# Mexican Spanish



## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Both my plumbers called them a válvula check. Google it

Lots of English words incorporated into Spanish

¿Quieres un ride? (ri-day) 
trucka
taxi
carro
Gotta be more ...............


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

sparks said:


> Both my plumbers called them a válvula check. Google it
> 
> Lots of English words incorporated into Spanish
> 
> ...


There are lots more. That could be another thread. 

According to Wikipedia here are various terms for a check valve: 

"Las *válvulas anti-retorno*, también llamadas *válvulas de retención, válvulas uniflujo o válvulas check*, tienen por objetivo cerrar por completo el paso de un fluido en circulación -bien sea gaseoso o líquido- en un sentido y dejar paso libre en el contrario."

In terms of "Spanglish" words being incorporated in to the language, I'm sometimes surprised to see some of these words incorporated into the RAE (Real Academia Española, the official institution responsible for overseeing the Spanish language) Real Academia Española

Lonche, lonchera, lonchería (from the English lunch, lunchbox, and "place to have lunch" - which ironically in English would more likely be a diner) are all now in the RAE, identified as from English, used in the Americas.

"Clóset" is in the RAE, from English for "armario empotrado"

The Mexican word for "check", _checar_ is also included in the RAE (the traditional Spanish word for check is _chequear_, but in Mexican Spanish it's _checar_).

"Troca" for truck hasn't made the cut yet, nor has "loquear" for lock, instead of "cerrar con llave" (close with a key). "Loquear" is a word in Spanish, but it means to play the fool or be wild and crazy, not to lock something. 

In terms of "ride" in Spanish, I've never heard it pronounced "ri-day". I've always heard it (and say it) the same as in English, but with the "r" rolled and the "d" soft (almost like a soft "th"). Hitchhiking is "pedir ride". Giving someone a ride, can be _ride, jalón_ or _aventón_.

"Carro" is actually not from English, but from Latin _carrus_. "Coche", another Spanish word for a car, interestingly is from the Hungarian word for carriage. 

I thought "chance" in Spanish (pronounced chan-say) might be from English, but apparently it's from French! I love languages, how they are so dynamic, alive and constantly evolving, borrowing, and interacting.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

I thought we were talking about tinacos. 

Anyway, I think I said something like "for my taste" - it was only a comment.

Nouns are an open class and are always changing, those common examples you gave are just the tip of the iceberg (BTW, iceberg is a Spanish word also, same as hippy and hobby, and I have no idea why those have come to mind).


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

xolo said:


> I thought we were talking about tinacos.
> 
> Anyway, I think I said something like "for my taste" - it was only a comment.
> 
> Nouns are an open class and are always changing, those common examples you gave are just the tip of the iceberg (BTW, iceberg is a Spanish word also, same as hippy and hobby, and I have no idea why those have come to mind).


I wasn't meaning to criticize you, xolo, it's just that language is a topic which fascinates me and I can't stop myself from getting into it when the door is cracked open... Living primarily in Canada, but speaking Spanish at home, work and socially with people from many different Latin American countries, and from Spain, conversation often drifts to the Spanish language, different usages depending on the country, etc.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

ojosazules11 said:


> I wasn't meaning to criticize you, xolo, it's just that language is a topic which fascinates me and I can't stop myself from getting into it when the door is cracked open... Living primarily in Canada, but speaking Spanish at home, work and socially with people from many different Latin American countries, and from Spain, conversation often drifts to the Spanish language, different usages depending on the country, etc.


Oh yes! That has been what I've been doing for the last 5-6 years at least. The way I feel about this particular topic, just my personal opinion, is that if, like me, you want to learn the Spanish language well, then you should speak it as much as possible and study it separately. I mean focus on the core language, don't get too distracted.


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

ojosazules11 said:


> I wasn't meaning to criticize you, xolo, it's just that language is a topic which fascinates me and I can't stop myself from getting into it when the door is cracked open... Living primarily in Canada, but speaking Spanish at home, work and socially with people from many different Latin American countries, and from Spain, conversation often drifts to the Spanish language, different usages depending on the country, etc.


It fascinates me too, and is really close to home with me having a Mexican wife and spending 25 years in L.A. She was shocked at the _bad_ Spanish there and I had to remind her that languages evolve. That's how bad Latin eventually became Castilian Spanish and bad Castellano became the Mexican dialect. What really rankles her is that there are more speakers of Spanish in El Lay than in her native Guadalajara--- so who's to say what's bad.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

perropedorro said:


> …What really rankles her is that there are more speakers of Spanish in El Lay than in her native Guadalajara--- so who's to say what's bad.


It makes a nice trick trivia question: What is the second largest Mexican city by Mexican population? LA. It is not true unless you qualify it with comments about heritage rather than citizenship, but it is funny anyway.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

perropedorro said:


> ... and bad Castellano became the Mexican dialect. What really rankles her is that there are more speakers of Spanish in El Lay than in her native Guadalajara--- so who's to say what's bad.


I know you didn't mean that to be other than a casual comment but be careful. Basically, Mexican Spanish is excellent Spanish. There is nothing "wrong" with it. Be very careful when you use words like "dialect", "bad", etc. You really need a metric to make a case and I would argue that thinking of Mexican Spanish as "bad" Castellano sounds like a Euro-centric, colonial-era attitude. And yes, that is my study area.


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

xolo said:


> I know you didn't mean that to be other than a casual comment but be careful. Basically, Mexican Spanish is excellent Spanish. There is nothing "wrong" with it. Be very careful when you use words like "dialect", "bad", etc. You really need a metric to make a case and I would argue that thinking of Mexican Spanish as "bad" Castellano sounds like a Euro-centric, colonial-era attitude. And yes, that is my study area.


My study area too. Just pointing out that "bad" Spanish is relative, and comparing how (some) snooty speakers of Castilian Spanish looking down on Mexican Spanish is equivalent to (some) Mexicans bagging on Spanish as it tends to be spoken in the U.S., which has about as many speakers of that language as Spain or Argentina. We're also in agreement that Mexican Spanish is excellent Spanish. As long as folks can effectively communicate, it's excellent Spanish whether it's spoken in Madrid, CDMX, Bogotá, or L.A.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

This isn't about Mexican Spanish, but about the natural evolution of language. I recently saw a document written in Middle English. It was very hard to make out the meaning. I know some of this is related to orthographic changes over the centuries, but there have been marked changes in pronunciation as well. I've often wondered if I were transported back to England in the Middle Ages, would I be able to understand the language? Even listening to radio broadcasts from 70 - 80 yrs ago, I can note the shift in accent, inflection and word usage. I won't be around for it, but I think it will be fascinating in another 100 - 200 yrs for people to actually be able to listen to people's speech from 2-3 centuries prior, and hear how accents have changed. Imagine if we could truly hear how people spoke in the time of Shakespeare.


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## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

All the Mexican plumbers where I live call a check valve a "pinchancha".


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

pichancha that is what my plumber calls it too..


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

Perhaps this is similar to using _"cisterna"_ in some parts of Mexico (including Morelos), and _"aljibe"_ in other regions. 

Interestingly, "pichancha" (or "pinchancha"?) is not in the Real Academia Española, even as a Mexican colloquialism. 

Close (but no cigar) are:

_pichincha_: colloquial in Argentina/Uruguay/Paraguay meaning _"ganga"_ (which is something you get for a great price, e.g. "a real bargain" "a steal")

_pichacha_: used in Guatemala for a clay sieve/strainer, or also in Guatemala, _"hecho pichacha"_ is in reference to someone who is financially ruined or someone who has been beat up (_"Ha sufrido una paliza"_ -> _paliza_ is another word you might not learn in Spanish class. It means "a beating". "He got beat up" -_ "Le dieron una paliza."_ In my brain, I've always linked "paliza" with the word "pala" (shovel - imagining someone getting hit with a shovel), but I have absolutely no idea if there is actually a link between _pala_ and _paliza_. My brain just creates these little tricks to help remember words.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

well pichancha is a commonly used word in chiapas for sieve, there are the clay vessels full of holes .. and they can be purchased in any market. I even bought one at a state concurso so they may not be in any book but the word is used widely.In Chiapas it is not a pichacha either. 
Same here the plumbers from 15 years ago used the word and the current plumber used that word too..

Check Home Depot in Mexico and they show they have valvula de pie pichancha which is the type of valve Sparks is talking about the one that has a filter.

Pichancha is a filter for sure in that case. I agree with Sparks on that one but the plumbers around here also use pichancha for válvula de retención.

I would bet that pichancha is an indigenous word, my guess Nahuatl but I do not know..


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

ojosazules11 said:


> This isn't about Mexican Spanish, but about the natural evolution of language. I recently saw a document written in Middle English. It was very hard to make out the meaning. I know some of this is related to orthographic changes over the centuries, but there have been marked changes in pronunciation as well. I've often wondered if I were transported back to England in the Middle Ages, would I be able to understand the language? Even listening to radio broadcasts from 70 - 80 yrs ago, I can note the shift in accent, inflection and word usage. I won't be around for it, but I think it will be fascinating in another 100 - 200 yrs for people to actually be able to listen to people's speech from 2-3 centuries prior, and hear how accents have changed. Imagine if we could truly hear how people spoke in the time of Shakespeare.


You nailed it, ojos, that languages tend to change over time. They also had dialect drift, the origin of regional accents which became more distinct as the generations went by. I've never lived in an old city, but understand that various neighborhoods of London have distinct ways of speaking. 
What I'm also thinking is that trend is now being reversed by mass communications, the global village being a centripetal force on language. In the U.S., at least, the standard mass media accent was East Coast, specifically New York, through the dawn of radio right into the TV era. Then it abruptly shifted around the mid 60's to a more West Coast accent, which is less pronounced because the region has been settled for far less time. Specific to Canada, are accents more varied and distinct in the East than in Vancouver? Probably happening in Mexico also, in places like Tijuana, a new city where most residents came from somewhere else.


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## Anonimo (Apr 8, 2012)

citlali said:


> well pichancha is a commonly used word in chiapas for sieve, there are the clay vessels full of holes .. and they can be purchased in any market. I even bought one at a state concurso so they may not be in any book but the word is used widely.In Chiapas it is not a pichacha either.
> Same here the plumbers from 15 years ago used the word and the current plumber used that word too..
> 
> Check Home Depot in Mexico and they show they have valvula de pie pichancha which is the type of valve Sparks is talking about the one that has a filter.
> ...



"Las Pichanchas" is a popular and colorful restaurant in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, as well.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

perropedorro said:


> You nailed it, ojos, that languages tend to change over time. They also had dialect drift, the origin of regional accents which became more distinct as the generations went by. I've never lived in an old city, but understand that various neighborhoods of London have distinct ways of speaking.
> What I'm also thinking is that trend is now being reversed by mass communications, the global village being a centripetal force on language. In the U.S., at least, the standard mass media accent was East Coast, specifically New York, through the dawn of radio right into the TV era. Then it abruptly shifted around the mid 60's to a more West Coast accent, which is less pronounced because the region has been settled for far less time. Specific to Canada, are accents more varied and distinct in the East than in Vancouver? Probably happening in Mexico also, in places like Tijuana, a new city where most residents came from somewhere else.


Speaking of incountry different accents did you ever notice the Beatles when interviewed had strong Liverpoolian accents but when singing had no accents at all? They sounded like Americans or Canadians.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

citlali said:


> well pichancha is a commonly used word in chiapas for sieve, there are the clay vessels full of holes .. and they can be purchased in any market. I even bought one at a state concurso so they may not be in any book but the word is used widely.In Chiapas it is not a pichacha either.
> Same here the plumbers from 15 years ago used the word and the current plumber used that word too..
> 
> Check Home Depot in Mexico and they show they have valvula de pie pichancha which is the type of valve Sparks is talking about the one that has a filter.
> ...


Well, it appears "Wikcionario" is ahead of the RAE on this word. I was seeing if I could find the origin (e.g. Nahuatl, Mayan), and I found this:

https://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/pichancha#Etimolog.C3.ADa


In addition to the usages discussed above (water valve, sieve/strainer, a clay pot with holes specifically for washing nixtamal corn), it is also used in Chile for a kind of _escabeche_ (pickled vegetables), with onion, broccoli, ham and cheese.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

perropedorro said:


> You nailed it, ojos, that languages tend to change over time. They also had dialect drift, the origin of regional accents which became more distinct as the generations went by. I've never lived in an old city, but understand that various neighborhoods of London have distinct ways of speaking.
> What I'm also thinking is that trend is now being reversed by mass communications, the global village being a centripetal force on language. In the U.S., at least, the standard mass media accent was East Coast, specifically New York, through the dawn of radio right into the TV era. Then it abruptly shifted around the mid 60's to a more West Coast accent, which is less pronounced because the region has been settled for far less time. Specific to Canada, are accents more varied and distinct in the East than in Vancouver? Probably happening in Mexico also, in places like Tijuana, a new city where most residents came from somewhere else.


Canada's east coast/Maritime provinces definitely have more marked accents than Ontario to British Columbia, the strongest being the accent in Newfoundland (which is of course an island, and therefore more isolated from outside influences). I'm not including Quebec, where English is a second language. New Brunswick is very mixed, both French and English, so that influences the accent. There are also still francophone communities in Ontario. I think outside of large urban centres, there are more regional variations. 

I remember growing up in Nebraska, I always listened to Walter Cronkite read the evening news (I guess I was a somewhat peculiar child... "And that's the way it is..."). When people comment that my accent does not sound like it is from Nebraska, I attribute it to Walter Cronkite. (Actually many people in Nebraska do not speak with a rural twang, although many others do.)


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

language keeps changing, Every time I go home to France I have to learn vocabulary... I go there every 3 or 4 years and I encounter expressions and words that are new to me or have changed, like they have become pejorative when they were not.. it is just amazing. I do not listen to French for several years and when I get back into it, things have changed so imagine over centuries..


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Citali got it right: It is a literal translation of the English term: *Foot valve with strainer*, which is found at the bottom of any well, and at the bottom of your aljibe/cisterna.


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

perropedorro said:


> It fascinates me too, and is really close to home with me having a Mexican wife and spending 25 years in L.A. She was shocked at the _bad_ Spanish there and I had to remind her that languages evolve. That's how bad Latin eventually became Castilian Spanish and bad Castellano became the Mexican dialect. What really rankles her is that there are more speakers of Spanish in El Lay than in her native Guadalajara--- so who's to say what's bad.


"That's how bad Latin eventually became Castilian Spanish"

You're actually wrong in that. Classical Latin had stopped being used even in Rome by 1st century BC. It was a common literary language and spoken by the highly educated.

In Italy there were dozens of forms of spoken Latin. There were several different forms of spoken Latin in Spain and Gaul. All of theses evolved from literary Latin and local languages but were in no sense "bad" Latin. They were all considered correct in areas where spoken.

French, Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese do not derive from the same Latin (literary) language, but from the forms spoken as the standard in their regions in the last few hundred years of Roman empire.

In same way, today's spoken Greece doesn't derive from classical Greek. Each city-state had standard forms of spoken Greek dialects well before Roman conquest. It was those dialects that evolved to present day Greek dialects, not classical Greek.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

citlali said:


> Pichancha is a filter for sure in that case. I agree with Sparks on that one but the plumbers around here also use pichancha for válvula de retención.
> 
> I would bet that pichancha is an indigenous word, my guess Nahuatl but I do not know..


I doubt it is Nahuatl, it does not follow linguistic patterns from that language. But if it is, it has been changed a lot.

Specialized vocabulary is a killer, there is no end to it and it is not central to the language, but this word got stuck in my brain for some reason. Many Mexicans don't know the word. I found that outside of Mexico, or maybe Mesoamerica, it is unheard of. My Spanish friends just rolled their eyes. It is not even in the Mexican Academy dictionary as far as I can tell from a quick look.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Well HA is water in Maya got too investigate what the pichanch part could be..I have to see how they say take out..leave etc.. in Maya. It is such a funny word of course we also have the Zoques that could have made it up too..


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

Meritorious-MasoMenos said:


> "That's how bad Latin eventually became Castilian Spanish"
> 
> You're actually wrong in that..


Perhaps I attempted to explain language evolution poorly or it's because I failed to put "bad" in quotes. The punch line _"who's to say what's bad."_ should have been a clue that I'm emphatically not into judging anyone's language--- and that comes from living in almost all my life in California, one of the most linguistically diverse places anywhere. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I'll stand by that in post #9 _"As long as folks can effectively communicate, it's excellent Spanish whether it's spoken in Madrid, CDMX, Bogotá, or L.A."_ Self-evident really, that a language must fulfill its purpose of effective communication, or it simply won't survive.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

pinchanchab is apparently of Tzotztil origin.

This morning I asked a Tzotzil friend what she called a pichancha in Tzotzil and she said something like chinchinab but she is from Zinacantan and I did not get a chance to check with someone from Chamula but I came across an article on nixtamal and pichancha. and it said it came from Tzotzil
Pin is a Olla chachab to strain so it came from Pin chachab and B at the end of words is pronounced m so pin chacham is roughly translate as a olla to strain..nixtamal.
Now my next step is to ask in Chamula how to say pichancha in their language as Zinacantan has a lot of different vocabulary from Chamula.. of course every town has its own vocabulary as well but usually close enough that you can guess what the word means..

It is interesting that that word is used in Jalisco and there is also an area called Pichancha in Nayarit.

ANother funny aside my friend from Zinacantan had never heard of a pichancha..she did not the word but when I described one her mother came up with the Tzotzil word..which was different.. from pin chachab


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