Talk:English in New Mexico
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Results of a new source-discovery run
editI did a bunch of digging for sources, on:
- NM English, Spanish and their contact
- Sociology, sociolinguistics, education policy, and subculture of Latino English and bilingualism (mostly not constrainable to NM, but often to the SW)
- The Spanish of the area (again often of the SW in general, not just NM)
- Historical and cultural background material that may relate, e.g. as to Native American English usage in the area, development of Southern and Southwestern English, cultural events in NM and the SW that affected Hispanic versus Euro-American population and affluence, etc.
It's not comprehensive, being the cream of about 8 pages of Google Scholar results, and a bunch of looking around on Amazon, plus some follow-the-rabbit digging. But it's quite a lot of material that, even if not usable at this article, should be at related ones, including perhaps an article on "Southwestern American English" or "English in the American Southwest".
- Notes
- Most of these are behind paywalls. I may have missed some full-text download links among them, and I did not try alternative searches for individual papers to see if they're available in full text at other sites. This was a "fast" (8.5 hour) search-examine-cite dump (from combing the results of a Google Scholar search on
Southwest American English
). - Search results for
Southwestern English
generally produce results relating to southwestern England. - I formatted them as WP:CS1 citations for easy re-use.
- Most of these are behind paywalls. I may have missed some full-text download links among them, and I did not try alternative searches for individual papers to see if they're available in full text at other sites. This was a "fast" (8.5 hour) search-examine-cite dump (from combing the results of a Google Scholar search on
The sources:
- On dialectology in the region or in the US broadly:
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- Spanish–English contact, code switching, and creolization:
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- On the Spanish of the region (and its influence on the local English or vice versa):
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- Relationships of bilingualism, English fluency, and accented speech to education, medical care, etc., in the region:
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- Native American connections:
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- Connections between African American Vernacular English, a.k.a. Black English Vernacular, and general Southern dialects (which definitely includes Texan and Oklahoman but probably not New Mexican through Californian except to a minor extent, until the rise of hip hop subculture in the 1980s):
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- Historical and cross-cultural background:
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— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
New Mexican English
editSock puppetry, per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Smile Lee. If there is a valid suggestion here, it should be made by an unblocked editor. Grayfell (talk) 21:03, 13 April 2019 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Isn’t it the usual thing to call a locality’s English by its demonym? Like shouldn’t this just be called “New Mexican English”, and is there any eveidence that this is multiple varieties of English, and not just a main dialect with sub-varieties. As far as I can tell, these are all referencing the same variety of English. For example, Burqueño English and Northern New Mexican Chicano English seem to just be subtle variants of one another, and don’t the Hispanos of New Mexico speak that Chicano English variety, could this just be a misnomer? For example Scottish English goes by many names, including Glasgow English which would be the equivalent of Burqueño English here, but it’s still just a subtle variant of the same Scottish English. It seems like a huge stretch to also now be including Indiginous and Hispano influences on the New Mexican English language which most sources seem to talk about. Point is, this article is a mess, and it seems someone ripped it apart by destroying relavant resources, there’s a viral video that made the news many times that had this dialect, the actress of which did small teaching sessions on New Mexican English at UNM and professors there have done talks on it, and that “Heaven Sent Gaming” source mentioned above for example is referenced in the Albuquerque Journal and other local news resources, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be used. And there is no logic in assuming that New Mexico has more than one main variety, and as such I think the name “New Mexican English” works much better here. Sorry just a rant from an angry Sandia Pueblo man, that is all. 2600:1:D517:7DCA:F079:FFCB:6231:1F2D (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
You are right, I don’t know much about reliable sources or pernicious sources or citations. Thank you for the link. I’ll try though. The sources that the prior topic person SMcCandlish posted do agree in a singular New Mexican English, and UNM had a studies that showed the differences and even used the term “New Mexican English” https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ling_etds/49/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367006913516035 UNM’s “What: Engaging the Linguistic Diversity of UNM in the Classroom“ mentions that “New Mexican English is itself unique” As for the “Heaven Sent Gaming” resource I know some reliable sources that talk about them like Albuquerque Journal https://www.abqjournal.com/1047119/admiration.html and KRQE https://www.krqe.com/amp/news/heaven-sent-gaming-celebrates-decade/900391688 they aren’t the only ones, there are others but those are New Mexican ones. From what I know they are not just a site and they are an organization that is owned by more than one individual, but I didn’t know they didn’t want to be cited, if you were fighting spam they may have been doing the same from this website and placed a warning to fight that spam too. They have contact information on their site, were they ever helped or contacted about that? I don’t know, it sounds like too much of an assumption to think they added citations if they were not allowing there inclusion. Onto the other resource that I mentioned a viral video that is discussed by KOAT https://www.koat.com/amp/article/burquenos-video-goes-viral/5039276 and Colores on PBS https://www.newmexicopbs.org/productions/colores/september-20-2013/ I hope these help if they don’t then that’s fine then. I don’t want to bother, which it seems like I did, sorry about that 2600:1:D517:7DCA:F079:FFCB:6231:1F2D (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
That was rude, wtf. You didn’t even address my information regarding the viral video or the other resources from UNM. I don’t know what you’re talking about with Heaven Sent Gaming and I don’t care, you should contact them if there is a spam issue though. Get back on topic, I was talking about New Mexican English . . . but at this point I don’t care enough. Out 2600:1:D509:5422:186B:8098:7190:11AB (talk) 04:03, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
That Heaven Sent Gaming issue sounds like a gigantic misunderstanding, and it should be worked out with them, sounds like both sites were dealing with spam. “Local softball blurb” by Aaron Drawhorn? If I remember correctly he covered news for Las Vegas Review-Journal during the OJ Simpson fiasco, I’m pretty sure he’s more qualified than you are to assess them than us. Heaven Sent Gaming is most certainly not spam, and they have many contact methods all over their site, contact them and work it out. I don’t care enough to do so, but you people seem more than interested and capable to do so. Back to the topic at hand, I wouldn’t presume a difference between Anglo and Latino communities in a regional variation. While I agree that the most certainly is a Hispano influenced Northern anew Mexico English, I don’t think it would be broadly called Chicano. Back to the research, UNM did research on accents between monolingual and multilingual New Mexican English speakers, and found there was only a very slight difference between the onset of any accent, and many scholarly studies base their on a “New Mexican English” in particular. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ling_etds/49/ https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_7QYBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA238&dq=%E2%80%9CNew+Mexican+English%E2%80%9D&ots=yxEl80sgVG&sig=_ortxoCCe2gjswbJaAzV_HqhQlg http://search.proquest.com/openview/447664de0138259b81288bbb03433362/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://read.dukeupress.edu/pads/article-abstract/102/1/31/133497 2600Texan (talk) 03:09, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
I’ll repeat and continue some of what I said on my talk page here with more added. Even if there was consensus beforehand for moving away from New Mexican English, I brought up completely other academic and scholarly sources that reliably show the term New Mexican English, and even make simple conclusions about a regional New Mexican English. Quotes “New Mexican Spanish, predicate nominals designating occupations or social status favor bare nouns, but in New Mexican English, the direction of effect is reversed” and “ ” and “dialectology and sociolinguistics have largely ignored the topic of New Mexican English, perhaps in part because English is still a relative newcomer to the region.” The viral video “Shit Burqueños (New Mexicans) Say” has also been continually ignored in these discussions, I bring it up because as I’ll repeat the person Lauren Poole who acted in them did an interview with PBS https://video.klru.tv/video/colores-colores-september-20th-2013/ and did New Mexican English for a lecture at UNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzhMLDvdrkQ. Common usage does matter, “New Mexican English” is much more documented than the overly confusing and meaninglessness “English in New Mexico”, I feel like it implies that English is a secondary language in New Mexico which it is not, and this can be shown in the higher popularity of this page back when it was “New Mexican English”. https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2014-07-01&end=2019-03-17&pages=New_Mexican_English%7CEnglish_in_New_Mexico 2600Texan (talk) 09:51, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
This is more of what I expected when I signed on here, I’d been editing anonymously for a long while. So when I created an account, after being involved in an issue which blocked Sprint IPs in Texas, I expected to have more of a collaborative experience.
I realize Wolfdog said this, you have been working hard to steer this discussion back to a more level-headed position. I appreciate that, and I’m sorry you received crossfire over it, let’s try to keep this on a level where we can create consensus. The KRQE source was mentioned on my talk page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzhMLDvdrkQ. KRQE and KOAT are news for Albuquerque, yes, but it is a major news source for television news in New Mexico being broadcast statewide in Santa Fe, Roswell, and even in Durango, Colorado. KRQE, KOAT, and Albuquerque Journal are widely distributed mainstream news sources. I haven’t focused on Heaven Sent Gaming, it was small mention in my first post. I became wrongly accused, and defended my position, as well as gave my opinion of the accusations, they should be contacted to prevent these accusations from happening again. Because they should be allowed to clear their name otherwise at this point it seems to be a very one-sided argument. I don’t care if it was the Queen of England who called it “New Mexican English” I do care that it is the most commonly referenced terminology, as I’ve shown in numerous academic and scholarly sources. It even lends conformality to New Mexican Spanish. “English in New Mexico” isn’t too specific enough, as it could just be talking about a British accent speaking person speaking English in New Mexico. “New Mexican English” is more concise in referencing this Demonym’s usage of the Language, in this case demonym language would be New Mexican English. 2600Texan (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Remember, try to be constructive and collaborative. If I’m being asked to do this, you must do the same.
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Pronunciations
editKbb2: You're not providing any sources for your pronunciations that would override mine, so why don't we just agree to use phonemic transcriptions on this page? That would simplify our editing disagreements. (I also don't understand why you're opposed to narrow transcriptions for exact dialects but that's another matter.) Wolfdog (talk) 17:11, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
- @Kbb2:: Hi... again I ask you to respond to me here please. Let's come to some agreement please. Wolfdog (talk) 19:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
- @Wolfdog: Sorry, WP failed to ping me the last time (maybe you should use the ping template instead of the u(ser) one, it seems to be more reliable). This is the first time I'm seeing this.
- The reason I don't like the transcriptions [ä lä ˈmäːkinä] and [ˈɒmbɚːz] is because they're inconsistent, strange and probably not entirely correct. First of all, the length marks: the length of the stressed open central vowel in máquina is already conveyed by the stress mark, and we don't use the length mark in IPA transcriptions of NAE on Wikipedia. The length mark in ombers is almost certainly wrong, and so seems to be the initial vowel (are we really to believe that this dialect differentiates LOT from PALM)? This is why I reverted you: because you reinstated wrong transcriptions. When it comes to the centralization diacritic on ⟨a⟩, it's almost certainly not needed. As I've already said, General American /ɑ/ varies from back to central and so the symbol ⟨ɑ⟩ already covers the open central area in NAE dialectology (and English dialectology in general).
- The idea of using the IPAc-en template is equally bad. Help:IPA/English is meant to be of help to laymen, but this can't be done at the cost of inaccurate or inconsistent transcriptions here or on any other dialect page. As we've already discussed, /ɪə, ʊə, ɛə/ do not exist in rhotic dialects. They're simply /i/, /u/ and /eɪ/ (or /e/ - same thing written differently) followed by /r/. Furthermore, using the IPAc-en template forces us to use the length mark, even though length isn't phonemic in any or almost any dialect of NAE. This can also create inconsistencies - transcriptions enclosed within IPAc-en use the length mark, and those that aren't don't. This is a perversion, if I may use that word - if anything, phonemic transcriptions should be the ones not to use the length mark, and it should be reserved for the narrowest kind of phonetic transcriptions.
- Also, using IPAc-en template forces us to differentiate between /ɒ/ and /ɑː/, a difference that's alien to most varieties of NAE and almost certainly this one. It also forces us to differentiate between /iː/ and /uː/ on one hand and the unstressed-only /i/ and /u/ on the other (which aren't real phonemes by the way), which is a false distinction. What's worse - the usual North American transcription of these vowels is /i, u/ (like the unstressed vowels on Help:IPA/English), not /iː, uː/!
- If you have suggestions on how to improve the current transcriptions in the article, I'm all ears. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
- Kbb2: I'm a little confused as to what gives you the authority over me to determine what's
inconsistent, strange and probably not entirely correct
when neither of us is using any sources to back up our opinions. I've come to these pronunciations by listening to New Mexicans on YouTube; you don't even offer where your pronunciations come from. (This, for example, is where my length marks come from, with prosodic elements being a very unique part of New Mexican English, it seems.) - Contrary to your assumptions, it's not rare to find speakers who merge LOT-PALM-PALM using a rounded /ɑ/: in other words: [ɒ]. It certainly happens among some of the New Mexicans I've heard. In any case, the Wikipedia diaphoneme /ɒ/ still covers that; so not sure of what the big problem is there. And your idea of symbols "covering" certain larger phonetic areas/spaces does not preclude the fact that there can sometimes be a benefit in narrowly transcribing dialects, as I've argued elsewhere.
- I happily defer to your rhotic-dialects argument (I admittedly barely understand some of the consensus-decided intricacies of the WP diaphonemic system, even though I'm prepared to defend its basic existence) and I even agree with your phonemic length-mark argument (although "perversion" is a tad dramatic, no? Haha).
- Again, I don't entirely understand your minor crusade against using the IPAc-en template on an encyclopedia that is mostly meant for laymen, but we don't need to argue that here. More specifically (and also again), I've offered that we use a phonemic transcription or how about a broad American phonemic transcription, which, in my previous words,
would simplify our editing disagreements
by at least forcing us into a more universally agreeable format (rather than you and me wrangling over every phonetic detail); it's still not clear to me why you object to this better compromise. For example, why in the world are you insisting on [o] for the assumed New Mexican allophone of [oʊ], when you and I could be pretty content agreeing that the phoneme at play is /oʊ/ (that's what we've consistently used on Wikipedia) and thus just write it as such?? My suggestion: Let's just use a broad American system. Wolfdog (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
- Kbb2: I'm a little confused as to what gives you the authority over me to determine what's
Aspiration in New Mexican English
editNardog, In response to your revert to remove aspiration from the transcription, saying one of the key characteristics of Chicano English is shorter VOT as in Spanish; see e.g. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.550.1032&rep=rep1&type=pdf, p.69
, I appreciate you presenting this source. Interesting. This indirectly contradicts a source I was just reading today, Carmen Fought's "Chicano English" in World Englishes Volume II (edited by Tometro Hopkins). Fought makes an effort to transcribe the dialect very narrowly, including on page 123 writing that together would often be pronounced [tʰugɛðəɹ]
. Now that I look more into her work, you can see that she routinely shows aspiration for the normally-aspirated English consonants, like throughout her Chicano English in Context. To add another complication to your argument, it's likely that most Chicano English is actually a "mix" of stress-timed and syllable-timed. To add further complications to your argument, are we talking about Chicano English here? -- or is canales truly a loanword used among a majority of New Mexicans (even Anglo or non-Spanish-speaking ones)? The continuing crappiness of our sources on this page doesn't exactly help us to know. But we can pretty safely expect non-Latino and probably many Latino New Mexicans to aspirate these consonants. It'd be smarter to stick to showing aspiration. (If only there were fuller and more fleshed-out sources on New Mexican English and what exactly it is -- if anything! But I've been criticized in the past for continuing to harp on that.) Wolfdog (talk) 00:03, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
- Fought is apparently going for a very narrow transcription (unreasonably so, if you ask me)—any prevocalic voiceless oral stop is technically aspirated, some more than others, because humans are not robots and it's impossible to start voicing exactly at the same time as the burst. Regardless, I wouldn't—and we shouldn't—transcribe the consonant in that position with aspiration even in GA.
stress doesn't determine aspiration
is simply false (at least in most major varieties of English), we recently discussed this at Talk:English phonology/Archive 4#Aspiration of English stops. - (If I remember correctly, I think I heard shorter VOT in Chicano English being talked about in this podcast episode, which is why I was like, "No way!", when I saw your edit and summary. I think you'd find that show informative and entertaining for what it's worth.) Nardog (talk) 00:27, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
- I would definitely be interested in the podcast, thank you! As for your "Aspiration of English stops" discussion, tell me if I'm misreading this, but aren't other users arguing, like me, that aspiration indeed occurs
at the beginning of a word
AKAword-initially
(as in canales) which is different than at the beginning of any old syllable (as in, arguably, upper)? Wolfdog (talk) 08:36, 29 July 2019 (UTC)- It's just a matter of degree. The VOT before unstressed vowels is indeed longer when word-initial than when word-internal, but it's still shorter than the VOT before stressed vowels. So whether to mark it in a transcription is an arbitrary choice and comes down to considerations like whether the aspiration is significant enough and whether it is pertinent to the context. I don't think we should particularly in this case because speakers with Spanish/syllable-timed influence are likely to render it more like [ka], with a full-vowel quality but with little aspiration, and speakers with GA/stress-timed influence are likely to render it more like [kə], with the vowel reduced, which means little aspiration anyway. The vowel reduction is even more likely to occur when preceded by a word like a preposition.
- (Wait, Fought is the guest of that episode! But it seems I wasn't remembering correctly—it was probably some other episode where one of the hosts was talking about shorter VOT. It's a really good episode anyway though; I also recommend the one about language policy in Canada and the one about transgender and non-binary people.) Nardog (talk) 19:03, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
- Haha! That's funny about Fought. OK, well when I hear an entirely unaspirated /k/, /p/, or /t/ at the beginning of a word, that tends to sound more foreign to me, whereas even an over-aspirated initial /k/, /p/, or /t/ feels unremarkably like English. (I remember I had a native English-speaking friend who would pronounce a word like connnect even as strongly as [kxəˈnɛkt] and most of her other friends didn't notice.) Yeah, I get that it's all a matter of degrees though. Wow, this sounds like a really cool podcast! Wolfdog (talk) 14:35, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
- I would definitely be interested in the podcast, thank you! As for your "Aspiration of English stops" discussion, tell me if I'm misreading this, but aren't other users arguing, like me, that aspiration indeed occurs
Yikes at calling one of the theorized dialects a form of Chicano English
editNone of these sources corroborate more than a singular dialect of New Mexican English. And by the way, it is massively racist to call Hispano community solely Chicano, especially considering the non-Aztecan indigenous element of that particular group. There is no evidence that the Hispanic community speaks a completely different variety of English. Also, the pageviews for this article didn’t surpass the “New Mexican English” terminology until very recently, meaning that it was and is the preferred term. Looking through the page history, this article has been morphed in a bad way due to POV, by blocking any and all sources that are contrary to select few editors. 2601:8C2:8080:1BC0:286F:3FE:8B00:F772 (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- Here is a source that New Mexican English has regularly been a more popular term for views on this page. https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2015-07-01&end=2020-03-31&pages=New_Mexican_English%7CEnglish_in_New_Mexico 2601:8C2:8080:1BC0:B823:27F5:21FA:8BB3 (talk) 03:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- A redirect's popularity on Wikipedia still has nothing to do with it. We go by commonality among reliable, independent sources. If you've been "looking through the page history", you've noticed that there is only one editor who's been pushing for this change, he has been blocked for sock puppetry and playing stupid games, and the few sources he has proposed for this particular argument have been very weak. If you have a non-WP:CIRC source for this, propose it. Grayfell (talk) 04:00, 2 April 2020 (UTC)