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New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

nytimes.com

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Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#81

Post by marc_abonce »

salomon812 wrote: post #17

This is my family. Sadly, the language dies with my generation. My father speaks this dialect of Spanish... or at least, he used to. We moved to Northern California when I was very little. But, if we had stayed in New Mexico, my cousins don't speak it either. I asked Dad why he didn't teach me. "What would I do? Speak it to myself?" I took Spanish in high school. My father really couldn't help me, some of the basic p…

Disclaimer: I only learned about the New Mexico Spanish variant today and my experience is limited to OP's article plus 2 YouTube videos. That being said:

I think that if you want to, you could learn "standard" Spanish and still have an understandable conversation with you family. At least for me (I'm Mexican) the people in those videos were easier to understand compared to the average Cuban Spanish, for example, which is one of hardest variants for me.

And the differences in vocabulary is something you'd have to face regardless of the language variant. For example, I usually call a belt "cinturón" except for martial arts belts which I always call "cinta", but right now I just searched for "cinta negra" images and all the results were black adhesive tapes and black ribbons.

But yeah, doing so would take many years of "talking like a preschooler", there's no escape from that.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkEq9OhbbDQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdAGJz4NvAg

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#82

Post by ars »

guywithahat wrote: post #75
ars wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you're trying to decrease migration between neighboring countries (such as Israel speaking Hebrew) Say what now? Israelis don't speak Hebrew to "decrease migration", they speak Hebrew because it's their ancestral language with a greater than 3,000 year history.

Although I agree in that there's certainly room for debate, it's a fact Israel has strict immigration laws, many of these laws are focused around keeping local Muslim populations out while bringing global Jewish populations in, and when Israel was founded millions of Jewish people from the neighboring countries (namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia) moved to Israel. They could have spoken a local language or even a European…

There was no such thing as a "local language" there. They spoke a very wide variety of language - one article collected 40 different languages spoken there.

Mandatory Palestine was not a country at that time, and had nothing unifying it.

The reason all those migrants switched to Hebrew is that it was the only common tongue among all of them.

Why in the world would they pick a European language? If anything maybe Yiddish, but as you write there were lots of people from Arab countries who didn't speak it.

But everyone knew Hebrew. It's really the only language that made sense. And it was not extinct, everyone knew it. Maybe it wasn't their cradle language, but everyone could make themselves understood in it.

You have this weird subtext that the place was Arab and Jews came in - that's not accurate at all, Jews never left Israel (Palestine). The migrants joined existing Jews.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#83

Post by onetokeoverthe »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #61
sdrothrock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads up: "crypto Jew" is also an antisemitic buzz word, which is why I suspect the linked article says "hidden" instead.

That is getting so tiring. How are normal people supposed to navigate in this world where normal words[1] and expressions are constantly being re-analyzed as fascist dogwhistles? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism

[dead]

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#85

Post by uncletaco »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #33
sam537 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowest of the low? Based on consonant pronunciation? How can you extract a value judgment from how someone speaks?

Ask anyone who has a "hillbilly" accent how they're treated by "educated" people.

When you get away from the coasts and start dealing with domestic companies you'll start to find many people in those spaces will exaggerate their regional accents. A guy from Chicago wants you to know you're dealing with a "real" Chicagoan. A guy working out of Port Fourchon might really want you to believe they just rose from the swamp to take your phone call.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#86

Post by decremental »

maxbond wrote: post #76
sdrothrock wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general impression, possibly out of ignorance, has been that there have always been lots of these and people (read: me) were just unaware of them. Some, like this (and "88" on usernames) are sometimes (often?) legitimate but have also been used as dog whistles... and fascism stains everything it touches.

Indeed, it's the fascists and bigots who appropriate words and employ ever shifting rhetoric to avoid being labeled as fascists or bigots and to try and conflate their ideology with as many pre-existing ideas as possible who are to blame for this linguistic treadmill, and not the people who point out that dog whistles are real. In the same way security researchers are not responsible for security vulnerabilities, but…

The vast majority of it is just to rustle the jimmies of people who use terms like fascist. The more butthurt people get about it the more you'll see it happen. They're not actually fascist dog whistles. It's them signaling to each other that they're not one of you.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#87

Post by jjav »

marc_abonce wrote: post #81
salomon812 wrote: post #17

This is my family. Sadly, the language dies with my generation. My father speaks this dialect of Spanish... or at least, he used to. We moved to Northern California when I was very little. But, if we had stayed in New Mexico, my cousins don't speak it either. I asked Dad why he didn't teach me. "What would I do? Speak it to myself?" I took Spanish in high school. My father really couldn't help me, some of the basic p…

Disclaimer: I only learned about the New Mexico Spanish variant today and my experience is limited to OP's article plus 2 YouTube videos. That being said: I think that if you want to, you could learn "standard" Spanish and still have an understandable conversation with you family. At least for me (I'm Mexican) the people in those videos were easier to understand compared to the average Cuban Spanish, for example, whi…

> [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkEq9OhbbDQ

> [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdAGJz4NvAg

As a native spanish speaker these are completely understandable, I wouldn't even call them a "different form of Spanish". Sure, they occasionally use a word or structure I wouldn't, but it's all very clear. No more different to my ears than variations in the language from country to country.

> average Cuban Spanish, for example, which is one of hardest variants for me

Interesting. Do you have some sample videos of what's difficult? I don't find Cuban Spanish at all different, but I did have a few Cuban friends growing up so perhaps my ear is used to it from that.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#88

Post by neodypsis »

jjav wrote: post #87
marc_abonce wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I only learned about the New Mexico Spanish variant today and my experience is limited to OP's article plus 2 YouTube videos. That being said: I think that if you want to, you could learn "standard" Spanish and still have an understandable conversation with you family. At least for me (I'm Mexican) the people in those videos were easier to understand compared to the average Cuban Spanish, for example, whi…

> [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkEq9OhbbDQ > [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdAGJz4NvAg As a native spanish speaker these are completely understandable, I wouldn't even call them a "different form of Spanish". Sure, they occasionally use a word or structure I wouldn't, but it's all very clear. No more different to my ears than variations in the language from country to country. > average Cuban Spanish, fo…

I also understood everything. Reminds me of how some people talk in rural parts of Costa Rica.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#89

Post by deafpolygon »

It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? How many variations of Italian or French have we lost due to migration?

As a Deaf person, this is readily apparent in local flavors of ASL. I noticed this with deaf people I came into contact with at RIT as a student there. There were many slight variations. You could tell who were new to the school, or those who's been there for a while. The ones new to the school were still doing it the way they learned at home, and the ones who has been there for 2-3 years were signing in a similar style. It was interesting to see.

Language is a living, constantly evolving, thing - you can't 'preserve' it any more than you would preserve a living tree in a book.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#90

Post by satvikpendem »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #69
thequadehunter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly all too common even with popular languages. I ask my dad why he never taught me Spanish and he just "didn't really think about it". Such a wasted opportunity for free goods.

I was having a related discussion with my wife about why our nephews weren’t taught Spanish as a first language (we live in Texas, their dad is bilingual). Frankly, having English as your first language gives you a much higher advantage in life in the current zeitgeist. There’s no incentive to learn RandomLanguage first, but there is every incentive to learn English first.

Nope, learning multiple languages from the beginning has been shown to have many benefits. I speak both my native language and English at native levels, simply because I learned my language at home and English in school. Only teaching English is really a waste when you live in an English speaking country, as the child will automatically pick up English through school and friends.
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