Why do they speak Spanish in Mexico? Spanish and its Latin American dialects. Mexico. Spanish

Mexico is a country of ancient civilizations. Numerous Indian tribes have lived on its territory for many millennia. The modern ethnic composition was formed from the indigenous population, European settlers and Africans imported from the sixteenth century to work on the plantations. More than half of the population are mestizos and mulattos, descendants of mixed marriages. In this regard, many are interested in what language is the official language in Mexico. To answer this question, let's look at history.

Historical reference

The territory of modern Mexico until the sixteenth century was inhabited by tribes of Indians who spoke several dozen languages. Of these, the most common were the Navajo in the north, the Nahuatl and the Maya in the center. Many others were also used, and all of them had a significant impact on the Spanish language, which was originally spoken only by a small layer of administrators, officials, conquistadors and Spanish settlers, who made up about five percent of the population.

However, thanks to intense interracial contacts, already in the seventeenth century, for the bulk of Mexicans, Spanish became the main means of communication.

Influence of Indian languages

Unlike the United States, Mexico has never resorted to a policy of genocide against the indigenous population. After the number of Indians was sharply reduced due to diseases introduced by Europeans, their number stabilized already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the number of people who spoke Indian languages ​​increased quite significantly, although in general their share in the population continued to decline, as there was an even faster increase in the number of Spanish-speaking mestizos. And yet, the state language of Mexico is still significantly influenced by Indian dialects, which are still spoken by seven to ten percent of the population.

Many Mexicanisms, words, grammatical and phonetic turns that are characteristic of spoken Spanish in Mexico are explained directly by the influence of indigenous languages.

Mexico City - the capital of New Spain

Another important factor in the formation of Mexican Spanish is the status of Mexico City itself (former Tenochtitlan), the city that was the capital of New Spain for three centuries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many people from Madrid arrived here. Therefore, Mexican Spanish, like American English, is mainly based on the corresponding European counterpart.
In Spain itself, the language continued to develop further, and in Mexico it seemed to freeze after the country received independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century and began to form independently.

Mexico. Spanish

Spanish in Mexico is a group of dialects, dialects and sociolects that make up a special variant of Spanish, based on the language norms of the Mexican capital - Mexico City, which is the literary standard for this variant.

Talking about the language spoken in Mexico, it should be noted that in most regions of the country Spanish is used close to the metropolitan norm, with the exception of the special dialects of Chiapas (Central American Spanish) and Yucatan (Yucatan Spanish, which relies on the Caribbean version).

Mexican Spanish is the native language of approximately 125 million people, over 100 million of whom live in Mexico and approximately 25 million in the United States, mainly in the border regions of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. This variant of Spanish is the only official language at the federal level and, along with many Indian vernaculars, one of the official languages ​​at the state level.

Now you know what language is spoken in Mexico. It is worth noting that Mexican Spanish, among other things, is the basis for the Spanish language in the United States, widely used in education, the media. It is also the most widely spoken variant of Spanish in the world, as it is native to the vast majority of Mexicans, who make up about 29 percent of Spanish speakers worldwide.

Phonological and other features

It is not enough to know what language is spoken in Mexico, it is also necessary to have an idea about a number of changes taking place in the language system. Thus, linguistic territories are expanding in the country (similar to what happened in Spain, when Spanish replaced other languages ​​​​that existed on the Iberian Peninsula), phonological changes occur (the letter j begins to be pronounced differently, the sound [θ] gradually disappears and changes on [s], words borrowed from Indian dialects are phonetically adapted).

Those who first encountered modern Mexican Spanish note its "conservativeness". In the works of art of Spanish writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there are words that today are considered archaisms in Spain and are almost not recognizable by native speakers or are used very rarely. However, in the Mexican version they are not perceived as archaic and continue to be used.

In the article, we talked about what language is spoken in Mexico. We hope this information will be useful to you. All the best!

You are both right. :) Mexican WAS. Now it doesn't exist. This is one of the "dead" languages.
AZTEC LANGUAGES, a group of Indian languages ​​in Mexico and El Salvador, one of the main groups of the Uto-Aztecan language family. In total, in the Uto-Aztec family, according to various classifications, from 3 to 9 groups are distinguished. On a territorial basis, three groups are often distinguished: the Shoshone languages, common in the United States - in the Great Basin and the Southwest, the Sonoran languages ​​\u200b\u200bdistributed in the northwest of Mexico and the adjacent regions of the United States, and the Aztec languages. The Aztec group is divided into three subgroups - the extinct Pochutec language in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the endangered Pipil language in El Salvador, and the Nahuatl group, or Aztec languages ​​proper. Among the Aztec proper, the now dead classical Nahuatl (= Aztec; Mexican; Nahuatl) stands out - the language of the Aztec empire conquered by the Spaniards in the 16th century. In addition, 26 modern Nahuatl languages ​​are spoken in central Mexico, spoken by a few people to several hundred thousand people, and a total of approx. 1.4 million people. The largest of these languages ​​are: Eastern Huastec Nahuatl (about 410 thousand speakers), Western Huastec Nahuatl (about 400 thousand), Guerrere Nahuatl (about 300 thousand). Although these are all distinct languages, the collective use of "Nahuatl" is common, including Classical Nahuatl and all modern varieties. The social status of the Aztec languages ​​is low. Survival prospects are different for different languages; many of them are already extinct or are on the verge of extinction.

The Aztec languages ​​have been studied since the middle of the 16th century, when the first classical Nahuatl grammar was published. For a long time, Nahuatl was described only by Christian missionaries. At the beginning of the 19th century one of the Nahuatl languages ​​was studied by the German linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. Many of the Aztec languages ​​are now well documented and taught in schools.

From the beginning of the 15th century, about 100 years before the Spanish conquest, the Aztecs began to use hieroglyphic, mainly ideographic, writing, which arose under the influence of the Mixtec script; the latter, in turn, goes back to the writing of the Zapotec Indians, who borrowed the idea and basic principles of writing from the Olmecs and possibly from the Maya (see MAYAN LANGUAGES). Later, the Aztecs developed some elements of phonetic writing, especially when writing names. Currently, many Aztec languages ​​have written scripts based on Latin.

The Aztec languages ​​are highly synthetic, with accusative sentence construction.

The Russian language has a number of indirect borrowings from the Nahuatl language that came through Spanish and English (or French) languages: tomato, chocolate, avocado, coyote, ocelot. For example, the word chocolate comes from the Aztec xocolatl "bitter water".

Hello everyone, my name is Dasha Mendez.

Today I want to tell you about funny Spanish words that sound like curses to Russian-speaking people. I have already made a similar video, and subscribers wrote me some interesting words. Thank you very much for the examples!

Those who study Spanish and, for example, live not even in Spain, but in Russia, have probably already met Spanish words that can be read in Russian with a touch of sarcasm; but in Spanish they are read in a slightly different form. Let's move on to examples.

1. Huesos ‘bones’ is read as [uesos], but since there is h before u, in Russian it can be read accordingly.

2. Concha ‘shell’ [concha], but in general this word in Latin America also denotes the female genital organ, therefore it has 2 meanings there. In Spain, the word Concha can even be the name of a girl, a woman. And if she goes to Latin America with that name, then the locals can laugh at this name. I've just heard a few stories about it.

3. Perdi ‘I lost’ [perdi] (from the verb perder ‘to lose’), but here it’s clear, yes, who lost what?

4. Huesoso ‘bone’ [huesoso], Huesitos [huesitos] chocolates, photos of which I like to publish on Instagram, can be attributed to the same topic. If you pronounce the letter h at the beginning of a word, then you know how it will sound in Russian.

5. Julio ‘July’ [julo] and junio ‘June’ [huno], when I started learning Spanish, I thought it was the funniest language in the world, because for a Russian person, reading is like wow!

6. Chileno ‘Chilean’ [chileno], fun, right? I have one friend chileno.

Mexican people can speak different languages. There are over 60 indigenous languages ​​in Mexico, although this is only 6%, but this percentage roughly corresponds to about 6 million people in Mexico. The official language in Mexico is Spanish, simply because it is the language most Mexicans communicate in.

Initially, when the Spanish arrived, they tried to keep Nahuatl as the country's official language. However, in the late 1600s and on until the 1700s, the Spanish colonizers began to change Mexico's official language from Nahuatl to Spanish. In the 1990s, an amendment to the Mexican constitution led to the adoption of indigenous languages ​​as national languages. In this way, legal documents can now be written down in all indigenous languages, as well as in Spanish.

Common words and phrases:
Russian	Pronunciation	Spanish
Sorry	Excus me	perdon
Yes	Xi	si
Thank you	Gracias	Gracias
Please	Por favor	por favor,
Entrance	entrada	entrada
How much time?	Ke ora es?	¿Cuánto tiempo?
Fine	Bien	bueno
No	But	no
Toilet	Servisio	WC
Exit	Salida	salida
Sorry	Perdone	triste
I don't understand	But entiendo	no entiendo
Closed	Cerrado	cerrado
Open	Avierto	abierto
Greeting / Farewell:
How are you?	Ke tal?	¿Como estas?
Hello	Buenos dias	¡Hola
Good morning!	Buenos dias	¡Buenos dias!
Good afternoon	Buenas tardes	¡Buen dia!
Fine	mui bien	bueno
Hello	Ola	¡Hola
Goodbye	Adios	despedida
Good evening!	Buenos noches	¡Buenas nights!
Bye	Ola	mientras
Travel / Station / Airport:
Police	policy	policia
Hotel	hotel	hotel
Pharmacy	Pharmasia	farmacia
bus stop	La estacion de autobuses	parada de autobus
Passport control	El control de pasaportes	control de pasaporte
Supermarket	El supermercado	supermercado
Customs	La aduana	aduana
Railway station	La estacion de trenes	Estación de F / ferrocarril
Where is?	dongde esta	¿Donde está?
Where can you buy tickets?	Donde se puede comprar entradas?	¿Dónde puedo comprar las entradas?
Movement around the city / Transport:
I want to rent a car	Quiero alkylar un coche	Quiero alquilar un coche
Take me to the airport	Lleveme al Aeropuerto	Llevame al aeropuerto
Stop here, please	Pare aka por favor	Detengase aquí, por favor
Take me to the hotel	Lievame al hotel	Llevame al hotel
Where can I get a taxi?	Donde puedo coher un taxi	¿Dónde puedo conseguir un taxi?
In a hotel:
Room for one	Habitation individual	Habitacion individual
I have booked a hotel room	Tengo una-habitacion rreservada	Yo reserve una habitación en el
Room for two	Habitacion con dos camas	Doble
Do you have rooms available?	Tieneng unabitacion libre	¿Tiene habitaciones disponibles?
In the Restaurant:
Wine	Wine	wine
The check, please	La cuenta, por favor	cuenta favor
Do you have a table for two (three, four) people?	Tienen unamesa para-dos (tres, cuatro) personas?	¿Tiene una mesa para dos (tres, cuatro) personas?
Coffee	cafe	café
Beer	Serves	cerveza
Waiter	Camarero	Camarero
I want to book a table	Kyero rreservar una-mesa	Quiero reservar una mesa
Tea	Tae	te
Numerals:
Six	ses	seis
One	it	uno
Three	tres	tres
Four	cuatro	cuatro
Seven	set	siete
Fourteen	catorce	catorce
Eleven	once	once
Thousand	miles	mil
Two	dos	dos
Twelve	doce	doce
Eight	ocho	ocho
Five	tsinzo	cinco
Twenty	vente	veinte
Thirteen	treze	Trece
One hundred	cent	ciento
Ten	des	diez
Nine	nueva	new

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