Talk:Mexican Spanish

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Negro isn't an archaism

"Negro: someone of African descendant or with very dark skin (not considered offensive)" This is not an archaism at all in Spain, so I'm deleting it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.44.168.15 (talk) 14:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say you were correct to delete that. But that finding should be based on what's going on in Mexico, not Spain. Because this article is about Mexican Spanish, not Spain Spanish.--Delbert359 (talk) 06:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

At the beginning of the section it states, Mexican Spanish retains a number of words that are considered archaisms in Spain. So what he was saying is that it was claiming it to be an archaism in Spain that was used in Mexico. I think it was just saying that it's unique to Mexico, but since it is not, it was deleted. Kman543210 (talk) 08:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree

I think this "Mexican Spanish" is totally inaccurate, I am also from Jalisco and do agree that Alteño Spanish (seperate from Jalisco Spanish) does sound a lot like european Spanish. To back up the first response about Blacks, in Méjico we do use the term negro for a black mexican. I think there's only a small black population in southern part. Simón and Padre and such are rarely used only by the people even kids who think they're cool. Most of these words were created in that connotation in the US not even in Méjico. We should rewrite this article someone who has lived in Méjico for several years instead of someone in the US. As far as of Vosotros we do use it, I find it annoying when people say Vosotros is absent in Mexico, if I recall you can hear it in the streets of Los Altos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mendezdelcamino (talk • contribs) 01:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you even mexican? I am and I've never seen a mexican write "Méjico" instead of México, didn't they teach you the right spelling at school?, I could understand it if you're from Spain but.. came on. Also padre and simón are common among young people. I've been to and met several people from the "altos de Jalisco" (if that's what you meant by "alteño") and trust me they don't sound at all like spanish people, where did you get that from? Vosotros is for all intents and prurposes absent in mexican spanish. You might only find it in the bible or Don Quijote,I've NEVER heard a mexican use it spontaneously, you say it is used in Los Altos, can you back up that claim? I doubt you can...189.183.19.227 (talk) 22:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I Disagree

The article, like others have stated, makes sense to anyone wanting to get a sense of the differences between European and Mexican Spanish. It's not an article about the differences in dialects between the states. The article would be HUGE, since every state is DIFFERENT. For example you talk about padre and simon...My family is from Northern Mexico and I hear it ALL the time. Calling someone negro (or Oaxaco) in Sinaloa IS offensive. It means you're extremely dark, (compared to the rest of the Sinaloenses who tend to be light-skinned, blond etc), and are usually immigrants from the south etc. The article stands well.165.196.139.141 (talk) 21:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree

I have to say this article is perfectly written., All those words are used by young mexicans on informal context.I have never heard ¿Qué tanto cuesta? (As opposed to "¿Cuánto cuesta?") (How much/many is it?). I also have to notice that in mexico we say mexico not "mejico" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.139.182.228 (talk) 07:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Opinion

First off, this article does a perfect job of mentioning some of the differences between standard European Spanish and Mexican Spanish; however, it does not cite references and some sentences sound POV. This article needs a moderate improvement and clean up, but I'd say it's written intuitively. --72.223.63.167 (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

IPA chart with consonants

Is there anybody who has enough knowledge of the primary Mexico dialect of Spanish and the IPA to create a nice phonetic chart for the language? I know it's contrasted with traditional Castellano in Spain, such as the production of 'v'. Castellano uses the 'b' sound, but all the Spanish speakers at my high school use a 'v'. I just want clarification. Ryoga-2003 (talk) 03:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can assert that Mexican Spanish makes a /b/ /v/ distinction just because of your (and, admitedly, my own) experience in high school Spanish. But a consonant chart would be nice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Vowels for Mexican Spanish

I have a proposed vowel chart that could be placed here.

Note: [e]̞ and [o]̞ only open and close depending on what consonant it follows or precedes or by loss of stress. The same goes for the other vowels: [u] lowers to [u]̞ , [i] to lowers [i̞] and [ä] changes to [ɐ], all by loss of stress or consonant change. This does not happen in all sub-dialects of Mexican Spanish.

₭øμt̪ũ 00:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Komtu (talk • contribs)

Do you have a source? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

@Komtu: yep, it'd be nice to have a source. I 'converted' your chart to SVG by the way. Mr KEBAB (talk) 03:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Mexican vowels

I live in San Marcos Texas, and I have spoke to plenty of Mexican nationals at the Outlet Mall here (in Spanish of course), in which most of them are from Coahuila or el distrito federal (la Cuidad de Mexico), and I have heard none of them reduce their vowels, or pronounce any schwas. They have all tended to pronounce their vowels like ordinary Spanish speakers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.242.125 (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Although I agree about the reference to "schwa"—it doesn't match my impressions of any Mexican speech I've heard—I do support the claim of "vowel reduction" with regard to sonority (i.e. voicing). I took lecture classes from the poet Rosario Castellanos (born in Mexico City, raised in Chiapas) and had many opportunities to observe her phonology. She regularly devoiced (whispered) unstressed vowels between voiceless consonants, as in típico, tópico, pacífico, etc., and even the final -o of these words could be devoiced. I've added a citation of Canfield's Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas. The map on p. 61 (unfortunately not online in Google Books) shows vowel reduction in the central half of the country, including the eastern half of the U.S. border. It's more like the vowel reduction of Japanese than of English. Kotabatubara (talk) 16:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Problems with "Ladino"

The article New Mexican Spanish (which is linked from the term "Ladino" in this article) is about the historically isolated dialect, with archaic features, spoken mainly in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Why is (La) Mesilla, a town near the southern border of New Mexico, given as an example of that northern New Mexico variety?

The term "Ladino" is followed by "(as if it were ancient Castilian)". What is the unspoken assumption about "Ladino" here, and how can it be made explicit in the article? (A reader new to the term would have no preconceptions about its meaning.) The term "ancient" applied to "Castilian" is odd. The oldest Castilian or Spanish can rightly be called "medieval", as it came into being in the Middle Ages (roughly 1,000 years ago); "ancient" generally refers to the period prior to the Middle Ages (think of the Roman Empire). If the intended meaning is Old Spanish, I'm still puzzled: What's the hidden assumption about "Ladino" and Old Spanish?

Finally, why is northern New Mexico archaic Spanish mentioned at all in this article? It's "Mexican" Spanish only in a pre-1848 sense. With all due respect for the territorial issues following the Mexican-American War, I think most readers will expect the article on Mexican Spanish to focus on the language of present-day Mexico. Kotabatubara (talk) 21:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I live in Mesilla, that section is total nonsense. 69.171.160.245 (talk)

Also, "macho" is not from Nahuatl, it comes from Latin "Masculus" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.160.245 (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I have deleted the reference to "Ladino" because it is a phenomenon of Spanish in the U.S., not Mexico. No one has spoken (here in Talk) in defense of Ladino since I questioned it four years ago. Kotabatubara (talk) 14:15, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

IPA chart mistake

There's no /ʎ/ sound in Mexican Spanish so I thik it should be deleted from the chart. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm almost sure there's no variety of Mexican Spanish that has that sound. Mexico is totally yeísta. So I'm deleting it. Guidoylosfreaks (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Fricatives

"In the Jalicense, Bajío, Oaxaqueño and Yucateco variants of Mexican Spanish ‹z› is pronounced as [z] rather than the standard Spanish pronunciation where the letters ‹s› and ‹z› are both pronounced as [s] In the Defeño variant ‹z› can be pronounced interchangeably between [z] and [s] although [z] seems to be preferred." never hear of this, and the paragraph doesn't have sources. The only thing I found in Spanish was a blog in a doblaje estudio that said that the ‹z› was a vibrating ‹s›. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.52.49.70 (talk) 17:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I never heard of that before either. I live in Mexico City and I have only heard z pronounced as [z] in borrowings from English, like the word 'zombie'. It's very rare, though. Guidoylosfreaks (talk) 06:55, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

At face value, that paragraph seems to claim that the voiced [z] pronunciation is only for the letter <z>, and not for < s >. This would be a form of "distinción", and very unlikely in the Americas. I suggest we set a deadline of February 7, 2016, for source citations, and if none are forthcoming, delete the entire paragraph. Kotabatubara (talk) 00:11, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Just delete it, it is obvious nonsense.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• It appears that the editor editwarring to insert it is misunderstanding a passage in Canfield 1981 about the fricatives of colonial Spanish and what we can learn about them from the way Spanish speaking friars represented indigenous languages that had other fricatives - and confuse allophonic voicing with phonemic contrasts.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:35, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

OT comment in middle of article; not sure if other material had been removed by poster

Found this in the "Variation" section:

This waste of space should not even be on the internet -Rajah

Don't have time to review and see if other damage was done. Thought I'd post here for future reference if someone wanted to look into it. cluth (talk) 14:37, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

When you see strange things like that in an article, the first thing you should do is to check the last editions in the history section. Then, using the 'undo' feature is the quickest way to fix vandalizations by IP editors. --Jotamar (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Lexicon - Chino

I disagree with the explanation stated as:

Pelo chino means curly hair.[24] The word chino derives from the Spanish word cochino, meaning "pig".[24] The phrase referenced the casta known as chino which was an Indian and African mix whose hair was curly.[24] This term is sometimes mistakenly thought to derive from the word chino meaning "Chinese".[24]

In the XVI century, there was a constant incursion from Mexico to the islands of the Pacific, many of this islands had black native population, some of them were brought to Mexico for different reasons but for the local population (People living in the New Spain), they were the first blacks they ever seen in their lives. Also, everything that was beyond the Pacific Ocean it was considered China at the time, with no distinction between China and Asia, it was considered China, anything that came to the Pacific ports came from "China", including this black people, they were the first "Chinese" that we met. Also because they had their hair curly, the relation was made, Curly hair = Chinese hair, "Pelo de Chino"~"Pelo Chino".

Some other influences of the time remain, like the China Poblana.

I think the reference 24 ( Hernández Cuevas, M.P. The Mexican Colonial Term "Chino" Is a Referent of Afrodescendant. The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.5, no.5, June 2012.) made a mistake and has to be reviewed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamorro (talk • contribs) 04:38, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Protect page

Pls protect page agaisnt US immigrant, he has not the slightest idea for Mexican Spanish. --Janiselgar (talk) 01:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Macho

Why the convoluted proposed origin of "Macho" through an obscure Nahuatl word, when there is a much simpler explanation? Surely it comes from the Spanish word "macho," meaning "male?" In support of this idea is the fact that macho is used throughout Latin America to mean a manly person, and is not specific to Mexico.TCSaint (talk) 13:42, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I've just added a Citation needed tag. Someone has bothered to prove that the word exists in Nahuatl, now we should give him/her some time to prove that that's the origin of the Spanish expression. --Jotamar (talk) 20:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

It is not from Nahuatl. I have simply removed it.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:06, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Please explain reversion

ActiveSingQuant, please explain your reversion of 21:47, 17 August 2015. I revised the vocabulary entries to be more concise and more consistent (easier to read). It is standard practice in writing about linguistics to give a specimen word in italics followed directly by its gloss (meaning) in quotation marks; it is unnecessary to say "means", or "the word for", or "would be". It is Wikipedia policy to give at least a brief explanation of your edit. What is yours? Kotabatubara (talk) 23:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"Consonant-complex" Nahuatl?

Looking at Nahuatl#Phonology I see "simple" more than once. Is "consonant-complex" the right term in this article? I considered replacing it with "consonant-rich", which would mean having an unusually large inventory of consonants, but this doesn't seem justified by the phoneme chart either. Any suggestions? Kotabatubara (talk) 15:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Also on the subject of Nahuatl: Our article names it and Zapotec as languages which, "like Chinese, include tonality in their standard form". Zapotec is mentioned in the article Tone (linguistics), but I haven't found evidence that Nahuatl is a tone language. Can anyone confirm it? Kotabatubara (talk) 16:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Nahuatl is neither tonal nor consonant complex.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:33, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Media influence

With regard to the section "Media influence in Mexico and abroad"—I gave the section a thorough copyeditor's overhaul; but as I did so, I began to wonder if all that verbiage belongs in this article. There is, after all, a separate article Fresa, to which much of the discussion in this section could be transferred and incorporated. Does anyone besides me find the section excessively wordy, and chatty, for an encyclopedia article? It seems to need slimming down, but I'm not familiar enough with Mexican TV to do it myself. Kotabatubara (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

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"Comes handy"?

I quote: "* es todo: used when something comes handy to the person expressing it. Literally, that's all." What does "comes handy" mean? Kotabatubara (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Labialised vowels?

Can someone verify the labialised vowels? Are they actually like this? This is not mentioned anywhere else, and there's no citation.

73.231.181.239 (talk) 22:52, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Mackenzie's website

Much of the information here is from the website below. It's pretty easy to tell because they even use the same examples as illustrations. Credit/footnotes have to be added.

https://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/mexico.htm

Greece666 (talk) 17:21, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I added citations, one to the paragraph on final /s/ that was obviously from Mackenzie's website, another on /x/ where Mackenzie's website provided the same information Erinius (talk) 03:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

speakers

According to infobox: "Native speakers 133 million (2018)"

According to Mexico article, 2020 Census had 126 million and 2022 estimate has 129 million. So, that means there were more native speakers already in 2018 than there are Mexicans in 2022. 93.106.177.245 (talk) 06:15, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Changed as per the cited source, but there are Mexicans living outside Mexico, so it is plausible. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 18:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

More clarification is needed to make the page more accessible to speakers unfamiliar to IPA

The section discussing seseo gives only a very brief description of it which requires a fairly comprehensive understanding of IPA. Seseo itself is not actually described, but rather a consequence of seseo. JosephBw (talk) 23:47, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's alright, and I could understand the main points the section with 0 IPA knowledge. I agree seseo should be more described, and I might work on that. Taking information from the seseo article and copying it here should be fairly simple and I invite you to try as well. (Roundish ⋆t) 00:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Seseo is just the normal way of speaking Spanish in all countries but Spain, so it makes no sense to describe it specifically here; in addition, it's something as simple as not having a /θ/ phoneme. --Jotamar (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2023 (UTC)