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"Connecting the World" Series

The Language of Mexico

The Language

Spanish is the main language in Mexico due to the fact that the Spaniards managed to dominate Mesoamerica politically and economically for many years before Mexico’s independence.  However, Mexico has managed to retain a remarkable number of indigenous languages.  Mexico is home to over 60 living indigenous languages.  India is the country with the most living languages, followed by Mexico, and then China.

Most Mexicans who speak their native indigenous language also speak Spanish.  The dominant indigenous language in Mexico is Nahuatl, which was spoken extensively throughout the Aztec empire and beyond.  Mayan is also widely spoken in the southern states of the country.  Other popular languages include Mixteco and Zapoteco. 

The 62 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico are:

Spanish, also known as Castilian, is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.  It is defined as an Iberian Romance language.  Spanish is spoken by over 400 million people throughout the world.  Due to the proximity to the Latin America, Spanish is becoming an increasing important language for the English-speaking countries of North America.
Spanish is closely related to Portuguese, and to a lesser extent, Italian and French.  These languages are all related to Latin, which in the past was a dominant language in Europe. Spanish shares a common link to these languages in terms of grammar, spelling, and pronunciation.
The Spanish alphabet includes other letters not found in the English alphabet.  There are a total of 30 letters in Spanish alphabet.  The additional letters are:  ch, ll, ñ, and rr.  These letters have specific pronunciation guidelines.  For example the letter “rr” is often described as the “rolling r.”
The Spanish spoken in Mexico is notably different from the Spanish spoken in the rest of the world due to the blending of Spanish with the indigenous languages of the country, most notably Nahualt.  For example, in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, a drinking straw is called pajilla, a dimuniutive of the paja which means “little straw.”  In Mexico, the word used is “popote” from the nahualt language.  Additionally, many of the place names in Mexico come from indigenous languages.  The name of the country itself is an indigenous word. 
Spanish differs from English in many ways.  Namely, there are formal and informal second person pronouns, instead of just the “you” in English.  The pronouns used in these cases are “tú,” and “usted.”  “Tú” is the informal pronoun, and “usted” is the formal pronoun.  “Usted” is used to address elders or people of respected social positions.  In Mexico, “tú” is the preferred second person pronoun, whereas “vos” is frequently used in Central and South America. 
In Spain, the second person plural pronouns “vosostros” and “ustedes” are used, whereas “ustedes” is more common in Mexico.  Only in the most formal circumstances, such as theatrical plays or speeches is “vosotros” used in Mexico.
Nouns in Spanish are defined as either “masculine” or “feminine” and require a different article in each case.  “El” is the masculine article and “La” is the feminine article.  This system doesn’t exist in English as only the only article used is “the.”  Nouns that end with the letter “a” typically are feminine are carry the “la” article.  However, there are exceptions to this rule.  The word for water, “agua” carries “el” as its article, although it is a feminine noun.  This is due to complications with pronunciation, as “la agua” would blur the article and noun words together. 
Additionally, the masculinity or feminity of a word also affects adjectives.  Depending on the gender on the word, the corresponding adjective will change spelling. For example:

• La casa fria (the cold house)
• El cuarto frio (the cold room)

Spanish differs in verb conjugation from English as well.  For example, many verbs are considered “reflexive” and describe an action as affected someone, rather than someone performing an action. 
For example, in English we say, “I dropped the plate.” In Spanish, you’d say “se me cayo el plato.”  This literally translates to “the plate fell from me.”
With Spanish verbs, there also exists an unusual “subjunctive” tense in addition to the typically past, present, future, etc. tenses.  This subjunctive is used in many different contexts, but most commonly when there is doubt about the outcome of a situation. 
For example:
Regular present tense: “Voy al cine.” : “I’m going to the movies.”
Subjunctive present tense: “No creo que vaya al cine.”: “I don’t relieve I’ll be going to the movies.”
As far as pronunciation goes, Spanish has the wonderful advantage of mostly being pronounced as it appears in its written form. 
Here is a basic guide to the pronunciation of some common sounds in the Spanish language:
A: like the a in “sack”
E: like the e in “net”
I: like the i in “treatise”
O: like the o in “not”
U: like the u in “duel”
H: silent
J: pronounced like a G in English, but very guttural
LL: Like the English y
N: just like in English
Ñ: like the n in English with an added y mixed in
Q + U: like the English k
R: rolled when found at the beginning of a word
RR: always rolled
V: like the English b
X: Like a soft s
Z: like the English c
When pronouncing words in Spanish, you will need to take into account the accents found in a word.  The accents indicate which syllable to emphasize.  Additionally, in Spanish words that have letter “n” or “s” at the end stress the last syllable.  Words that end in a vowel or the letters “n” and “s” emphasize the next to last syllable.  Also, keep an eye out for words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings depending on whether or not they have an accent. 
“Sí” means “yes,” whereas “si” without the accent means “if.” 
Here is an example.
“Sí, voy al cine.” : “Yes, I’m going to the movies.”
“Si voy al vine...”  : “If I go to the movies.”
Spanish, like all languages, is constantly evolving.  501 Spanish Verbs is an excellent book that talks about Spanish grammar and history.    

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