thfarrell
Aug 3, 2004, 6:13 PM
Post #14 of 15
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Hi...
Northern New Mexico's unique Spanish is the subject of, among other things, a new edition of the "dictionary" described below (the text is pasted from Amazon, and refers to the first edition).
The politics swirling around the concept that "we are a unique culture, not Mexican, that traces its origin directly to Spain" was very interesting to be around during the 60/70/80's.
tom
------- pasted text below --------
A Dictionary of New Mexico & Southern Colorado
by Ruben Cobos
Rubén Cobos' short but monumental "Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish" (1983) was a classic the day it was printed. If you have any interest in the Spanish-speaking cultures of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, this book is a great way to learn something about the dialect without plunging into a difficult linguistic study.
Like Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Cobos's is a book you can sit down and read enjoyably. The entries are not just translations of Spanish words into English. Cobos traces their origin and (in most cases) illustrates their meaning by including them in sample sentences. For instance, "murre" (in standard Spanish, "muy"): "Esta muchita es murre gente" ('This child is very friendly'). Additionally, many words are also explained by the use of proverbs and folk-poems.
Cobos also explains the cultural signficance of about a third of the words in the dictionary. For example, "pitarrilla": "Pitarrilla, f. [<Sp. dim. of 'pitarra', bleariness] a kind of tic-tac-toe game in which one of the players tries to be the first to place three of his chips (pebbles, marbles, grains, etc.) at consecutive points where lines intersect)."
Obviously, the dictionary has great value not only (nor even primarily) for the linguist, but for the anthropologist and historian, as well. It is completely free of technical linguistic terminology and accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of standard Spanish. (I might emphasize that the book is a guide to local usage only and does not include standard Spanish words.) Although the pronunciation of the New Mexico/southern Colorado dialect is relatively standard, Cobos has taken care to indicate divergences where they exist (e.g., "raices" is pronounced "rái-ces", not "ra-íces"). He includes a short historical and linguistic introduction, tracing the four-hundred year evolution of the dialect. Finally, for a kick, at the start of each alphabetical section you'll find a short proverb -- "P. 'Pa pendejo no se necesita mestro' (To be a fool one needs no school)."
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"Beauty is in the i of the Beholder"
(Julia Mandelbrot)
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