Mexico

El español llega a México con las primeras oleadas de colonizadores. Hernán Cortés llega a Yucatán en 1519 y funda Veracruz en la línea costera.

La colonia de Nueva España se expande hacia el norte, hasta la mitad de los actuales EEUU y Panamá, y hacia Centroamérica.

En 1521 cae la ciudad azteca de Tenochtitlán y en 1535 la colonia se convierte en Virreinato. El castellano se eleva a lengua oficial, mientras que el náhuatl es promovido como “lingua franca”.

México se independiza de España en 1821. Hasta el momento, sólo un 40% de la población hablaba español. Se intenta castellanizar a la población, sin éxito, suprimiendo la identidad étnica índigena.

Tras la Revolución, 1910-1920, aumenta la proporción de hablantes de español gracias a la masificación de la instrucción pública.

Actualmente, la mayor parte de la población habla español, pero la presencia de las lenguas indígenas persiste.

Orígenes del español mexicano

El Virreinato de Nueva España supone un foco de la colonización y el español se extiende rápidamente por 2 razones: la intervención de la Iglesia y el mestizaje.

Especialmente en la zona costera caribeña, influyó el español hablado en Andalucía y en Canarias, pues muchos colonizadores establecidos en esa zona procedían de allí.

Existían muchas lenguas indígenas antes de llegar el español, como las lenguas mayas, el zapoteco, el mixteco, el totonaco o el huasteca. Las que más han influido en el desarrollo del español mexicano han sido el náhuatl, cuya presencia aún es fuerte, y las lenguas mayas del Yucatán, que dan nombre a la variante de español “yucateco”.

Texas pasa a formar parte de EEUU en 1846, y tras la Cesión mexicana, en 1847, México pierde los territorios conocidos hoy como Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah y Nuevo México. Durante el conflicto de la Revolución, mucho mexicanos emigran a EEUU. De ahí en adelante, existe una fuerte influencia inglesa en la lengua.

Como consecuencia, la presencia del español mexicano se aplica no sólo a México, sino también a los antiguos territorios, donde aún es fuerte, y a las zonas de EEUU donde emigraron los trabajadores mexicanos.

Orígenes del español mexicano. La evolución del español en México

Lipski, J. M. (1996). El español de América. Madrid: Cátedra.

Zamora, Sergio. “Historia del español de América”. (En línea). http://www.elcastellano.org/histamer.html [09/03/2011]

Zamora, Sergio. “El español de México”. (En línea). http://szamora.freeservers.com/espmex.htm [09/03/2011]

Bibliografía

Mexican Today

Languages Spoken in Mexico (2005)

92.70%

5.70%

0.80%

0.80%

Spanish only

Spanish and indigenouslanguages

Indigenous only

Unspecified

Mexican Today

Source: CIA World Factbook

(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html

)

Increasing radio presence, especially online-based stations

Agreements to distribute Mexican Spanish programmes through both the US and Mexico

Mexican television is especially noted for the popularity of telenovelas, which are then exported all over the world – including Asia and Eastern Europe (thus exporting Mexican Spanish):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weg3su8nBqU&feature=related

Mexican Spanish in the Media

Mexican Spanish is also exported via film (eg Y Tú Mama También).

Political language in Mexico was usually high-register and not understood by the campesinos. However, politicians now try to make the language as accessible as possible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fuaW8La9yw

Phonology

PhonologyGeneral Characteristics• Use of seseo• Use of yeísmo apart from distinguished areas • Retention of consonants. Conservation of voiced

intervocalic /b/ /d/ /g/• Maintain all letters in pronunciation of –ado and other

phoneme consonants like in sequences like /kst/ eg extraordinario and texto, and /ksk/ exquisito, /nst/ construir, /bst/ abtracto, /ks/ examen, satisfaccion, /kt/ acto and /tl/ atlas.

• It is considered vulgar to pronounce like –cansao, estremo, escusar, testo, satisfacion, adlas.

• In most of country, /s/ is retained in all positions but in some coastal areas, not all, there is aspiration or elision.

• /s/ has been retained in interior.

General characteristics continued… Loss of vowels in words with /s/ like ant’s, noch’s. Assibilation of final position/r/ Assibilation voiced or unvoiced is produced before a

pause /salir’/ /komer’/ NAHUATL INFLUENCE: pre paletal voiceless fricative

(sordo) /x/ /rr/ alveolar trill for most of Mexico but for bilingual

speakers tends to be pronounced as /r/ /z/ in place of /rr/ used by middle and upper class

female speakers. As is the affricate pronunciation of /tr/. Laxed pronunciation of /e/ in final closed syllables.

E.g después Word-final /n/ is alveolar in interior and velar in the

Yucatan and coastal zones.

Central Mexico /y/ has palatal friction High rates of unstressed vowel reduction and elision.

(mostly in contact with /s/) Syllable-final /r/ pronounced as a voiceless sibilant. Velar pronunciation of /x/ /s/ rarely deletes or even aspirates, which gives

sibilant [s] special prominence.

North-western Mexico /s/ reduced in most rural areas. [ ] interdentalised Aspiration of word-initial /s/ /s/ does not tend to reduce in United States Spanish

dialects of Mexican origin.

Yucatan Spanish • The Spanish spoken in the Yucatán is readily identifiable

as different due to heavy influence by the Spanish accent and Yucatec Maya language, which is spoken by a third of the population of the State of Yucatán.

• The Mayan language is harshly melodic, filled with explosive consonants (p, k and t) and "sh" sounds (represented by the letter "x" in the Mayan language).

Pronunciation of final /n/ as [m] Phoneme /y/ is weak and subject to elision in the north

and in Yucatan/Chiapas region. /s/ usually resistant but sometimes aspirates or is

deleted /s/ becomes weaker along border with Belize Tendency for stressed vowels to be extremely

lengthened. Unstressed vowels rarely if ever reduce. Strong intervocalic /b/, /d/ and /g/ is the rule Aspiration of /p/ /t/ and /k/ frequent Voiceless stops often voiced following nasals eg. Finca

becomes [fiŋga] (meaning “farm” in mexico) Posterior fricative /x/ is a weak aspiration [h]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxMtEyN_FaM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDLVJzZePHc&playnext=1&list=PL850C70CEEC82C305

Word final /n/ is velar (ng) ŋ Syllable final /s/ is weakened on both coasts Veracruz: prestigious Mexico City dialect has influenced

educated people to maintain sibilant [s] particularly phrase finally

Lower socioeconomic strata reduction of /s/ common. Different to typical Caribbean sound.

Acapulco: similar situation; m/c use phrase final /s/ as [s] and lower class tend to reduce like in Caribbean.

Posterior fricative /x/ as weak [h] Neutralization of syllable final /l/ and /r/ and loss of final /r/

in verb infinitives found at lowest socioec strata in rural areas. But levels of reduction not as dramatic as in Caribbean and southern spain.

Coastal dialects(Veracruz/Tabasco and Acapulco)

Bibliography Alvar, M, Manual de dialectología

hispánica:El español de América, Barcelona : Editorial Ariel, 1996

Lipski, J.M, Latin American Spanish, London: Longman, 1994

Some Characteristics of the Mexican

Spanish:Morphology, Syntax and Lexis

Voseo is only used in the South-East part of Mexico

Use of ‘ustedes’ instead of ‘vosotros’: ‘¿Qué van a tomar ustedes?’

Duplication of the syllable ‘-si’ in the superlative form of an adjective: from ‘bellísimo’> ’bellisisimo’; ‘ fortísimo’ > ‘fuertisisimo’; ‘grandísimo’> ‘grandisisimo’…

Verbs which end in –iar become in –ía or –ío in the Mexican Spanish: from negociar- ‘negocia un asunto’> ‘negocía un asunto’; diferenciar- ‘no diferencio las letras’> ‘diferencío las letras’

‘le’ is add at the end of an imperative form: From ‘Juan, ¡corre que pierdes el autobús!’ > ‘Juan, ¡córrele que pierdes el autobús!’; ‘¡Cántale una canción al niño!’ > ’¡Cantále una canción al niño!’

Morphology

The second person singular is always written with a ‘tilde’: from ‘tú cantas’ > ‘tú cantás’; ‘tú bebes’ > ‘tú bebés’; ‘tú vives’> ‘tú vivís’

Hiatus become diphthongs: from ‘peor’> ‘pior’; ‘pelear’> ‘peliar’; ‘pasear’> ‘pasiar’

The use of ‘perífrasis del gerundio’ : From ‘acabo de llegar’ > ‘voy llegando’; ‘hagamos una cosa’> ‘vamos haciendo una cosa’

The preposition ‘hasta’ expresses a beginning in the Mexican Spanish: from ‘NO viene HASTA las 2pm’> ‘viene hasta las 2pm’

The use of an adjective instead of an adverb expressing the same idea: from ‘venía rápidamente’> ‘venía muy rápido’

Syntax

Mexicanismos: ‘chamaco’ = ‘niño’; ‘chavo’= ‘chico’; ‘charola’= ‘bandeja’ (tray); ‘¡híjole!’ = ‘¡vaya!’ (it expresses surprise); ‘¡Órale!’= ‘¡vamos!’; ‘muy padre’= ‘muy bueno’ (great); ‘platicar’ = ‘hablar’

Arcaísmos: ‘se me parece’ (‘me parece’); ‘¿Qué TANTO cuestan las manzanas?’ (‘¿CUÁNTO cuestan las manzanas?’)

Anglicismos: ‘Bye’, ’hobby’, ‘folder’…- Préstamos Lingüísticos: From ‘baseball’> ‘béisbol’; ‘to film’> ‘filmar’…

From ‘I applied to the University’> ‘apliqué para la universidad’ (postulé para la universidad); ‘I suppose not to go’ > ‘yo asumo que no iré’ (creo que no iré); ‘Cars are not rented’> ‘no se rentan carros’ (no se alquilan coches).

Extranjerismos: ‘¡Qué cool!’ (‘¡está de padre!’ (from the Mexican Spanish); ‘es genial’ (Spanish)); from Galicia: ‘morriña’ (sadness or to be sleepy); from The Basque Country: ‘arroyo’ (stream)

Lexis

“Academia Mexicana de la Lengua” [online]; [10 March 2011] http://www.academia.org.mx/dicmex.php

“El Español de Mexico” [Online],[10 March 2011]< http://www.espanolsinfronteras.com/AcercaIdioma04EspanoldeMexico.htm>

Lipski, J.M, El Español de América. Madrid: Cátedra,1996

“Mexican Spanish Vocabulary” [Online],2009 [10 March 2011] http://www.espanol-ingles.com.mx/mexican-spanish/

Zamora, Sergio. “El Español de Mexico”[online], 2002 [10 March 2011] <http://szamora.freeservers.com/espmex.htm>

Bibliography:

Nahuatl Language

Despite the death of the Aztec Empire, the Aztec culture and language continued to thrive over the centuries.

1634 – King Philip IV commanded that the natives learn Spanish in order to help them better understand the Spanish way of life.

1771, 1776 and 1778 - King Charles III issued royal decrees in, instructing his subjects that the Indians should be taught Spanish.

The states with the largest number of Náhuatl speakers in 1930 were:1. Puebla (132,013)2. Veracruz (70,993)3. Hidalgo (66,823)4. Guerrero (45,619), and5. San Luis Potosí (24,074)

1940 census: Puebla continued to have the largest number of Náhuatl monolingual speakers in the Mexican Republic, with 117,917 persons five years of age and older, representing 32.7% of the total Náhuatl monolingual population of 360,071. The other states with significant numbers of Náhuatl monolingual speakers were: Hidalgo (77,664), Veracruz (76,765), Guerrero (41,164), and San Luis Potosí (32,251).

SPEAKERS OF THE NÁHUATL LANGUAGE IN THE 1970 CENSUS (All figures are for persons five years of age and older)

State Speakers of the Náhuatl Language 5 Years of Age and More

Percentage of the Entire Náhuatl Speaking Population of the Mexican Republic

Puebla 266,181 33.3%

Veracruz 199,435 24.9%

Guerrero 160,183 20.0%

Hidalgo 115,359 14.4%

San Luis Potosí

72,495 9.1%

Tlaxcala 18,404 2.3%

Morelos 14,787 1.8%

México 10,366 1.3%

Oaxaca 5,624 0.7%

Mexican Republic

799,394 100%

Copyright © 2004, John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved

STATES WITH THE LARGEST POPULATIONS OF PERSONS SPEAKING THE NÁHUATL LANGUAGE - 2000 CENSUS (All figures are for persons five years of age and older)

State Population Percentage

Puebla 416,968 28.8%

Veracruz 338,324 23.3%

Hidalgo 221,684 15.3%

San Luis Potosí 138,523 9.6%

Guerrero 136,681 9.4%

México 55,802 3.9%

Distrito Federal 37,450 2.6%

Tlaxcala 26,662 1.8%

Morelos 18,656 1.3%

Oaxaca 10,979 0.8%

Jalisco 6,714 0.5%

Sinaloa 6,446 0.4%

Mexican Republic

1,448,936 100%

Copyright © 2004, John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved

Although Spanish has greatly influenced the Náhuatl language over the last five centuries, the influence of Náhuatl on the Spanish and English languages has also been profound.

Náhuatl has provided a huge number of words to the Spanish language, including aguacate, chile, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, mescal, peyote, and tomate.

English language has also adopted many words that have their roots in Náhuatl, including avocado, chocolate, coyote, ocelot, tomato and tequila.

Influences

Mayan

The Mayan language family comprises five sub-families and includes many languages that are spoken in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. In Mexico, Mayan languages are spoken in seven states: Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, San Luis Potosí and Veracruz

The five subfamilies of Mayan languages are: Ch'ol-Tzotzil, Huastecan , Yucatecan , Chujean-Kanjobal, Quichean-Mamean

The third most common Mexican language after Nahuatl is Yucatec Maya.

Mayan languages come from Proto-Mayan, a language that is at least 5,000 years old.

Yucatec Maya uses ejective consonants, pronounced with a popping sound and does not have a grammatical category of tense.

Lee Stacy Mexico and the United States (Marshall Cavendish, 2002 )http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/nahuatl.htmlhttp://www.sil.org/Mexico/maya/00i-maya.htm#CholTzotzilhttp://www.mexicoadventure.com/mexican-language.html

Bibliography

LANGUAGE CONTACT IN MEXICO

Yury Villalonga-Stanton

Due to its geography and extensive history of colonisation, Mexico provides us with a wonderful array of linguistic traits.

The conquest of the America’s saw a doubtless influence on the manner in which many of these languages are spoken today, although some indigenous language speakers maintain they remain unaffected even to this day from outside language influences.

The Mexican government recognises 62 indigenous languages still in use today in Mexico – although linguists assert that there are over 100.

Although many languages have to an extent assimilated with Spanish - at least certain words and phrases - not many would admit to having had a grammatical influence.

However, the Mexican-American war resulted in mass movement of Mexicans across the border. This language contact has undoubtedly had an effect on the way Mexican-American is spoken

◦ http://globalrecordings.net/en/program/C22830 - Track 106 - Oaxaca Sierra◦ http://globalrecordings.net/en/program/C22830 - Track 63 - Mixteco, Tututepec◦ http://globalrecordings.net/docs/mx/MapaMixteco2006.pdf ◦ http://globalrecordings.net/docs/mx/MapaOtrosIdiomas2006.pdf

Introduction

There is no universally accepted division of Mexico into internal dialect zones – although all Mexicans regard the chilango speech of Mexico City as unique

Mexican norteño speech is characterized by its singsong intonation popularized in ranchera music and Mexican cowboy films – this form of speech is seen in the Durango region and extends well into the US - unsurprisingly, now when the word norteño is heard, one assumes they are talking about the Mexican country music style

Yucateco pronunciation is typical only of bilingual Maya-Spanish speakers – the protagonist in Mel Gibson’s film Apocalypto spoke Yucateco

It is interesting to note that Mexicans base intuitive dialect divisions mostly on intonation, but dialectologists have primarily relied on segmental phonetic data, and only secondarily on lexical variables ◦ This implies a subjective form of categorization – a leading problem in defining definitive

boundaries and definitions when dealing with dialects within speech communities See map to gain idea into how many indigenous languages there are in

Mexico

Internal language divisions within Mexico

Mexico – Indigenous Language Map

Eastern Central Mexico

Variants of Indigenous Languages in Western Central Mexico

The Spanish Yucatan belongs linguistically to Central America, as does the state of Chiapas and neighbouring zones.

In the Yucatan Peninsula, the indigenous populations speak Maya languages

Away from Urban centre such as Mérida, Mayan continues to be the principle language, although improved rural education is causing an increase in the number of yucatecos who are fluent in Spanish

In southwest Mexico several languages came into contact with Spanish: including Zapotecan, Mixtecan, Totonacan and Huastecan

In northern Mexico Otomí is spoken, Tarrascan is found to the west of Mexico City, and Yaqui is found in north-western Mexico

But the major indigenous contributor to the development of Mexican Spanish is Nahuatl said to still be spoken by over 2.5 million speakers today◦ When Cortés arrived in Mexico, although the Aztec empire only covered part of

Mexico, Nahuatl was spoken far and wide stretching from the Pacific coast of Central America to as far as Costa Rica

◦ The result was that Cortés and his men used Nahuatl to mediate multilingual encounters, thus minimising the need to learn other indigenous languages or variants.

Nahuatl was adopted by Spanish religious personnel and used as a lingua franca for catechistic and administrative purposes◦ Thus, further institutionalizing its use◦ This is one of the first and most influential language contacts in South American

history It is not clear how many Spaniards ever learned Nahuatl, but in rural areas

where the indigenous population was concentrated, Spanish never completely displaced Nahuatl, giving rise to long-standing bilingualism, whose possible effects on Mexican Spanish continue to be debated.

Language contact

Although there are Nahuatl words present in Spanish today, the Nahuatl influence is only present in the most superficial level of the linguistic system: the lexical

Nahuatl – alongside other indigenous Mexican languages – and their influence on the phonological and grammatical domains however, are non existent.

Some of the words used in Mexican Spanish come from Nahuatl which, as a result, introduces certain phonetic varieties that wouldn’t otherwise normally be present in Spanish. For example:

 ◦ Voiceless alveo-palatal fricative /ʃ/ - pronounced like the ‘sh’ in ‘shop’ = found in words

like mixiote, nixtamal, xocoyote◦ Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/ - pronounced like ‘ch’ in ‘chop’ = found in words like

chichi, chales◦ Voiceless dental affricate /ts/ - pronounced like ‘ts’ in ‘sweets’ = found in words like

Quetzalcóatl, Tepotzoltlán, Janitzio◦ /tl/ pronounced like similar to bottle, but with the /l/ voiceless

http://www.mexica.net/nahuatl/nahuawds.html

Nahuatl in Mexican Spanish

Racial assimilation of African and Filipino slaves into the indigenous population as well as high rates of mortality blurred traces of these Afro-Mexican, but not before they had been remembered in a number of poems and villancicos or Christmas songs

The most famous representation of the speech of Africans in Mexico come from poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who in the late seventeenth century wrote several villancicos imitating the pidgin Spanish spoken by bozales – slaves born in Africa.

Although these Afro-Mexican texts reveal to us a little-known facet of Mexican ethnographic history, given the rapid absorption of Africans in the Mexican interior it is unlikely that this contact language would have had an impact on Mexican-Spanish as a whole

Coastal regions, however, display the remnant of a more persistent African influence through musical and cultural traditions evident in these zones – the port of Acapulco for example

Much of the music and folklore of the veracruzanos and occasional lexical items bear an African imprint on certain regions – but today only the slightest of hints remain

Other indigenous influences on language contact

In places like the Yucatan Peninsula, there are words still used today which are unknown in other parts of Mexico◦ “Así, en el español de Yucatán se emplean voces de origen maya que

son prácticamente desconocidas en el resto del país” (Molina: 1996) Examples of such words (taken from Víctor M. Suárez Molina:

1996) include:◦ Balac◦ Chich (abuela)◦ Holoch – hoja que envuelve la mazorca del maíz. Cigarrillo hecho con

esta hoja, muy popular en la región.◦ Pibinal – mazorca tierna de maíz cocida bajo tierra o al horno◦ Tuch – ombligo; Molleja de las aves◦ Xic

Nahuatl aside, other indigenous languages that have left a mark on the Mexican Spanish language are Zapoteco, Tarasco, Mixteco and Otomí.

Idiosyncracies

We can see then that although the influence of indigenous languages has had an effect on the lexical domain, it has not affected the phonological structure or morphosyntactical structure of the Spanish language per say.

Mexico represents a perfect example of a long lasting symbiotic relationship between indigenous languages and Mexican Spanish whereby they live side by side, not necessarily benefiting each other but by no means harming each other.

Considering the number of indigenous languages, it is surprising that they have not had a larger impact on Mexican Spanish

Conclusion

Alvar, Manuel - Manual de dialectología hispánica. El español de América - Editorial Ariel Barcelona 1996 p84-86

Buesa Oliver, Tomás - Indoamericanismos léxicos en español. Madrid : Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1965

Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.

Lipski, John M. - Latin American Spanish / John M. Lipski - - . - London : Longman, 1994 p275-278

Resnick, Melvyn C. - Phonological variants and dialect identification in Latin American Spanish - - . - The Hague : Mouton, 1975 -

 Suárez Molina, Victor M. - El español que se habla en Yucatán: apuntamientos filológicos – 1996

Bibliography