One of my reads on our last visit to Mexico trip was Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas: novela de Tierra Caliente. Valle-Inclán (1866-1936) was a Spanish poet, novelist, playwright, essayist and journalist. When I was a student, it was his poetic works, especially his sonatas, Primavera, Estío, Otoño and Invierno (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) rather than this novel that were in the curriculum.
However, he visited Mexico twice, in 1892-1893 during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, and in 1921 when the revolutionaries who had deposed Díaz had finally triumphed. He met Francisco I. Madero, the leader of the 2010 Revolution and the first revolutionary president. This must have been in 1892-1893, before Madero became an important opposition political figure, since he was assassinated in 1913. One of the characters of Tirano Banderas, don Roque Cepeda, a mystic and idealist, is clearly based on Madero. Various other figures clearly had Mexican originals, such as Doctor Atle, a reference to the artist and writer Gerardo Murillo, whose pseudonym was Dr. Atl (atl being the Nahuatl for water). Tirano Banderas, the dictator of Santa Fe, is advised by científicos (followers of European knowledge and the philosophy of Auguste Comte) as was Porfirio Díaz. Valle-Inclán also became a friend of Álvaro Obregón, one of the most important revolutionary generals, and himself president of Mexico from 1920-1924.
The novel reflects aspects of the Mexico that Valle-Inclán knew, but the imagined country in which it is set, Santa Fe de Tierra Firme, is clearly not one hundred percent Mexico. The capital is a fetid port, a tropical hothouse, while Mexico City is set in a high, temperate mountain valley. The dictator chews coca, an addiction of the high Andes of South America, not Mexico.
Valle-Inclán was one of the Generation of ’98, a literary group that sought ways to respond to the shock of the Spanish-American war of 1898. In Tirano Banderas he sought a unity of Spain’s lost empire by creating a literary language that reflected the many kinds of Spanish spoken throughout the Hispanic world, of which Castilian was (and still is) a minority. My edition includes a 16-page glossary of non-Castilian vocabulary, including many Mexicanisms and Nahuatl terms, but also the Spanish of Argentina, Chile, words from the speech of gypsies and so on. This vocabulary does not make for an easy read.
In Mexico, people assume from my looks that, like most visitors from overseas (the majority being from the USA) I speak little or no Spanish and almost always with a heavy English accent. When I respond in Spanish they often try to guess where I am from, always without success. They are puzzled, because a lot of what I say sounds like them, but they can see that I most certainly am not Mexican.
My first education in how to speak Mexican was in the summer of 1972 at the daily tertulia (afternoon coffee gathering) of my landlady Consuelo Cevallos and a group of her neighbours. It took time to attune my ear to the chat, but once I could follow the conversation, I joined in. Although I was admitted to the tertulia, the ladies asked me “Why do you speak like that? Why don’t you speak like us?” Over that long summer, I discovered that life was much easier and more enjoyable if I spoke to the Mexicans I met in their own variety of Spanish. My spoken Spanish was further polished by many nights in the bar of the Camino Real hotel and at the subsequent poker games with a group of young students who befriended me. From them I learned a Mexican Spanish that was far less polite than that of Consuelo’s ladies.
Language, of course, is not just a mechanical means of communication, but a window into culture. For example, Mexicans tend to be more elaborately courteous than Spaniards. If you read early colonial Spanish documents, there is an elaborate emphasis on status and formal politeness. And the Indigenous societies that Spain now ruled were very hierarchical and emphasized courtesy and self-deprecation in their rhetoric. It is hardly surprising that Spanish and Indigenous forms should result in a Mexican emphasis on politesse and deference. For example, in Castilian, if I do not quite understand what somebody has said to me, I might respond “¿Qué me dijo?” (What did you say?) but in Mexico the phrase is “¿Mande usted?” (literally What are your orders?). I was once told in Valencia, when I used just that phrase, that I should not be so servile. Similarly, the Mexican “A sus órdenes” (At your orders) is rarely if ever heard in Spain.
Then there are the words that come from Nahuatl and other native languages. Chocolate (chocolatl) has passed to Mexican, Castilian and English speakers. Tomate and tomato are similarly of Nahuatl origin, but Mexicans retain jitomate, a word closer to the Nahuatl xitomatl; tomate means that green fruit with a thin brown husk that Americans call tomatillo. Nahuatl terms for everyday objects similarly passed into Mexican Spanish: huipil (Nahuatl huipilli) is a woman’s blouse. A petate (petatl)rather than an estera) is a mat, and a popote (not a pajita) is a drinking straw. . A young child might be referred to affectionately by a Mexican as an escuincle or escuintle. Similarly, a man might refer to a male friend as guëy (pronounced like weigh) from the Nahuatl huey (man). The Aztec emperor was known as the huey tlatoani (the man who speaks). Tlatoani passed into Mexican Spanish to denote an Indigenous chieftain. Terms also moved the other way. The Spanish mandón (bossy boots) in colonial Mexico meant a minor official, not a jumped-up bossy character.
And, of course, Spain was very remote from Mexico, so that the two varieties of Spanish developed differently over time, especially after independence in 1821. In essence, Mexican Spanish became a variant of 16th/17th-century Castilian. I once had to pacify a director of the Alhambra, who had been annoyed by the editing of his text. As soon as he heard my Spanish he commented “Oiga, habla usted el español de Cervantes” (“You speak the Spanish of Cervantes”). His irritation disappeared and we became friends.
A mannerism that is much more frequently used in Mexican Spanish than in Castilian is the frequent (even prolific) use of the diminutive. A Mexican would often ask for “un cafecito”, a Spaniard for “un café”; in Mexico “unas tortillitas”, in Spain “unas tortillas”, or please (“por favor”) might become “por favorcito” The overall effect in Mexican speech is to convey great pleasure and self-deprecation.
Some phrases tell you much about cultural differences between Mexico and Spain. In my experience, it is quite rare for a Spaniard to invite you to her/his home, preferring instead to host a meal in a restaurant. Mexicans, on the other hand, are proud to invite one to their home, especially a foreigner or a person of high status. The guest is welcomed with the phrase “Está usted en su casa”, “Aquí tiene su casa” (literally This is your home”) or something similar that expresses pride and pleasure in your visit.
The formal usted form of verbs has been almost completely abandoned in Spain; but in Mexico it is still regularly heard, even if I now hear some shocking uses of the informal tú. However, it will take a long time for Mexicans to abandon the prolific use of titles to address one: licenciado (a person with a first degree); arquitecto, ingeniero, or more simply jefe (boss).
Then there are the words that just mean something different. If you are told that a camión will take you to Oaxaca to visit that beautiful city you should expect a bus (autobús for a Spaniard for whom a camión is a lorry) and you should board it at the central camionera not the estación de autobuses. I recall once landing unexpectedly at JFK airport in New York because my plane had a fault that required a long runway (and waiting fire engines). A Puerto Rican employee of Eastern Airlines addressed us in an English which was almost entirely incomprehensible. A group of elegantly dressed Mexican businessmen asked her if “¿Nos van a llevar en camión?” (Will we be taken by bus?), to which the airline employee replied in appalling Spanish as if addressing peasants: “¿Un camión? Un camión es una trocka!”
The verb chingar (never to be used in polite company), and its derivatives, is so rich a vein of Mexican slang that the Noble prize-winning poet Octavio Paz devoted a small essay to it in his book El Laberinto de la Soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude). My Spanish dictionary cites five definitions: rather demurely, to annoy; more frankly, to copulate; to steal, as in “me chingaron el dinero” (they stole my money); to kill, in my experience usually figuratively (“ya se me chingó el carro”: my car is done for); to finish something, as in “se chingaron todo el pastel” (they scoffed the whole cake). One could add several meanings and derivatives. A boastful Mexican might claim to be “el más chingón” (the very best; more politely he might be “el mero mero”, the bees knees). Another derivative, una chingadera means “a lot” or “ a ton of” (as in “gané una chingadera de dinero jugando poker”: I won a ton of money playing poker).
A word that trips up many Castilian speakers is the verb coger, for which my dictionary gives many meanings, of which the most common usage is to take, hold or catch: as in take an apple from the tree or money from a purse; hold a package; catch a bus; and so on. But in Mexico its meaning is invariably just one: the expletive equivalent of the English F word. The usual Mexican alternative is agarrar (defined as “to take or seize strongly, especially with the hand”); i.e. to grab. I was once severely chided for my use of agarrar instead of coger by a client in Barcelona, whose company distributed my reference books, and who moved in high social circles (he sailed with King Juan Carlos). He was greatly amused by the way I speak Spanish, but when, at the end of our lunch, I asked “Dónde puedo agarrar un taxi” (Where can I get a taxi?), he reprimanded me sternly: “Aquí no se agarran sino que se cogen” (Here we don’t grab them, we catch them”).
Finally, there are considerable differences of pronunciation and tone. The lisped Spanish ‘c’ before the vowels ‘e’ and ‘I’ and ‘z’ before all vowels, is always an ‘s’ in Mexico (consequently, Mexicans frequently misspell words: e.g. cocer (to cook) and coser (to sew) are commonly both spelled coser. In place names an ‘x’ is either a ‘sh’ or a guttural ‘ha’ (like the Spanish ‘j’): Xochimilco (Shochimilco) or Oaxaca (Wahaca). And the charming girl’s name Xochi (Nahuatl for flower) is Shochi. Vowels tend to be pronounced rather longer in Mexico than in Spain.
In tone, Mexican Spanish is much lighter, more musical on the tongue, and much less guttural than Castilian. To my ear, at least, Mexican speech has a musicality that Castilian lacks. And social interactions in Mexico are more formal (a Spaniard might say deferential) and elaborate. A speaker in a shop or restaurant in Spain who is more familiar with Mexican social norms may find Spaniards much more direct and forthright/brusque: the overall impression is that one is engaged in a business transaction which is to be briskly conducted; in Mexico, the interaction will be longer and more formally polite.
Lest my Castilian-speaking friends consider me unduly prejudiced against Iberian Spanish and Spanish society, we recently resumed our visits to Spain: a few days in Valencia and a delightful stay at the Voramar hotel on the beach in Benicassim lulled to sleep by the sound of waves of the Mediterranean are a great pleasure. But Mexico and its language has a special appeal which endures.
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