Title: What's In a Name?
Tags: travel, names for Mexicans
Article: I remember when a stranger would come to our rural village in Louisiana (wasn't big enough to be classified as a town, still isn't today). They would pronounce something totally wrong and Granddaddy would smile and say "You're not from around here, are you?" Today, I can see or hear the word "Yucatecan" and I know immediately that the person who either said it or wrote it "isn't from around here." The people of Yucatan are Yucatecos. The men are Yucatecos and the ladies are Yucatecas. In the singular, you simply leave off the "s," just like we do in English. When the word is used as an adjective, it changes endings depending on the gender of the noun. We hear Yucateco often enough that its forms and uses soon come easy, but what about the rest of the states that we drive through on our way here and back north of the border? What about Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, and Campeche? And what about Quintana Roo? The first four, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco and Campeche are fairly easy and pretty much follow the same path of Yucateco. They are: Tamaulipeco, Veracrusano, Tabascano, and Campechano. Put an "a" on the end, instead of an "o," and you've got a lady instead of a man. Add an "s" to either one and you've got more than one; and, when the word is used as an adjective, it will change endings based on the gender of the noun. And now we come to the question of what one calls someone who is from Quintana Roo. That's two words and it already ends in "o." The word they have come up with is Quintanarroense (male), Quintanarroensa (female) and Quintanarroenses (plural); with the adjective again changing based on the gender of the individual. Its going to take a while to learn to spell it - but we'll bet you already know how to say it... think "Japanese." See how easy that was? Of course, this being Mexico, there has to be a "monkey wrench" in here somewhere - right? Well, I am afraid there is. In at least one place - and on a government website, no less - I have seen people from Campeche spoken of not as Campechanos, but as Campechanese. What this means is that you, my dear traveler, are going to have to listen to the people wherever you are and just do the best you can - which is, after all, all that the Mexican people have ever asked of us. As if the names for all of the people of each state ae not enough to deal with, we also have the names of the citizens of each municipality and sometimes towns within the municipalities. We all know that people from Merida are Meridanos. But did you know that people from Oxkutzcab are Oxkutzcabeños? What should we call the people from your town in Yucatan? Do you know? None of these names for people are hard to learn or hard to use - except maybe the spelling on the one from Quintana Roo. Hopefully, we will all practice just a little bit before striking out on our next trip through Mexico so we won't appear to be more of a tourist than we already are. ...and no - I am not going to look up all of the names for all 31 states. But it would probably be a good idea to find out the correct name of the people who live where you are going before you travel. I wonder what people from Aguascalientes are called?
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