In his research, Associate Professor Damián Vergara Wilson, the coordinator of the Spanish as a Heritage Language Program at The University of New Mexico, uses the term Traditional New Mexican Spanish to describe the unique Spanish language vernacular that has been nurtured in the enclaves of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado for generations.

Spaniards first arrived in the 1500s in what we know today as the state of New Mexico, bringing with them a now-antiquated form of the Spanish language.

The language picked up influences from Indigenous populations — particularly the Nahuatl speakers — and the language spoken in rural mountain villages of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado grew into a unique dialect. It has survived for hundreds of years, but has begun to fade from use as elders die and young people rely on English or the more modern Spanish taught in schools.

When New Mexico became a state in 1912, pressure to Americanize became greater. “Many educators and speakers of the prestige varieties viewed New Mexico Spanish as archaic, rural, full of errors and in need of remediation, and attempted to eradicate elements of the dialect in an attempt to teach us how to speak correctly,” Wilson says. “People still think they are doing their children favors by not teaching them Spanish, both immigrant populations and ones with long histories in the U.S.”

Examples of the old versus the modern include No je instead of No sé for “I don’t know;” muncho instead of mucho for “lots” or “much;” and dende instead of desde for “since.”

“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.

Some scholars estimate the traditional dialect will disappear within 50 years.

“Shift is going to happen,” Wilson said. “Older speakers do not fully transmit a dialect or language to younger speakers when that dialect becomes viewed as lacking in value or when it becomes a symbol that challenges prevailing ideologies.”

Wilson, who was raised with the vernacular in Ojo Caliente, is among those trying to promote this linguistic legacy in his research and the classroom. In his Spanish as a Heritage Language program, Wilson is teaching a new generation of scholars to appreciate the traditional community language and attempt to preserve it. Students develop an appreciation of their heritage language. They learn about cultural connections, sharing experiences, background and linguistic knowledge with one another.