UNM professor strives to keep traditional dialect alive
June 22, 2023 - Mary Beth King
Spaniards first arrived in the 1500s in what is known today as the southwestern State of New Mexico, bringing with them a now-antiquated form of the Spanish language. They encountered and then merged ̶ often by force ̶ with the Indigenous populations — particularly the Nahuatl speakers — and the languages melded and flourished in the rural mountain pockets and locations such as Ohkay Owingeh, also known as the San Juan Pueblo.
The dialect unique to New Mexico and southern Colorado has survived and thrived for 400 years but is slowly being eclipsed as the elders who speak it pass away and the younger generations turn to the English language prevalent outside those pockets.
Researchers like Associate Professor Damián Vergara Wilson, the coordinator of the Spanish as a Heritage Language Program at The University of New Mexico, are turning their attention to preserving and documenting the vernacular.
“The Spanish language, like any language, constantly evolves. There is a myth that we speak the Spanish of golden age Spain from the 1600s. While we do retain some words that are lost in other varieties, the language we speak is not an exact replica of that remote time," Wilson noted.
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