You may have never seen this hidden jewel in New Mexico, but there’s a chance you’ve heard it: a dialect of Spanish native to the Land of Enchantment.
Traditional New Mexican Spanish is a dialect developed nearly 400 years ago as medieval Spanish blended with Mexican Spanish and the languages of the Indigenous peoples of northern New Mexico, according to the Associated Press. This fusion of language formed a local parlance not found anywhere else in the world.
Simon Romero, an international correspondent for the New York Times, published an article in 2023 on the topic. The article followed years of interest in New Mexican Spanish, which stayed with him as he traveled around the world. Romero, who was born and raised in New Mexico, detailed his findings to the Daily Lobo…