Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish
Español mexicano
Native to	Mexico
Native speakers	103 million (2014) L2: 7,080,000 in Mexico (2014)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish Mexican Spanish
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
IETF	es-MX

Mexican Spanish (Spanish: español mexicano) is a set of varieties of the Spanish language as spoken in Mexico and in some parts of the United States and Canada.

Spanish was brought to Mexico in the 16th century. As in all other Spanish-speaking countries (including Spain), different accents and varieties of the language exist in different parts of the country, for both historical and sociological reasons. Among these, the varieties that are best known outside of the country are those of central Mexico—both the educated and the working-class varieties—largely because the capital, Mexico City, hosts most of the mass communication media with international projection. For this reason, most of the film dubbing identified abroad with the label "Mexican Spanish" or "Latin American Spanish" actually corresponds to the central Mexican variety.

Mexico City was built on the site of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. Besides the Aztecs, the region was home to many other Nahuatl-speaking cultures as well; consequently many speakers of Nahuatl continued to live there and in the surrounding region, outnumbering the Spanish-speakers, and the Spanish of central Mexico incorporated a significant number of Hispanicized Nahuatl words and cultural markers. At the same time, as a result of Mexico City's central role in the colonial administration of New Spain, the population of the city included a relatively large number of speakers from Spain, and the city and the neighboring State of Mexico tended historically to exercise a standardizing effect over the language of the entire central region of the country.

Variation

10 varieties of Mexican Spanish.

  Norteño del (Nor-)este (eastern northern variant)

  Norteño del (Nor-)oeste (western northern variant)

  Bajacaliforniano (peninsular northern variant)

  Occidental (western variant)

  Bajío (lowlands variant)

  Altiplano (central variant)

  Sureño Central (central southern variant)

  Costeño (coastal variant)

  Chiapaneco (south-eastern variant)

  Peninsular Oriental (eastern peninsular variant)

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 voseo is used. Meanwhile, to the north, many Mexicans stayed in Texas after its independence from Mexico, and their descendants continue to speak a variety of Spanish known as "Tex-Mex". And 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 Mexican Spanish originally included dialects of Belizean, Guatemalan, Honduran, New Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran 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

The consonants of Mexican Spanish

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal	Labio- velar
Plosive	p [p] b, v [b]	t [t] d [d]				c, qu [k] g, gu [ɡ]		cu [kʷ] gu, gü, hu [ɡʷ]
Approximant	b, v [β]	d [ð]			i, hi, ll, y [j]	g, gu [ɣ]		u, hu [w] gu, gü, hu [ɣʷ]
Affricate			tl [tɬ] tz [ts]	ch [tʃ] ll, y [dʒ]	ll, y [ɟʝ] ~ [ʝ]
Fricative	f [f]		c, s, z [s] s, z [z]	x [ʃ]		j, g, x [x]	j, g, s, x [h]	ju [xʷ] ~ [hʷ]
Nasal	m, n [m]		n, m [n]		ñ, n [ɲ]	n [ŋ]
Lateral			l [l]
Trill			r, rr [r]
Tap			r [ɾ]

Affricates

Due to influence from indigenous languages, such as Nahuatl, the set of affricates in Mexican Spanish includes a voiceless alveolar affricate [t͡s] and a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [t͡ɬ], represented by the respective digraphs ⟨tz⟩ and ⟨tl⟩, as in the words tlapalería [t͡ɬapaleˈɾia] ('hardware store') and coatzacoalquense [koat͡sakoalˈkense] ('from [the city of] Coatzacoalcos'). Even words of Greek and Latin origin with ⟨tl⟩, such as Template:Wiktes and Template:Wiktes, are pronounced with the affricate: [aˈt͡ɬãn̪t̪iko̞], [aˈt͡ɬe̞t̪a] (compare [aðˈlãn̪t̪iko̞], [aðˈle̞t̪a] in Spain and other dialects in Hispanic America.

Fricatives

In addition to the usual voiceless fricatives of other American Spanish dialects (/f/, /s/, /x/), Mexican Spanish also has the palatal sibilant /ʃ/, mostly in words from indigenous languages—especially place names. The /ʃ/, represented orthographically as ⟨x⟩, is commonly found in words of Nahuatl or Mayan origin, such as Xola [ˈʃola] (a station in the Mexico City Metro). The spelling ⟨x⟩ can additionally represent the phoneme /x/ (also mostly in place names), as in México itself (/ˈmexiko/); or /s/, as in the place name Xochimilco—as well as the /ks/ sequence (in words of Greco-Latin origin, such as anexar /anekˈsar/), which is common to all varieties of Spanish. In many Nahuatl words in which ⟨x⟩ originally represented [ʃ], the pronunciation has changed to [x] (or [h])—e.g. Jalapa/Xalapa [xaˈlapa].

Regarding the pronunciation of the phoneme /x/, the articulation in most of Mexico is velar [x], as in caja [ˈkaxa] ('box'). However, in some (but not all) dialects of southern Mexico, the normal articulation is glottal [h] (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, México, Jalapa, and caja are respectively pronounced [ˈmehiko], [haˈlapa], and [ˈkaha]. In dialects of Oaxaca, much of Chiapas and the southern Highland and interior regions, the pronunciation of /x/ is uvular [χ]. This is identical to the Mayan pronunciation of the dorsal fricative which, unlike the Spanish romanization ⟨x⟩, in Mayan languages is commonly represented orthographically by ⟨j⟩. (In Spanish spelling before the 16th century, the letter ⟨x⟩ represented /ʃ/; 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 and in eastern variants influenced by Mayan languages, [tʃ], represented by ⟨ch⟩, tends to be deaffricated to [ʃ], a phonetic feature typical of both Mayan languages and southwestern Andalusian Spanish dialects.

All varieties of Mexican Spanish are characterized by yeísmo: the letters ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨y⟩ correspond to the same phoneme, /j/. That phoneme, in most variants of Mexican Spanish, is pronounced as either a palatal fricative [ʝ] or an approximant [j] in most cases, although after a pause it is instead realized as an affricate [ɟʝ ~ dʒ].

Also present in most of the interior of Mexico is the preservation (absence of debuccalization) of syllable-final /s/; this, combined with frequent unstressed vowel reduction, gives the sibilant /s/ 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 /s/ 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.

Vowels

Like most Spanish dialects and varieties, Mexican Spanish has five vowels: two high vowels (/i, u/), two mid vowels (/e, o/) and one open vowel (/a/).

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 /ˈtɾasts/ (trastos, 'cooking utensils'). This process is most frequent when a vowel is in contact with the phoneme /s/, so that /s/+ vowel + /s/ is the construction when the vowel is most frequently affected. It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same /ˈpesəs/. The vowels are slightly less frequently reduced or eliminated in the constructions /t, p, k, d/ + vowel + /s/, so that the words pastas, pastes, and pastos may also be pronounced the same /ˈpasts/.

Morphology

Mexican Spanish is a tuteante form of the language (i.e. using tú and its traditional verb forms for the familiar second person singular). The traditional familiar second person plural pronoun vosotros—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.

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 -ito/ita suffix, which replaces the final vowel on words that have one. Words ending with -n use the suffix -cito/cita. Use of the diminutive does not necessarily denote small size, but rather often implies an affectionate attitude; thus one may speak of "una casita grande" ('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 [adjective]". So, for example, a mattress (un colchón) described as blandito might be "nice and soft", while calling it blando 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.

More suffixes

In some regions of Mexico, the diminutive suffix -ito is also used to form affectives to express politeness or submission (cafecito, literally "little coffee"; cabecita, literally "little head"; chavito "little boy"), and is attached to names (Marquitos, from Marcos; Juanito, from Juan—cf. Eng. Johnny) denoting affection. In the northern parts of the country, the suffix -ito is often replaced in informal situations by -illo (cafecillo, cabecilla, morrillo, Juanillo).

The augmentative suffix -(z)ote is typically used in Mexico to make nouns larger, more powerful, etc. For example, the word camión, in Mexico, means bus; the suffixed form camionzote means "big or long bus". It can be repeated just as in the case of the suffixes -ito and -ísimo; therefore camionzotototote means "very, very, very big bus".

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

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

Nicknames

It is common to replace c-/s- with ch- to form diminutives, e.g. Isabel → Chabela, José María → Chema, Cerveza ("beer") → Chela, Concepción → Conchita, Sin Muelas ("without molars") → Chimuela ("toothless"). This is common in, but not exclusive to, Mexican Spanish.

Syntax

Typical of Mexican Spanish is an ellipsis of the negative particle no in a main clause introduced by an adverbial clause with hasta que:

• Hasta que me tomé la pastilla se me quitó el dolor. (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 qué in conjunction with the quantifier tan(to):

• ¿Qué tan graves son los daños? (How serious are the damages?) (Compare the form typical of Spain: "¿Hay muchos daños?" (Is there a lot of damage?))
• ¿Qué tan buen cocinero eres? (How good a cook are you?) (Compare Spain's "¿Eres buen cocinero?" (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 lo.

Mexican Spanish, like that of many other parts of the Americas, prefers the preposition por in expressions of time spans, as in

• "Fue presidente de la compañía por veinte años" (He was the president of the company for twenty years)—compare the more frequent use of durante in Spain: "Fue presidente de la compañia durante veinte años."

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 "¿Quieres...?" (Would you like...?), there is a tendency to ask "¿No quieres...?" (Wouldn't you like...?).

Media influence in Mexico and abroad

Historically, Mexican television has produced many comedy shows, soap operas, drama series, family shows, and game shows that have been very successful, not only on the national level but also throughout Latin America (including Brazil), in Spain, and in other countries of Europe and Asia (e.g. El Chavo del Ocho). A common and recurring feature of these shows is the exaggeration of the speech mannerisms of characters and presenters in order to accentuate personality traits and stereotypes, which often has resulted in the caricaturing of the Mexican culture and people (e.g. El Chapulín Colorado, María Mercedes, and El Chavo del Ocho). The Mexican audience understands and enjoys such exaggerations of speech mannerisms, in the understanding that it is completely intentional and done for comical, dramatic, and satirical purposes; it is accepted as part of the popular culture of the country. Spanish-speaking audiences from other countries, however, being unaware of that trait of the Mexican media, sometimes erroneously identify the distorted ways of speech as authentic representations of Mexican Spanish. The intentional distortion of speech styles is also evident in the Mexican dubbing of some foreign animated films for children, such as those of Pixar, DreamWorks, or Disney, as well as in comedy films such as those of the Canadian actor Jim Carrey.

Conversely, the U.S. media have influenced modern Mexican Spanish and culture, in particular that of the comfortable middle and upper classes in the largest cities of central Mexico, but also, nowadays, the rest of the country as well. Since the late 1960s and the '70s, and even more strongly during the 1980s, the so-called Valley English or "Valspeak" displayed in the U.S. media has influenced the speech and intonation of a large part of the Mexican middle and upper classes, who adopted it as a symbol of social status, cosmopolitan background, and modernity. Because of this, many of the slang expressions and neologisms used in Valley English and other varieties of U.S. English associated with yuppie speech were incorporated as slang into this "high status" Spanish, either as direct translations or as adaptations. For example,

• "as if" became "como que";
• "whatever" became "como sea (güey)";
• "it sucks" became "no mames";
• "sucker" became "mamón";
• "faggoty" or "faggot" became "puñal" or "puto" (which was, and still is, considered vulgar in educated speech and, therefore, is little used);
• "bar out" became "madrear/putear";
• "grotesque/gross" became "grueso";
• "it's gross" became "está grueso";
• "Surely!" became "Seguro";
• "fresh" became "fresco";
• "groovy" became "gruvy"; and
• "preppy" became "fresa".

Although, like their English counterparts, many of these words exist in the standard language, their over-repetition, intonation, and characteristic drawl of vowels in the emerging variety was foreign to standard Spanish, but correlates well with that of Valspeak or yuppie English. For example, "como sea" would be often pronounced as "como seaaaaa", "seguro" as "seguuuuuroooo" and "grueso" as "gruééésó". The resulting variety of Mexican Spanish has become known as "fresa", and it is used by many speakers in the middle and upper classes. At the same time, a large part of the Mexican middle and upper classes (e.g. politicians, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, academics, etc.) and most of the working class continue to speak traditional or educated regional varieties of Mexican Spanish and regard "fresa" as both pretentious and uneducated, even when by adaptation it has become a natural way of speaking for many of their peers.

Perhaps the clearest indicator of the synthetic origin of "fresa" speech is the fact that the parents and grandparents of "fresa" speakers—generally longstanding members of the middle and upper classes—have either neutral or educated regional, non-"fresa" accents. This phenomenon also occurs in the U.S. among speakers of Valspeak or yuppie English, e.g. the well known case of young Hollywood celebrities who come from families engaged in business, the arts, or music.

In addition to Valspeak and yuppie English, the U.S. rock and pop music culture has also influenced "fresa" Spanish. In more formal environments and circumstances, however, the "fresa" variation is considered superficial or artificial by academics and the culturally conservative middle and upper classes. Accordingly, in the past, many everyday speakers of "fresa" tended to discard completely this way of speech when giving lectures or public speeches (for instance in the setting of universities or business enterprises) and to adopt standard or educated regional variations. Some even considered "fresa" speech discriminatory and racist. In fact, the low regard of the educated elite, as well as the population in general, for "fresa" speech was so strong that, during the 1970s, the Mexican comedian Luis de Alba caricatured and mocked both the speech and the attitudes of the "fresa" subculture through his character "El Pirruris". De Alba had attended college at a private university where the "fresa" subculture is known to exist, and he based the "Pirruris" character on the mannerisms he observed on some of his classmates.

On the other hand, and as a counterpart of "fresa" speech, the Mexican media—in particular the comedy shows and soap operas—also often caricature the speech of the working class, through what is known as "naco" speech, e.g. in popular programs such as La hora pico ("Prime Time") and La familia P. Luche ("The Plush Family"). Originally, this way of speaking roughly corresponded to the lowest urban social classes of Mexico City, but it has since extended to the rest of the country. "Naco" speech is an extreme stereotype of a subculture, and it is not a realistic portrayal of Mexican working-class Spanish. On the other hand, the "naco" dialect incorporates many expressions of slang, double entendre, and redundancy, often derived from words of standard Spanish; however, the meaning associated with them diverges greatly from the standard meaning, such that even Mexicans not used to it would have to infer their meaning from the context, particular intonation, or similarity with other words or phrases. Phrases now considered very Mexican like "¿Qué pedo?" (literally "What's farting?")—which is used often in informal speech in place of the formal "¿Qué pasa?" or "¿Qué pasó?" ("What's happening?" or "What's going on?")—were previously considered uneducated or even nonsensical. Here the mere fact that pasó begins with a strong "p" (e.g. when used for expressing surprise, shock or even to express happiness for seeing someone) has been enough to replace it with the more shocking pedo ("fart") in "naco" speech. In Mexico City, speakers of this variety would also use expressions such as "¿Qué pasión?" ("What passion?") or "¿Qué paraguas?" ("What umbrellas?", insinuating both an erection and a greeting)—"naco" speech uses many erotic allusions, which was also a feature of the Nahuatl culture in central Mexico. These latter substitutions are based simply on their sound similarity with pasa and pasó. This has been attributed to an early influence of the Nahuatl language in the speech of central Mexico. Nahuatl is an agglutinative language, so derived words share the same root and differ only in the added suffixes. This feature has led to the creation of hybrid words with Nahuatl roots and Spanish suffixes, and it has influenced the Spanish slang in central Mexico.

Moreover, the "naco" and "fresa" speech forms have influenced each other. Early on, "fresas" adopted "naco" expressions in order to pose as rude and rebellious (a phenomenon sometimes called "covert" or "negative" prestige). And conversely, "nacos" were also influenced by the U.S. and Mexican media and the "fresa" subculture. So nowadays phrases such as "¿Qué pedo?" and "Wey" or "Güey" (roughly equivalent to "dude", often as a vocative) are used in very informal speech by speakers of all ages and social statuses, even as they continue to carry the connotations of their uneducated and vulgar origins.

Finally, the Chicano culture of the U.S. has also influenced Mexican Spanish, especially near the border, such that English words have been phonologically adapted to form new words in Spanish: thus troca (< Eng. truck), parquear (< Eng. to park), and, occasionally, wienie (< Eng. wienie) in place of salchicha ("sausage")—see Spanglish.

Some examples of 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 chocolate and aguacate ("avocado"), and some are only used in Mexico. The latter include guajolote "turkey" < Nahuatl huaxōlōtl [waˈʃoːloːt͡ɬ] (although pavo is also used, as in other Spanish-speaking countries); papalote "kite" < Nahuatl pāpālōtl [paːˈpaːloːt͡ɬ] "butterfly"; and jitomate "tomato" < Nahuatl xītomatl [ʃiːˈtomat͡ɬ]. For a more complete list see List of Spanish words of Nahuatl origin.

Other expressions that are unique to colloquial Mexican Spanish include:

• pelo chino: "curly hair". The word chino derives from the Spanish word cochino, "pig". The phrase originally referenced the casta (racial type) known as chino, meaning a person of mixed indigenous and African ancestry whose hair was curly. Sometimes erroneously thought to be derived from Spanish chino, "Chinese".
• chichi(s): "breast(s)". From Nahuatl chīchīhualli [tʃiːtʃiːwɑlːi]. Considered informal.
• ¿Mande?: "Beg your pardon?" From mandar, "to order", formal command form. ¿Cómo? (literally "How?"), as in other countries, is also in use. The use of ¿Qué? ("What?") on its own is sometimes considered impolite, unless accompanied by a verb: ¿Qué dijiste? ("What did you say?").
• ahorita: "soon; in a moment". Literally "right now". E.g. Ahorita que acabe, "As soon as I finish (this)". Considered informal.
• chingadera: "trash; crap". Considered vulgar.
• chingado: "damned". Considered vulgar.
• chingar: "to screw/ruin/rob/steal/fuck/work/eat". Vulgar.
• ¿Cómo la ves?: "What do you think about it?" Literally "How do you see it?"
• escuincle: "a bratty child". From Nahuatl itzcuīntli [it͡skʷiːnt͡ɬi], "dog".
• bronca: "fight" or "problem". Literally "aggressive woman or girl, or wild female animal". Commonly used among young people.
• bronco: "wild, untame". E.g. leche bronca: "unpasteurized milk"; literally, "wild milk".
• güey, wey or buey: "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.
• güero: "light-haired and/or light-skinned person". Not considered offensive.
• naco: "a low-class, boorish, foolish, ignorant and/or uneducated person". Pejorative.
• Órale: (1) similar to English "Wow!" (2) "Okay". (3) Exclamation of surprised protest. Abbreviated ¡Ora! by low-class people in their own dialect. May be considered rude.
• ¿Qué onda?: "What's up?" Literally, "What's the vibe?"
• padre: used as an adjective to denote something "cool", attractive, good, fun, etc. E.g. Esta música está muy padre, "This music is really cool." Literally, "father".
• chido: "cool, attractive, fun, etc."
• pinche: "damned", "lousy". E.g. Quita tu pinche cara de aquí. ("Take your lousy face away from here"). As a noun, literally, "kitchen assistant".
• pedo: "problem" or "fight". Literally "fart". Also, in a greeting, ¿Qué pedo, güey? ("What's the situation, dude?"). As an adjective, "drunk", e.g. estar pedo, "to be drunk". Also the noun peda: "a drunken gathering". All forms are considered vulgar for their connection to pedo, "fart".
• popote: "drinking straw". From Nahuatl popōtl [popoːt͡ɬ], the name of a plant from which brooms and drinking straws are made.
• En un momento: "Just a minute", "Hold on a second", etc. Literally "in a moment".
• hablar: "to call (on the telephone)". Used in place of the standard llamar.
• macho: "manly". Applied to a woman (macha): "manly" or "skillful".
• chavo (chava); chamaco (chamaca); chilpayate: "a child, teen, or youngster". Also huerco (huerca), morro (morra), and plebe are used in northern Mexico. All these terms except chilpayate are also found in their diminutives: chavito, chamaquito, huerquito, morrito. Considered informal.
• Este...: a filler word, similar to American English "um". Literally, "this". Also used in other countries.
• cholo: In northern Mexico, equivalent to the English term gangsta; in central and southern Mexico, equivalent to pandillero ("hooligan", "gang member"), which refers to young slum-dwellers living in extreme poverty, drug dependency, and malnutrition.

Most of the words above are considered informal (e.g. chavo(a), padre, güero, etc.), rude (güey, naco, ¿cómo (la) ves?, etc.) or vulgar (chingadera, pinche, pedo, etc.) 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 chingada as the ending to the familiar Mexican proverb "Cámaron que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente" (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 Mexican Spanish has many similarities with an older version of Mexican Spanish. The small amount of Spanish spoken in the Philippines has traditionally been influenced by Mexican Spanish (as the territory was initially administered for the Spanish crown by Mexico City and later controlled by Acapulco). Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole language in the Philippines, is based on Mexican Spanish.

See also

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

References

• Canfield, D[elos] Lincoln (1981). Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-09262-3. ISBN 0-226-09263-1.
• Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988). Spanish in the Americas. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0-87840-094-X.
• Kany, Charles E. (1951) [1st ed. 1945]. American-Spanish Syntax. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-42407-3.
• Lope Blanch, Juan M. (1967), "La influencia del sustrato en la fonética del español de México", Revista de Filología Española, 50 (1): 145–161
• Lope Blanch, Juan M. (1972). "En torno a las vocales caedizas del español mexicano". Estudios sobre el español de México (PDF). Mexico: editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. pp. 53–73Template:Inconsistent citations {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Lope Blanch, Juan M. (2004). Cuestiones de filología mexicana. Mexico: editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ISBN 978-970-32-0976-7.
• Malmberg, Bertil (1964), "Tradición hispánica e influencia indígena en la fonética hispanoamericana", Presente y futuro de la lengua española, vol. 2, Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, pp. 227–243
• Malmberg, Bertil (1965), "Tradición hispánica e influencia indígena en la fonética hispanoamericana", Estudios de fonética hispánica, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investicagión Científica, pp. 99–126
• Malmberg, Bertil (1971), "Tradición hispánica e influencia indígena en la fonética hispanoamericana", Phonétique général et romane: Études en allemand, anglais, espagnol et français, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 421–438
• Moreno De Alba, José G (2003). Suma De Minucias Del Lenguaje. Mexico: editorial Fondo De Cultura Económica.

External links

• Jergas de habla hispana—A Spanish dictionary specializing in dialectal and colloquial variants of Spanish, featuring all Spanish-language countries including Mexico.
• Latin American Spanish—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.
• Mexican Spanish slang—Several hundred words of Mexican slang and English meanings.