Mexican Spanish
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Mexican Spanish is the form of the Spanish language spoken in Mexico by over 99% of the population.
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[edit] Variation
The differences between Spanish from Spain and Mexican Spanish are no greater than those one might find when comparing American and British English. The territory of contemporary Mexico is not coextensive with what might be termed Mexican Spanish. First, the Spanish of the Yucatán Peninsula is distinct from all other forms, both in intonation and incorporation of Mayan words. The Spanish spoken in the areas that border Guatemala resembles the variation of Central American Spanish spoken in that country, where the voseo is common[citation needed] (those areas were originally part of the Audiencia of Guatemala and only became part of Mexico after the wars of colonial independence; most of the southern state of Chiapas and Soconusco region did not become part of Mexico until the 1870s). Secondly, the waves of 19th and 20th century migration from Mexico to the United States have caused Mexican Spanish to become the most widely spoken variety of Spanish in the United States, except for in the East Coast. The Spanish spoken in the Gulf Coastal areas of Veracruz and Tabasco is also distinctive – at least at the level of vernacular speech – as the Spanish spoken there exhibits more Caribbean phonetic traits than that spoken in the remainder of Mexico.
Historically, the evolution of Mexican Spanish coincides in a number of respects with the development of Peruvian Spanish. Like Lima, Mexico City was for centuries the hub of one of the great viceroyalties of colonial America, one which stretched from the middle of what is now the United States in the north to Panama in the south.
As a natural result of Mexico City's prominent role in the colonial administration north of the equator, the population of the city included relatively large numbers of speakers from the centre of the Spanish Empire, Castilla in Central Spain. Consequently, like Lima within the Audiencia of Lima and the adjacent territories, Mexico City tended historically to exercise a standardizing effect within its own sphere of linguistic influence, a state of affairs that is reflected in the praise showered upon Mexican speech patterns by 17th and 18th century commentators.
Regarding the evolution of the Spanish spoken in Mexico, the Swedish hispanist Bertil Malmberg points out that in Mexican Spanish, unlike in other Spanish-speaking countries, it is vowels which lose strength, while consonants are fully pronounced. Malmberg explains this by the influence of the consonant-complex Nahuatl language through bilingual speakers and placenames. However, there are currently more than 50 native Mexican languages spoken throughout the country and they all contribute to the diversity of accents found all over Mexico[citation needed].
[edit] Phonetics and phonology
A striking feature of Mexican Spanish, in the interior of the country at least, is the high rate of unstressed vowel reduction and elision, as in [tɾasts] 'trastes' (cooking utensils/dishes). This process is most frequent when a vowel is in contact with [s], and [e] is the vowel that is most frequently affected[citation needed].
In the same regions – most of the interior of Mexico – syllable-final /s/ is rarely weakened; this fact, combined with frequent unstressed vowel reduction, gives the sibilant [s] a special prominence. (Note that this situation contrasts with the situation in the coastal areas, on both the Pacific and the Gulf Coastal sides, where syllable-final /s/ weakening is a sociolinguistic marker, reflecting the tension between the Mexico City norm and the historical tendency towards consonantal weakening that is so characteristic of coastal areas in Spanish America.)
Mexican Spanish speakers are likely to have shifted the stress of some verbs that end in -iar, a trait common to other languages of Spain such as Catalan:
- "Diferencía los colores", instead of "Diferencia los colores."
- "Él financía el proyecto", instead of "Él financia el proyecto."
[edit] Taps and trills
[ɾ] and [r] are routinely assibilated throughout central and southern Mexico, as while in the northern states the tap and trill predominate.
[edit] Nasals
Standard Spanish speakers pronounce final /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ as [n] despite spelling that has the many modern Spanish words that end in 'm' (UNAM, .com). Many other dialects also pronounce all three final nasals exactly the same, whether that be as [ŋ], or as [n]. In Mexico, final /n/ and /ŋ/ are realized as different sounds. Final /n/ is always pronounced as [n], and final /ŋ/' as in smoking (tuxedo) is also pronounced as [ŋ].
[edit] Fricatives
On top of the usual fricatives for other American Spanish dialects ([f], [s], [x]), Mexican Spanish also has [ʃ], represented in a variety of ways. In words coming from Nahuatl, mostly place names, the usual spelling will be "x". The prime example would be "Xola" [ʃola]. However, since "x" also represents at least 2 other pronunciations [x] as in "México" [me xi ko], [s], [ks]) many instances where "x" should be [ʃ] have switched pronunciation (e.g., "Jalapa" [xa la pa], alternately spelled "Xalapa"; "Xochimilco" [ʃo tʃi mil ko] --> [so tʃi mil ko]). (As in many modern European languages, "x" can also be pronounced as [ks].)
In Northern Mexican Spanish, [tʃ] tends to be replaced consistently by [ʃ].
In terms of the [x] variable, the articulation in inland Mexico is usually [x], as in [kaxa] 'caja' (box). On the coasts the normal articulation is [h], as in most Caribbean and Pacific coast dialects throughout Latin America.
[edit] Morphology
Mexican Spanish is a tuteante form of the Spanish language, voseo being confined to some parts of the state of Chiapas[citation needed], where the local Spanish rather belongs to the Central American region. In Chiapas, the verb forms corresponding to vos are the same as in Guatemala[citation needed]. In other words, in the voseo, only used in some parts of the state of Chiapas, the present indicative and subjunctive have oxytone forms with monophthongal endings (cantás/-és, comés/-ás, subís/-ás), the imperative has no final /d/, there is sociolinguistic variation in the future between forms in -ás and forms in -és/-ís (the latter being the less prestigious of the alternants), and the remaining vos forms are identical to those that go with tú in standard Spanish.
Vosotros (second person plural = you all – heard only in Spain) is almost unknown although it is still taught in school. Mexicans from all over the country use ustedes instead since vosotros sounds archaic and pedantic even to very educated Mexican ears.
[edit] Syntax
Several syntactic patterns that sound very 'non-standard' to the Peninsular ear are routine in Mexican Spanish. First and foremost is the more or less conventionalized ellipsis of the negative particle "no" in clauses containing the preposition "hasta" (until):
- Será publicado hasta fines de año. (that is, 'It will not be published until the end of the year.')
- Cierran hasta las nueve. ('They don't close until 9 o'clock.')
- Hasta que tomé la píldora se me quitó el dolor. ('Until I took the pill, the pain did not go away.')
In each case, the sentence has the sense indicated by the English translation only if the main verb is implicitly understood as being negated.
A second departure from Peninsular usage involves using interrogative "qué" in conjunction with the quantifier "tan(to)"[citation needed]:
- ¿Qué tan graves son los daños? (Whereas in Spain the question would be posed as "¿Cuán graves son los daños?")
- ¿Qué tan buen cocinero eres?
Thirdly, some verbs in Mexican Spanish have partly lost their original meaning, and have adopted the English meaning of their cognates:
- "Apliqué a la universidad", for I applied to the university, instead of the original form: "Postulé a la universidad". (Mexican Spanish speakers really never used the verb "postular" but the combination "Presenté una solicitud" which literally means I filed an application)[citation needed].
- "Accesa la página de internet", for Access the web page, instead of the original form: "Accede (a) la página de internet"[citation needed].
This is more evident the closer it is to the US Border, where words like "Parkea la Troca" for Park the truck and "Washería" for Car wash are common.
These anglicisms are characteristic of the Mexican Spanish: these verbs in South American Spanish and Peninsular Spanish have not lost their original meaning[citation needed].
Note that phenomena relating to bilingualism are likely to be encountered among bilinguals whose primary language is not Spanish or in isolated rural regions where the syntactic influence of indigenous languages has been important historically. One of the most discussed of these phenomena is the redundant use of verbal clitics, particularly "lo", a tendency that is encountered in language contact areas throughout Latin America.
[edit] Lexicon
Mexican Spanish retains a number of words that are considered archaisms in Spain. Obviously, they are not seen as archaisms by the speakers of this version of the language, who make up 25% of all native Spanish speakers.
Examples of these terms would be, in requesting repetition of something not understood, the most common response in Central Mexico would be:
- "¿Mande?" (from mandar 'to order').
- The use of "¿Qué?" (What?) by its own is considered impolite, unless it is accompanied by a verb: "¿Qué dijo?" (What did you say?) or "¿Qué pasó?" (What happened?). However, some people prefer to use "¿Qué?" alleging they are not servants of the asking person.
Another example is "alcancía" instead of "hucha". Other commonly heard Mexicanisms include the following: chamaco or escuincle a small child, chingadera any unspecified object (considered vulgar), chingar (to screw/to ruin) (vulgar), güero someone with light hair and/or light skin, naco a boorish, uneducated person (usually has strong anti-Indian racist undertones), ¿Qué pedo? What's going on?/What's up? (vulgar), órale OK/All right, "Aguas!" Watch out!, "¿Como ves?" What do you think?, popote straw, ya mero almost, and the replacement of necesitar (to need) with ocupar (to occupy; also simply ocupa, e.g., ¿lo ocupas?), especially in Guadalajara.
In Mexico, the common word for a cold is gripa instead of gripe. In Mexico nieve is "ice cream," whereas in Spain the proper term is helado, as nieve means "snow." El radio refers to a radio receiver while la radio refers to the means of communication; e.g., Ayer pasaron la noticia por la radio vs enchufó el radio (he plugged the radio in). A swimming pool is an alberca instead of piscina (used in Spain) or pileta (used in South America). Another particularity of Mexican Spanish is the use of the word "siempre" (always) meaning "after all" when it should be rendered to "a fin(al) de cuentas" (a fitter and more exact fixed expression), for example "¿Siempre no fuiste a trabajar?" instead of "¿A final de cuentas no fuiste a trabajar?"
Also, there are a number of words widely used in Mexico which have Nahuatl origins, in particular names for flora and fauna. An example would be guajolote for turkey (in other Spanish-speaking countries pavo) which comes from the Nahuatl guaxolotl. Other examples would be Papalote for Kite, from the Nahuatl Papalotl for Butterfly; and Jitomate for Tomato from the Nahualt Xitomatl.
[edit] Dialects
Due to the size of the country, it is natural that a variety of Mexican dialects has emerged. Some of them are clearly distinct from the other varieties (the speech of Mexico City, Yucatán, Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Veracruz and Chiapas, for example, are easy to tell apart from each other). Differences in usage and vocabulary among the regions are common and, although standard Mexican Spanish is understood by all, sometimes the differences can lead to misunderstandings[citation needed]. Dialects also vary depending on the education, social level and ethnic background of the speaker.
[edit] Diminutives
In Mexico, the it style diminutive infix is the only one that is generally used to form one's own words (cafecito, cervecita, chavito), and attach to names (Marquitos, Juanito). The infix is also repeated quite often in Mexico as in chiquitita.
[edit] Miscellaneous
- Philippine Spanish has traditionally been influenced by Mexican Spanish.
