservation (absence of debuccalization) of syllable-final ; this, combined with frequent unstressed vowel reduction, gives the sibilant a special prominence. This situation contrasts with that in the coastal areas, on both the Pacific and the Gulf Coastal sides, where the weakening or debuccalization of syllable-final is a sociolinguistic marker, reflecting the tension between the Mexico City norm and the historical tendency towards consonantal weakening characteristic of coastal areas in Spanish America. Dialects of both the Pacific and the Gulf Coast have received more influences from Andalusian and Canarian Spanish dialects.

Despite the general lack of s-aspiration, is often elided before or in the interior of Mexico. In rural Chihuahua, Sonora, and Sinaloa, aspiration of syllable-initial /s/ occurs.

Stops

There is a set of voiced obstruents—, , , and sometimes —which alternate between approximant and plosive allophones depending on the environment.

often becomes , especially in more rural speech, such that and may be pronounced as and . In addition, is often assimilated to .

Speakers from the Yucatan, especially men or those who are older, often pronounce the voiceless stops with aspiration.

Vowels

Like most Spanish dialects and varieties, Mexican Spanish has five vowels: close unrounded front , close rounded back , mid unrounded front , mid rounded back , and open unrounded .

A striking feature of Mexican Spanish, particularly that of central Mexico, is the high rate of reduction and even elision of unstressed vowels, as in (, 'cooking utensils'). This process is most frequent when a vowel is in contact with the phoneme , so that + vowel + is the construction when the vowel is most frequently affected. It can be the case that the words , , and are pronounced the same . The vowels are slightly less frequently reduced or eliminated in the constructions + vowel + , so that the words , , and may also be pronounced the same .

Morphology

Mexican Spanish is a form of the language (i.e. using and its traditional verb forms for the familiar second person singular). The traditional familiar second person ''plural'' pronoun —in colloquial use only in Spain—is found in Mexico only in certain archaic texts and ceremonial language. However, since it is used in many Spanish-language Bibles throughout the country, most Mexicans are familiar with the form and understand it. An instance of it is found in the national anthem, which all Mexicans learn to sing: .

Mexicans tend to use the polite personal pronoun in the majority of social situations, especially in Northern Mexico. In the north, children even address their parents with .

Central Mexico is noted for the frequent use of diminutive suffixes with many nouns, adverbs, and adjectives, even where no semantic diminution of size or intensity is implied. Most frequent is the suffix, which replaces the final vowel on words that have one. Words ending with ''-n'' use the suffix . Use of the diminutive does not necessarily denote small size, but rather often implies an affectionate attitude; thus one may speak of "" ('a nice, big house').

When the diminutive suffix is applied to an adjective, often a near-equivalent idea can be expressed in English by "nice and djective. So, for example, a mattress () described as might be "nice and soft", while calling it might be heard to mean "too soft".

Frequent use of the diminutive is found across all socioeconomic classes, but its "excessive" use is commonly associated with lower-class speech.

In rural areas of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Tlaxcala, many people use a number of distinct non-standard morphological forms: 2nd person preterite verb forms ending in , imperfect forms such as instead of 'brought, believed', a merger of and verb conjugations such that 'we live' is instead of , verb roots other than with non-standard such as 'I believe' for , an accent shift in the first person plural subjunctive forms instead of 'we go', and a shift from to in proparoxytonic third person singular verb forms ( instead of 'we sing').
These same verb forms are also found in the traditional Spanish of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

More suffixes

In some regions of Mexico, the diminutive suffix is also used to form affectives to express politeness or submission (, literally "little coffee"; , literally "little head"; "little boy"), and is attached to names (, from ; , from —cf. Eng. ) denoting affection. In the northern parts of the country, the suffix is often replaced in informal situations by (, , , ).

The augmentative suffix is typically used in Mexico to make nouns larger, more powerful, etc. For example, the word , in Mexico, means ; the suffixed form means "big or long bus". It can be repeated just as in the case of the suffixes and ; therefore means .

The suffix or and its feminine counterparts and respectively, are used as a disparaging form of a noun; for example, the word , meaning "house", can be modified with that suffix () to change the word's meaning to make it disparaging, and sometimes offensive; so the word often refers to a shanty, hut or hovel. The word ("wood") can take the suffix () to mean "rotten, ugly wood".

Other suffixes include, but are not limited to: as in , which refers to a very impressive car () such as a Ferrari or Mercedes-Benz; , for example , meaning "big-nosed" ( = "nose"), or , a female with large feet ().

Nicknames

It is common to replace with to form diminutives, e.g. → , → ''Chema'', ("beer") → , , → , ("without molars") → ("toothless"). This is common in, but not exclusive to, Mexican Spanish.

Syntax

Typical of Mexican Spanish is an ellipsis of the negative particle in a main clause introduced by an adverbial clause with :
* . (Until I took the pill, the pain ''did not'' go away.)

In this kind of construction, the main verb is implicitly understood as being negated.

Mexico shares with many other areas of Spanish America the use of interrogative in conjunction with the quantifier :
* (How serious are the damages?) (Compare the form typical of Spain: "" (Is there a lot of damage?))
* (How good a cook are you?) (Compare Spain's "" (Are you a good cook?))

It has been suggested that there is influence of indigenous languages on the syntax of Mexican Spanish (as well as that of other areas in the Americas), manifested, for example, in the redundant use of verbal clitics, particularly . This is more common among bilinguals or in isolated rural areas.

can be used colloquially in place of the superlative , as in:
* (That type of treatment is really expensive.)

Mexican Spanish, like that of many other parts of the Americas, prefers the preposition in expressions of time spans, as in
* "" (He was the president of the company for twenty years)—compare the more frequent use of in Spain: ""

A more or less recent phenomenon in the speech of central Mexico, having its apparent origin in the State of Mexico, is the use of negation in an unmarked yes/no question. Thus, in place of "" (Would you like...?), there is a tendency to ask "" (Wouldn't you like...?).

Lexicon

Mexican Spanish retains a number of words that are considered archaic in Spain.

Also, there are a number of words widely used in Mexico which have Nahuatl, Mayan or other native origins, in particular names for flora, fauna and toponyms. Some of these words are used in most, or all, Spanish-speaking countries, like and ("avocado"), and some are only used in Mexico. The latter include "turkey" < Nahuatl (although is also used, as in other Spanish-speaking countries); "kite" < Nahuatl "butterfly"; and "tomato" < Nahuatl . For a more complete list see List of Spanish words of Nahuatl origin.

Other expressions that are unique to colloquial Mexican Spanish include:

* : "soon; in a moment". Literally "right now". E.g. , "As soon as I finish (this)". Considered informal.
* : "fight" or "problem". Literally "aggressive woman or girl, or wild female animal". Commonly used among young people.
* : "wild, untame". E.g. : "unpasteurized milk".
* : "bus"
* : darn.
* : cheap, of bad quality.
* (); (); : "a child, teen, or youngster". Also (), (), and are used in northern Mexico. All these terms except are also found in their diminutives: , , , . Considered informal.
* : "to check (verify)"
* (): "breast(s)". From Nahuatl . Considered informal.
* : "cool, attractive, fun, etc." A variant common in the Northwest is , sometimes spelled and pronounced ''shilo''.
* : "trash; crap". Considered vulgar. Derived from .
* : In northern Mexico, equivalent to the English term ''gangsta''; in the rest of Mexico, equivalent to the Spanish term ("hooligan", "gang member"), which refers to young slum-dwellers living in conditions of extreme poverty, drug dependency, and malnutrition.
* : "peach"
* : "Just a minute", "Hold on a second", etc. Literally "in a moment".
* : "a bratty child" or "squirt". From Nahuatl , "dog".
* : a filler word, similar to American English "um, uh". Literally, "this". Also used in other countries.
* : messed-up
* : a fair-haired or fair-skinned person. Derived from a term meaning " egg white".
* , or : "dude", "guy" (literally, "ox"). As an adjective, "dumb", "asinine", "moronic", etc. Not to be confused with "Huey" from the Aztec title " Huey Tlatoani", in which "Huey" is a term of reverence.
* : "to talk with (on the telephone)". Used in place of the standard .
* : "manly". Applied to a woman (): "manly" or "skillful". From , male.
* : stuck up, arrogant. Considered vulgar.
* : dumb, foolish. Euphemistic in nature.
* : "a low-class, boorish, foolish, ignorant and/or uneducated person". Pejorative.
* : (1) similar to English "Wow!" (2) "Okay". (3) Exclamation of surprised protest. Abbreviated by low-class people in their uneducated variety. May be considered rude.
* : used as an adjective to denote something "cool", attractive, good, fun, etc. E.g. , "This music is very cool." Literally, "father".
* : "problem" or "fight". Literally "fart". Also, in a greeting, ("What's up, dude?"). As an adjective, "drunk", e.g. , "to be drunk". Also the noun : "a drunken gathering". All forms are considered vulgar for their connection to , "fart".
* : "curly hair". The word derives from the Spanish word , "pig". The phrase originally referenced the (racial type) known as , meaning a person of mixed indigenous and African ancestry whose hair was curly. Sometimes erroneously thought to be derived from Spanish , "Chinese".
* : "damned", "lousy", more akin to "freaking". E.g. ("Take your lousy music from here"). As a noun, literally, "kitchen assistant". Considered vulgar.
* : "drinking straw". From Nahuatl , the name of a plant from which brooms and drinking straws are made, or the straws themselves.
* : "to rent"
* : "What do you think about it?" Literally "How do you see it?"
* : An exclamation, used variously to express surprise, frustration, etc. From ("son of a..."). Also .
* : "Beg your pardon?". From , "to order", formal command form. (literally "How?"), as in other countries, is also in use. The use of ("What?") on its own is sometimes considered impolite, unless accompanied by a verb: ("What did you say?").
* : "What's up?". Literally, "What's the vibe?".
* : to be worthless. Literally "to be worth mother".

Most of the words above are considered informal (e.g. , , , etc.), rude (, , , etc.) or vulgar (e.g. , , ) and are limited to slang use among friends or in informal settings; foreigners need to exercise caution in their use. In 2009, at an audience for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Mexico and the Netherlands, the then Crown Prince of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, made a statement to the audience with a word which, in Mexican Spanish, is considered very vulgar. Evidently oblivious to the word's different connotations in different countries, the prince's Argentine interpreter used the word as the ending to the familiar Mexican proverb "" (A sleeping shrimp is carried away by the tide), without realizing the vulgarity associated with the word in Mexico. The prince, also unaware of the differences, proceeded to say the word, to the bemusement and offense of some of the attendees.

Similar dialects

New Mexico Spanish has many similarities with an older version of Mexican Spanish, and can be considered part of a Mexican Spanish "macro-dialect".
The small amount of Spanish spoken in the Philippines has traditionally been influenced by Mexican Spanish. (The territory was initially administered for the Spanish crown by Mexico City and later directly from Madrid.) Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole language in the Philippines, is based on Mexican Spanish. To outsiders, the accents of nearby Spanish-speaking countries in northern Central America, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, might sound similar to those spoken in Mexico, especially in central and southern Mexico.

Influence of Nahuatl

The Spanish of Mexico has had various indigenous languages as a linguistic substrate. Particularly significant has been the influence of Nahuatl, especially in the lexicon. However, while in the vocabulary its influence is undeniable, it is hardly felt in the grammar field. In the lexicon, in addition to the words that originated from Mexico with which the Spanish language has been enriched, such as "tomato," "rubber," "chalk," "chocolate," "coyote," "flask," et cetera; the Spanish of Mexico has many Nahuatlismos that confer a lexical personality of its own. It can happen that the Nahuatl word coexists with the Spanish word, as in the cases of "buddy" and "friend," "turkey" and "turkey," "kid" and "boy," "rope" and "rope," etc. On other occasions, the indigenous word differs slightly from the Spanish, as in the case of , which is another type of sandal; , hardware store, , a stone mortar, etc. Other times, the Nahuatl word has almost completely displaced the Spanish, "owl," "cornflour drink," "straw," "cornfield," "green bean," "shack," "kite," etc. There are many "words of indigenous origin" who designate Mexican realities for which there is no Spanish word; "mesquite," "sapota," "jicama," "ixtle," "mockingbird," "husk," , , "crate," "hotplate," "embroidered blouse," "stone for grinding," etc. The strength of the Nahuatl substrate influence is felt less each day, since there are no new contributions.

* Frequently used Nahuatlismos: "avocado," "peanut," "cocoa," "coyote," "buddy," "chapulin, "gum," "chocolate," "bean," "corn," "huachinango," "turkey," "rubber," "tomato," "Mayan (used for people of African descent)," "rope," "cornfield," "corn husk," "kite," "flask" (per suitcase), "goatee," "buzzard."
* Moderately frequent Nahuatlismos: "axolotl," "boob" (for female breast), "shack, hut" "youngest child," "owl," "street market," "hardware store," "grass."
* Purépechismos or Tarasquismos: "sandal," "poncho," "jerkin," ," "bundle of rags, (slang for suit)" "salamander," .
* Other non-Mexican indigenismos: "flatbread corn," "armchair," "chief, headman," "alligator," "canoe," "coati," "hummingbird," "custard apple," "rags," "guava," "hurricane," "iguana," "jaguar," "crab," "jefen," "parrot," "agave," "corn," "mammee," "peanut," "yam," "rhea," "papaya," "canoe," "puma," "tobacco," " "cassava."

The influence of Nahuatl on phonology seems restricted to the monosyllabic pronunciation of digraphs -tz- and -tl- (Mexico: / Spain : ), and to the various pronunciations of the letter -x-, coming to represent the sounds , , , and . In the grammar, one can cite as influence of Nahuatl the extensive use of diminutives: The most common Spanish diminutive suffix is . English examples are –y in doggy or -let in booklet. It can also be cited as influence of Nahuatl the use of the suffix -Le to give an emphatic character to th
imperative
For example: "jump" -> "jump," "eat" -> "eat," "go/proceed" -> "go/proceed," etc. This suffix is considered to be a crossover of the Spanish indirect object pronoun -le with the Nahua excitable interjections, such as "strain." However, this suffix is not a real pronoun of indirect object, since it is still used in non-verbal constructions, such as "son" -> "damn," "now" -> "wow,""" "what's up?" -> "how's it going?," etc.

Although the suffix -le hypothesis as influence of Nahuatl has been widely questioned; Navarro Ibarra (2009) finds another explanation about -le intensifying character. The author warns that it is a defective dative clitic; instead of working as an indirect object pronoun, it modifies the verb. An effect of the modification is the intransitive of the transitive verbs that appear with this -le defective (ex. "to move" it is not "to move something for someone" but "to make the action of moving"). This intensifier use is a particular grammatical feature of the Mexican Spanish variant. In any case, it should not be confused the use of -le as verbal modifier, with the different uses of the pronouns of indirect object (dative) in the classical Spanish, as these are thoroughly used to indicate in particular the case genitive and the ethical dative. In what is considered one of the founding documents of the Spanish language, the poem of Mio Cid written around the year 1200, you can already find various examples of dative possessive or ethical.

Influence of English

Mexico has a border of more than 2,500 kilometers with the United States, and receives major influxes of American and Canadian tourists every year. More than 63% of the 57 million Latinos in the United States are assumed as of Mexican origin. English is the most studied foreign language in Mexico, and the third most spoken after Spanish and the native languages taken together. Given these circumstances, anglicisms in Mexican Spanish are continuously increasing (as they are also in the rest of the Americas and Spain), including "to film", "baseball", "club", "cocktail", "leader", "check", "sandwich", etc. Mexican Spanish also uses other anglicisms that are not used in all Spanish-speaking countries, including , , , , "to check", "folder", "overalls", "referee", "lunch bag", "closet", "maple syrup", , etc.

The center of Hispanic Linguistics of UNAM carried out a number of surveys in the project of coordinated study of the cultured linguistic norms of major cities of Ibero-America and of the Iberian Peninsula. The total number of anglicisms was about 4% among Mexican speakers of urban norms. However, this figure includes anglicisms that permeated general Spanish long ago and which are not particular to Mexico, such as buffete, "nylon", "dollar", hockey, , "rum", "railroad car", "buffer", and others.

The results of this research are summarized as follows:

* Lexical loans are mostly recorded in the morphological class of the noun.
* Anglicisms in general use: O.K. (), "(beef) steak", bye (), "checkbook", "click", "basketball", "baseball bat", "baseball", "boxing", "horn", clip, "closet", clutch, "cocktail", or shampoo (), "check", DJ (, disk jockey), romance, smoking or , "express", football (), "goal", hit, (homerun), jeep, jet, van, or knockout, "leader", or nylon, "overalls", "poundcake", "pie", "pudding", baby shower, rating or , "reverse", (rim), round (), set, shorts, show, strike ( or ), "sweater", pants, (tennis shoes), thinner, "super market", "folder", or tennis, "volleyball", vallet parking, and or whisk(e)y.
* Frequent Anglicisms: bar, (for Bermuda shorts), "beer", sport (type of clothing), switch.
* Moderately used Anglicisms: barman "waiter", King/Queen size, grill, manager, penthouse, pullman, strapless, or zipper.

Some examples of syntactic anglicisms, which coexist with the common variants, are:

* Using the verb apply/applying. (, I applied to that university, instead of , I applied to this university)
* Using the verb to assume with suppose. (, I assume he is going to the party, instead of , I guess he will go to the party)
* Using the verb access with access to. (, Access our website, instead of , Access our website).

See also

* Languages of Mexico
* Standard Spanish
* List of colloquial expressions in Honduras

Notes

References

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Further reading

*
*

External links

Jergas de habla hispana
��A Spanish dictionary specializing in dialectal and colloquial variants of Spanish, featuring all Spanish-language countries including Mexico.


��This is the universal and somewhat arbitrary name that is given to idiomatic and native expressions and to the specific vocabulary of the Spanish language in Latin America.

Güey Spanish
��Mexican slang dictionary and flashcards.


��Several hundred words of Mexican slang and English meanings.

{{authority control

Spanish dialects of North America