Concerning ‘The Translator’ posted by James on 6/3016
James, there are so many differences between countries and regions of Spanish speakers that I think your cousin might need medical help.
First, Spanish has different verb conjugations depending on whether the subject of the verb is the first person, second, third, singular or plural. Something like I, he, him, they, we, us, each has a slightly different way to use each verb. Further, there are different forms for formal and familiar. In archaic English usage, "you" is formal and "thou" is familiar. This makes it easier to remember that in Spanish, "usted" is formal and "tu" is familiar. Except, in Argentina and other places, we use "vos" for familiar, which carries its own verb conjugations that others do not use. I believe Mexicans use only "tu." This fact alone makes everyday conversation sound quite different, as every time you say "hey you" "you know what" ''how are you" etc, it sounds different.
There are many differences in everyday vocabulary:
English: Mexican: Argentine
Car: Carro: Auto
Bus: Autobus: Omnibus
Butter: Mantequilla: Manteca
Many words that Mexicans use are just straight up borrowed from English by Mexican peasants with poor vocabularies in their own language:
Truck: Troka: Camion
Lunch: Loncha: Almuerzo
Call me back: Llamame paratras: Llamame de vuelta: "atras" means "back/behind", "de vuelta" is more like "in return"
There are many others, I can try to keep a list going and update it.
One that I learned recently has to do with pigs. In English we can say pigs, hogs, swine, maybe others. So in Spanish there are options. One is marrano, which also happens to be a slur against Jews who converted to Christianity during the Inquisition. The proper term is conversos. The story is that conversos were made or expected to eat pork to prove they had left their Jewish customs behind. My theory is that due to this usage, the term marrano fell out of favor for general usage and was reserved for a religious slur. I recently learned it is still in common usage in Mexico. I speculate that this may be because when the conquistadores came through Mexico, the slur had not caught on yet.
Besides vocabulary differences, there are differences in intonation, cadence, slang, and others. The differences are greatest among the least educated. Education has a way of enforcing bland language usage, that is true in English as well.
Disclaimer: I grew up speaking regional Argentine Spanish with family, English with middle class white people, and taking Spanish in high school, which gave me some neutral Spanish skills. I don't have any formal education in Spanish other than that, but then again, your cousin does and she is loca (crazy).
Regional Humor
I am now remembering some jokes my uncle used to tell, which amount to intra-Spanish Polack jokes. As you know, Spain has distinct regions, which even today have separatist movements. Well, I believe my uncle considered himself Castilian, and told jokes about how dumb the Gallicians were. Here is the only one I remember:
Wife: Husband, do we have relations?
Husband: Of course!!
Wife: Well why don't they ever come to visit?
relations = relatives or sex. In Spanish it is "relaciones" so it is basically the same joke in both languages.
Regional English
I love listening to regional English. Recently Trump held a press conference with regard to veterans (sorry for the politics) but he had a veteran speak on his behalf and I was tickled listening to him.
It was the guy in the camo hat with orange lettering, on the right of the screen.
Adding to these great and thoughtful language insights, with something I communicated when teaching Spanish: It's a language that is evolving in about 25 separate countries, including some where the official language isn't Spanish (and it's hard to find agreement online as to the correct number—-I've seen 20, 21, 24, which points to the question of how many countries include Spanish as a major language besides those that consider it an official language).
There's no way that it's evolving the same way in every country. Even Hungary, comparable to say Pennsylvania, lists eight dialects. And just think of the variants of English, between countries, as well as different dialects or accents within countries.
Unfortunately, people in this country can sometimes feel like speaking one other languages to whatever degree they do, really makes them informed about language in general and some of them can be arrogant about what they think they know, kind of like the parent of an easy only child may think they have a handle on child raising for everyone else, having no idea how useless their advice may be to the parent of multiples including kids who are difficult, learning or physically disabled, etc.
Along these lines, some of my own worst Spanish teachers were educated in some specialty other than language, came here in need of a decent job, but were in no way lovers of language or literature, and made a serious drudgery of their Spanish class, because language was never their thing in the first place.
Yet another example in your cousin of how political and social correctness may trump reality, which is what this website is all about exposing for the delusion it is. Thank you.
DL, I love your comment about the many parallel paths of language evolution. I have thought about founder effects, effects of subsequent migration waves, native influence and other factors. I now recall a word we use to mean a big mess, kilombo, years ago, I thought to myself this word is not Spanish, it sounds African. Sure enough, it comes from a West African language and means a village or settlement.