Everyone speaks Spanish

"England and America are two countries separated by a common language" - George Bernard Shaw

Languages are a very funny thing. Start with a common language (say, Latin), spread its speakers over a large enough area, add a little bit of time, and watch how the original language starts to mutate in different places until it gets to a point where it becomes several different languages. That happened in Europe over the centuries and now we have not only Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, but also Catalan, Asturian, Ladino, Romanian among many others.

It can be argued that something similar, to a lesser and / or slower degree, happens with Spanish in Latin America.

Richard Dawkins, the Biologist and evolutionary theorist, coined the term "meme" to describe a unit of cultural information. According to memetic theorists, memes propagate through populations the same way a gene propagates from one organism to another, and they are subject to the Darwinian rules of evolution (mutation and natural selection). Language, they argue, evolves like all memes; given enough time, some elements survive, some mutate, and some become extinct.

Let's take Spanish in Latin America. It became the de-facto official language when the Spaniards arrived and started subjugating the local populations. However, Spaniards arrived at different times in different places, where they found different languages, customs, traditions and foodstuffs.

During the conquista, a few things happened. On one hand, each indigenous settlement had its own cultural background, its own 'memes' if you will, and in true Darwinian fashion, some of those 'memes' survived the cultural annihilation brought by the Spaniards. In other cases, Spanish / Spaniard 'memes' had to be locally mutated in order to make them acceptable to the local population. And, obviously, many of the Spanish 'memes' were the fittest and survived through their own strength or through enforcement. However, all this is happening at a local level and at different times, so each settlement has a different starting point.

So, even at the very beginning, Spanish as a language didn't begin on a common ground throughout Latin America. It interacted with local customs and traditions, and began evolving in different ways in different places. Some forces work at keeping things from going awry: the Roman Catholic Church and Centralized governments helped during the conquista and the colonial life of Latin America, and today, global communications help in keeping the language on some common ground. However, as each different settlement evolved through the last 500 years, some startling differences have been appearing. To list them all would be impossible. Roxana Fitch keeps a fantastic repository of many of these differences in her website, Jergas de la habla Hispana (http://www.jergasdelahablahispana.org/). Just for example:

Caña, as defined in the dictionary is the name of the sugarcane. In Bolivia, it also means drinking binge. In Colombia, it means rum. In Costa Rica, it is also slang for money. In Cuba, it means money or muscle. In Spain, it could mean difficulty, boredom, liveliness (yes) or a glass of beer. And in Peru, it also means car.

Sometimes it can get more serious. Let's say you come from Mexico, where "cajeta" means "dulce de leche" and you go to Argentina, where "cajeta" refers to female anatomy!

And sometimes, it just makes communication impossible. I would like to see anyone who is not from Mexico make sense of Jaime Lopez' Chilanga Banda.

Ya chale chango chilango
Que chafa chamba te chutas
No checa andar de tacoche
Y chale con la charola.

So, we all call it Spanish, but it is not necessarily the same thing everywhere.

CB

Random post - New York

One of the greatest things about living in New York is that, more often than not, you need to choose what you want to do among many equally good alternatives. I think that if you're ever bored in New York City, honestly, you need to talk to someone.

Last Sunday, for instance, we decided to go to Times Square to check out what was available at the TKTS booth (www.tdf.org/tkts). You just need a little bit of luck, and you may score great tickets for 50% off. We ended up with good seats for Avenue Q. If you haven't seen it, it is extremely funny, in a slightly subversive sort of way. For reference, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtiGd58J0bY.

On Wednesday, we had tickets for Spiegelworld's "Absinthe" show at the South Street Seaport. We were completely clueless on what to expect, but we had read that it was something between Cirque du Soleil and a cabaret / burlesque act. It took a bit to find the place, as the only directions we had were: "Pier 17, South Street Seaport , Under the Brooklyn Bridge"... a little more help would've been nice. Anyway, when we finally found the place, we found a nice outdoor bar / restaurant, and a line to go into what looked like a tent, only it had been labeled "Salon Perdu". As we walked in to find a seat (it is all general seating), we were in a theater-in-the-round kinda setting, with seats next to the stage and booths around the walls. I would hate to spoil it for anyone, but we were very pleasantly surprised. The show is funny, amazing, a little racy and a lot of fun. For more info, go to www.spiegelworld.com

Finally, Mexico is through to the next round of Copa America after winning against Brazil and Ecuador, and tying with Chile. Argentina seems the most likely next match, unless they beat Paraguay. Both teams steamrolled over the US and Colombia and are playing extremely well, so it should be an interesting match.

CB

On Latin America

It should go without saying that Latin America is a big and diverse place, and that lumping all "Latin" people together is akin to lumping all European countries together... unless you're doing it for geographical reasons, it makes little sense.

First of all, why is it called "Latin" America? The most common language in the region is, of course, Spanish. However, there's the 'small' exception of Brazil, the largest and most populated country in Latin America, where they speak Portuguese. Both Spanish and Portuguese are Romance languages derived from Latin. Other less accepted names include "Hispanic" America and "Ibero-America".

And just how big and diverse is Latin America (LA)?

In terms of size, LA is 8.1mm square miles, roughly 2.2 times the size of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii). It is home to more than 560mm people in more than 20 independent countries and in 8 dependent territories. Even today, there are more than 200 languages and dialects in active use, including Spanish, Portuguese, English, French and Dutch among many others.

Through its history, LA has known almost every single form of government known to mankind, from tributary empires (like the Aztecs), monarchies (like the Incas), "plain" empires (like in Mexico with Iturbide or Maximillian), to communism (like Cuba) or military dictatorships (like pretty much every single country in LA at one point or another). Today, most countries in Latin America (with very conspicous exceptions) are democracies with widely varying levels of development.

If you're a professional marketer in any given country in Latin America, you will have segmentation studies, socio-economic data, and all sorts of tools to try to segment your consumers into manageable groups... if this is true for any given country in such a large region, why is it that more often than not it is NOT true for the US Spanish speaking population?

Just a question...

Welcome to Selling en la Marketa!

Hello and welcome!

Most experts agree that your opening needs to be strong if you want to capture your audience's attention. I'd like to begin by disregarding all expert advice and begin with a disclaimer: This is my very first attempt at keeping a blog, so bear with me.

My name is Carlos Boughton. I'm a Mexican guy living in New York, working at a Dutch company that happens to sell Mexican beer in the US. I'm very happily married (10 years this July!) and we're expecting our first child (a girl!) in August. We also have Chester, a very handsome, lazy, funny and slightly disturbed Sealyham Terrier.

What is "Selling en la Marketa?" The idea is to write about all things related to "Hispanic" or "Latino" marketing in the US, starting from things such as why we are called "Latinos" to how Spanish is not the same between Latinamerican countries (or even within countries). Later, I may also talk about things such as interesting ads / campaigns directed to the "Latino" community, maybe some news and commentary too.

I'll try to keep some sort of schedule, but I can't guarantee regular updates. My work can go from an easygoing 9 to 5 to 16 hour days including weekends... (and I'm sure that once our baby comes, this will also take a bit of time).

Anyway, thanks for dropping by, and lets see where this goes.

CB