What language do Mexicans speak? What language is spoken in Mexico? National language of Mexico

"Mexican" language

The most popular questions from potential tourists before heading to Mexico!

1 question. What is the language in Mexico? What language does Mexico speak? What language does Mexico speak? What is the official language of Mexico? What is the official language in Mexico?

Answer: More than 90% of Mexicans consider Spanish (more precisely, Mexican Spanish) their native language and actively use it in communication both at home with family and in society. It is also the official language of the United States of Mexico. Less than 10% use one of the home languages ​​(pre-colonial period) when communicating with their native people. In the State of Quintana Ru, where the city of Cancun is actually located, the Yucatac language is widespread, which, in turn, is divided into 5 dialects!) It is spoken by the descendants of the ancient Mayans.

Among non-home languages, preference is given to English. The proximity to the USA and, naturally, a large number of tourists from the USA and Canada have an effect. Knowledge of English - often - required condition for employment in tourism and service sector enterprises.

The Russian language is a little more difficult. You can count the number of Mexicans who speak Russian on one hand!)

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Do you speak Spanish?

Ola! Speak Spanish!

Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world

Mexico is a huge country with territory North America, the total area of ​​which is 1.95 million km. Mexico borders the United States on the northern and eastern parts. From the eastern part, the country is washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Caribbean Sea. Mexico also includes numerous Pacific islands. The capital of this state is Mexico City - one of the oldest cities. But does this country have its own language?

What language do Mexicans use?

In fact, the inhabitants of Mexico use Spanish - more precisely, its Mexican dialect - in everyday communication. This happened historically, as a result of the conquest of local lands by European conquistadors. Therefore, there is no Mexican language as such. However, in addition to Spanish, about 68 local languages ​​are also used. But the vast majority of the population - about 90% - still communicates in Spanish.

Is Spanish official?

It remains the most widespread in Mexico - it is spoken almost everywhere. Although Spanish is widely spoken, it is not official language. This is a very common misconception. The fact is that the Mexican constitution states: Mexico is a multinational country. That's why she always advocates bilingualism, or Spanish plus vernacular.

English in Mexico

Some tourists heading to Mexico rush to find a Russian-Mexican phrasebook. Others, knowing that now the vast majority of Mexicans communicate in Spanish, grab their heads: before the trip they need to learn as quickly as possible new language. However, there are also travelers who are sure that you can survive in any country if you know English. This is a big misconception about Mexico. English not only won’t help here, but can also seriously hinder you. The fact is that Mexicans do not like their neighboring Americans. Therefore, if a tourist begins to communicate with local resident in English, most likely, he will take on an indifferent look. Or he will communicate in an unfriendly manner.

Local dialects

Indigenous dialects are spoken by no more than 6% of the country's total population. And this is about 6 million people. It is interesting that the number of those who stubbornly consider themselves descendants of the great Indians is twice this number. The most widely spoken local Mexican language is called Nahuatl, which includes various dialects. Nahuatl is used in everyday life by about 1.3 million people.

One of the main languages ​​of the Aztec group is Classical Nahuatl. Beginning in the 16th century, it was systematically displaced by invading Europeans. Gradually, the Aztec language began to break up into dialects. On this moment Classical Nahuatl is considered a dead language. However, it retained a large number of literary monuments, recorded using the Latin alphabet. Many people call the Nahuatl language Mexican. Translation into different languages ​​and even courses in learning Nahuatl have now ceased to be exotic.

Mayan languages

The next most common language is occupied by the language of the ancient Mayans - Maaya Taan, or Yucatecan language. Its carriers are about 759 thousand people. It is distributed mainly in the Yucatan Peninsula. The oldest written language of the Mayan Indians is the language of the classical era of this civilization. It is believed that the common ancestor of the Yucatecan dialects is the Proto-Mayan language.

Q'eqchi - Mayan dialect

About 450 thousand people speak the Qekchi language. This language is spoken mainly in Guatemala. Here, about 90% of the total number of residents communicate in it. However, Qekchi can also be heard in El Salvador and Belize. For a very long time, the Kekchi ethnic family was isolated from other regions. That's why different dialects of this language differ from each other very insignificantly. The main dialect is the Western dialect. Q'eqchi is distinguished by the fact that among its representatives there is the largest number of monolingual speakers.

Mixtec dialects

Another 423 thousand people. They use the languages ​​of the Mixtec group in everyday life. The area where the Mixtec Mexican language is spoken is the area called La Mixteca. The word "Mixtec" means "resident, inhabitant." Typically, speakers of this group of languages ​​use the poetic phrase “Word of Rain” to denote their native dialect. In total, the Mixtec language has 52 local dialects.

Zapotec Mexican languages

410 thousand people in Mexico are native speakers of Zapotec languages. The Zapotec civilization began around 700 BC. e. In the 16th century it was finally conquered by European conquerors. The Zapotec Empire was located in the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The largest Zapotec settlement was a city called Monte Alban, which was the first of the empire's capitals. The Mixtecs neighboring to the north were the constant enemies of the state.

Mexico is a country ancient civilizations. For many millennia, numerous Indian tribes lived on its territory. Modern ethnic composition formed from the indigenous population, European settlers and Africans imported from the sixteenth century to work on plantations. More than half of the population are mestizos and mulattoes, descendants from 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

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

However, thanks to intensive 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 sharply declined due to diseases introduced by Europeans, their numbers stabilized already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the number of people speaking Amerindian languages ​​increased quite significantly, although their overall share of the population continued to decline as the number of Spanish-speaking mestizos grew even more rapidly. Yet the official 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 phrases that are characteristic of spoken Spanish in Mexico are directly explained by the influence of autochthonous languages.

Mexico City - capital of New Spain

Another important factor in the formation of Mexican Spanish is the status of Mexico City itself (formerly Tenochtitlan), a city that was the capital of New Spain throughout three centuries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many people arrived here from Madrid. Therefore, Mexican Spanish, like American English, is mainly based on the corresponding European counterpart.
In Spain itself, the language continued to develop further, but in Mexico it seemed to freeze after the country gained 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 linguistic norms of the Mexican capital, Mexico City, which is the literary standard for this variant.

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

Mexican Spanish - native language for approximately 125 million people, over 100 million of whom live in Mexico and approximately 25 million in the United States, mainly in the border areas of California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. This variety of Spanish is the only official language at the federal level, and, along with many Native American dialects, 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 and the media. It is also the most widely spoken language variety of Spanish in the world, as it is the native language of 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; you also need to have an idea of ​​a number of changes taking place in the language system. So, the country is expanding linguistic territories(similar to what happened in Spain, when Spanish replaced other languages ​​that existed on the Iberian Peninsula), changes of a phonological nature occur (the letter j begins to be pronounced differently, the sound [θ] gradually disappears and changes to [s], they adapt phonetically words borrowed from Indian dialects).

Those who first encountered the modern Mexican version of Spanish note its “conservativeness.” IN works of art Spanish writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries encountered words that are today considered archaisms in Spain and are almost unrecognizable 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 you find this information useful. All the best!

Spanish in Mexico(Spanish) Español mexico) - a group of adverbs, dialects and sociolects, constituting a special linguistic variant of the Spanish language in Mexico, based on the linguistic norm of the Mexican capital - the city of Mexico, which is the literary standard of this variant. The Spanish of most other regions of the country is fairly close to the metropolitan norm, with the exception of the specific dialects of Yucatan (Yucatan Spanish, based on Caribbean Spanish) and Chiapas (Central American Spanish). Mexican Spanish (as well as the various dialects within it) is the native language of approximately 125 million people (of which over 100 million live in Mexico and about 25 million in the United States, mainly in border areas of Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc.). d.). In Mexico, this variety of Spanish is the only official one at the federal level and one of the official ones (along with many Indian languages) at the state level. Mexican Spanish is also the basis for the Spanish language in the United States (see Spanish in the United States), widely used in the media (Univision, Telemundo, etc.), education, etc. In addition, Mexican Spanish is the most common language variant Spanish, since it is native to the majority of Mexicans, who make up about 29% of all Spanish speakers in the world. The main features of the Spanish language in Mexico are the clarity of pronunciation of consonants (especially d and s) and its closeness to the classical standard Spanish of the 16th and 17th centuries, with a strong influence of indigenous languages ​​in the field of vocabulary.

Story

Until the 16th century, the territory of modern Mexico was inhabited by quite numerous Indian tribes who spoke several dozen languages, the most common of which were: Navajo in the north, Maya, Nahuatl in the center and many others, which had a significant substrate influence on the Spanish language, which at first only a small but elite stratum of conquistadors, administrators and officials and immigrants from Spain, who made up about 5% of the population, spoke. However, thanks to its prestige and intensive interracial contacts (mixed race), Spanish became the main means of communication for the bulk of Mexicans already in the 17th century. Yet, unlike the United States, Mexico has never pursued a policy of genocide against the indigenous population. After a sharp decline in the number of Indians due to diseases introduced by Europeans, their number stabilized already in XVII-XVIII centuries. IN XIX-XX centuries The number of speakers of Amerindian languages ​​in Mexico increased quite significantly, although their share of the population as a whole continued to decline due to an even more rapid increase in the number of Spanish-speaking mestizos. However, the influence of Amerindian languages, which are still spoken by 7-10% of Mexicans, remains significant. Many Mexicanisms, that is, words, phrases, phonetic and grammatical phenomena characteristic of the spoken Spanish language of Mexico, are explained precisely by the influence of autochonic languages. Another important factor in the formation and spread of Mexican Spanish was the status of the city of Mexico City itself (formerly Tenochtitlan), which for three centuries was the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (see New Spain and Colonies of Spain), as well as the largest in the Western Hemisphere, where XVI-XVII centuries a significant number of people arrived from Madrid and Spain. Therefore, just like American English, Mexican Spanish is based mainly on the corresponding European analogue of the language of the 16th-17th centuries. The language, in fact, of Spain continued to develop further, but in Mexico it largely froze as if in a preserved form after gaining independence in early XIX century and developed in isolation from Spain.

Phonological features

• Seseo: Latin America as a whole, the Canary Islands and Andalusia still do not differentiate s and interdental z, c(developed in Castile), which are all pronounced /s/. The sound [s] in Mexico is laminodental or apicodental and identical to the Russian sound “s”, but [s] in the center and north of Spain took on an apical-alveolar character in the 19th-20th centuries, so for Russians and Mexicans equally it sounds like “ sh" (the non-distinction between s and sh is also characteristic of the Greek language).

• Eizmo: There is no longer any difference in pronunciation y And ll; pronounced like /ʝ/ or Russian [Y].

• Unlike other varieties of Spanish, which tend to vocalize words according to the Italian model, final and intervocalic consonants in Mexico have a fairly clear quality, and vowels, on the contrary, are reduced: the pronunciation ["tRasts] for "trastes". This often happens on consonant contact [s] with [e], which is dropped. Philologist Bertil Malmberg gives the following example Rafael Lapesa, where many people do not pronounce vowels in common speech ( Cómo ’stás, “cómo estás’, nec’sito, ‘necesito’, palabr’s ‘palabras’, much’s gras’s, ‘muchas gracias’).

• Unlike Caribbean Spanish, final [s] (indicator of plural and second person verbs) is always preserved.

• Intervocalic d tends to weaken, but is never completely reduced. Thus, "amado", "partido", "nada" do not become "amao", "partío" and "naa" as in Cuba or Venezuela.

• In much of Mexico, the distinctive [R] and [r] phonemes of Standard Spanish (especially the final -r) are often muted and the contrast between them is somewhat blurred: ["ka§ta]"carta" or "amor", while in the northern states the difference between /rr/ and /-r/ remains. In some areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, r even takes on a uvular quality (as in French).

• The sound (x) in Mexico is a fricative voiceless velar [x], as in ["kaxa] "caja" (box). This sound is in many ways similar to the Russian "kh" and is quite close to the similar sound of northern and central Spain, but, in contrast, it does not have hard uvular overtones.In Caribbean Spanish (which has a strong influence on the speech of the Atlantic coast of Mexico), due to the general weakening of consonants, the letter j realized as a voiceless exhalation [h], found in Germanic languages.

• Within Mexican Spanish, which has a standardized version, there are a significant number of dialects (especially in the vernacular). Thus, Mexicans themselves, as a rule, can distinguish by ear the speech of people from the states of Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa, Yucatan, Mexico City itself, Jalisco, Chiapas or Veracruz.

In 1521, Spanish colonizers arrived in Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), thus introducing the Spanish language into what is now Mexico. However, it took several generations for the zones to acquire their own personal linguistic character. This happened only 100 years later. The Creole Spanish language of Mexico begins to emerge when the first children are born in Mexico, but their parents still spoke European Spanish, so their children could not yet be said to speak pure Mexican Spanish.

In Mexico, as subsequently in all other countries of Latin America, a number of changes are taking place in the Spanish language system: linguistic territories are expanding (as happened in Spain, when the Spanish language replaced other languages ​​that existed on the Iberian Peninsula), phonological changes are taking place (by -the other begins to pronounce j, the sound θ gradually disappears and is replaced by s, phonetic adaptation of words borrowed from Indian languages ​​occurs), etc.

One of the first impressions that modern Mexican Spanish can make on an observer is that it is “conservative.” IN literary texts Spanish writers of the 16th and 17th centuries can find words that today in Spain are archaisms and are practically unrecognizable to native speakers, or are used extremely rarely. In Mexico these words continue to be used and are not perceived as archaic. Here are some examples of such lexical units:

These are just a small number of words currently used in Mexican Spanish that have fallen out of use in the Iberian Peninsula.

The presence of such a lexical layer has given rise to the erroneous view among many linguists of the Mexican version of the Spanish language as an archaic variant (Wagner, 1949; Zamora Vicente, 1974; etc.). However, Moreno de Alba writes about this: “The vocabulary of the Spanish language is the complete sum of all the vocabulary of all its dialects (geographical, historical and social). Therefore, the problem of so-called archaisms must be reconsidered. Of course, there are archaisms in the strict sense of the word and these would be linguistic phenomena that are used sporadically and have disappeared from the entire Spanish language, such as the verb catar meaning “to see” or yantar meaning “to eat”. But there is also an infinite number of archaisms in a relative sense, which, although used in some dialects, have ceased to be the norm in others. Thus, the word estafeta can be perceived as an archaism by Latin Americans, ... and the vocabula prieto will be so for the Spaniards" (Moreno de Alba, 2001: 264 - 265). Thus, these words are archaisms in the Castilian version of the Spanish language, while in the Mexican version they are commonly used and cannot be regarded as archaic.

It is known that the Indian languages ​​that dominated the territory of what is now Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards had almost no impact on the phonological and grammatical level of the Spanish language in Mexico. On the other hand, all linguists recognize their influence on the lexical composition of the language. Thus, in Mexican Spanish we can find great amount Indianisms, in particular those originating from the Nahuatl language. These are mainly words related to flora and fauna. Here are some of them:

The large number of Indianisms recorded in general dictionaries and in dictionaries of regionalisms may suggest that the Indian component is the most important in Latin American national varieties of the Spanish language. It must be taken into account that when compiling dictionaries, authors start from written sources (chronicles, letters, protocols, memoirs, documents, etc.), collecting all found autochthonous words, including toponyms, anthroponyms and ethnonyms. However, all this much-needed data for conducting diachronic research distorts linguistic reality when conducting research in a synchronous manner, forcing many researchers to believe that all Indianisms registered in dictionaries are actively used in speech in a particular country. Thus, Dario Rubio believed that such a large number of Nahuatlism in Mexico would “cause a truly terrible chaos” that would make communication between Mexicans difficult (Rubio, 1990: XXII). In fact, many words recorded in dictionaries may not even be known to Mexicans, or they may know them passively, that is, know them but never use them in speech. Mexican linguist Lope Blanche, in his work “Indian Vocabulary in the Spanish Language of Mexico” (1969), divides the Nahuatlisms existing in the Mexican version into six groups. Below are some examples:

It should be noted that Nahuatlism, being an important factor in the Mexican version of the Spanish language, is currently showing a tendency towards its disappearance due to constant changes in life, economy and education (Yakovleva, 2005:25). In addition to Nahuatlisms, the Mexican version of Spanish also contains borrowings from other Indian languages, for example, Mayan. Examples include words such as balac, chich, holoch, pibinal, tuch, xic. However, borrowings from the Mayan language are mainly present in the southeast of the country and are dialectal phenomena that are not part of the norm of the entire Mexican version of the Spanish language, which is based on the cultural speech of Mexico City. Therefore, we will not dwell in detail on these lexical units.

Coexisting with words of a conservative nature, in the Spanish language of Mexico there are currently a large number of neologisms, that is, vocables that follow an American path that is different from the European one.

In particular, in the Mexican version we can hear anglicisms that are not registered in dictionaries, but dominate in speech over common Spanish words. Such anglicisms are absent in other national varieties of the Spanish language. Examples include words such as:

Many philologists, writers and cultural figures are concerned about the unjustified and excessive inclusion of English vocabulary in everyday life and oppose its negative consequences, considering this phenomenon a reflection of the political, economic, scientific and technical expansion of the United States and its partners, a consequence of Americanization popular culture Mexico. Quite often you can hear the opinion that the abundance of Anglicisms is one of the distinctive features Spanish in Mexico (Lopez Rodriguez, 1982). However, Lope Blanche in the article “Anglicisms in cultural norm Mexico" states the following: "Mexico is a country overly susceptible to contamination by the English language. Being a neighbor to the United States, it has a border with them that is more than 2,500 km long. It maintains close economic relations with its powerful neighbor. It receives a significant number of American tourists every year, and hundreds of thousands of Mexicans go temporarily to work in the United States. English language most studied foreign language in Mexico. ... However, it is quite possible that the Spanish language of Mexico does not differ in this respect from other Spanish-speaking countries much more distant geographically, historically and politically from the United States" (Lope Blanch, 1982: 32 - 33).

In a study of the cultural speech of Mexico City within the framework of the “Project for Collaborative Research on the Cultural Linguistic Standards of the Main Cities” Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula”, the total number of registered Anglicisms was 170 vocables, which is 4% of the 4452 questions of the questionnaire used at that time. However, not all of these Anglicisms are used with the same frequency in Mexico.

Lope Blanche divides Anglicisms into 5 groups.

1. Commonly used anglicisms: basquetbol, ​​bateo, beisbol, bikini, boxeo, closet, champú, coctel, cheque, elevador, emergencia, esmoquin, futbol, ​​gol, líder, refrigerador, supermercado, etc.
2. Frequently used anglicisms: bar, bermudas, bistec, chequera, jochey, kinder, poncharse, ponchada, shorts, etc.
3. Anglicisms of medium frequency: barman, manager, porter, túnel, videotape, zípper, etc.
4. Little-used anglicisms: bilet, blazer, lonch, mofle, ofside, standar, stewardess, stop, tándem, etc.
5. Spontaneous anglicisms: bartender, comics, game, gorra de golf, locker, magazine, pull-over, rosbif, etc.

One third of Anglicisms denote concepts related to sports. In second place are words related to technology, followed by vocabulary related to clothing and food. However, despite the geographical proximity of Mexico and the United States, the Spanish language of Mexico lacks whole line Anglicisms actively used in other Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain. We are talking about words such as clown (payaso), bacon (tocino), espíquer (locutor), shut (tiro, disparo), water (excusado), autostop (aventón), aparcar / parquear (estacionar), etc.

Thus, Mexican Spanish has anglicisms. However, their number in cultural speech does not differ much from other national varieties of the language.

Aztec languages ​​have been studied since the mid-16th century, when the first grammar of classical Nahuatl 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. Currently, many of the Aztec languages ​​are 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 Mayans (see MAYAN LANGUAGES). Later, the Aztecs developed some elements of phonetic writing, especially when writing names. Currently, Latin-based writing has been developed for many Aztec languages.

Aztec languages ​​are highly synthetic and have accusative sentence construction.

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