General Information about Item:

• Tongue Twister
• Language: Spanish
• Country of Origin: Mexico
• Informant: Yasmin Ochoa
• Date Collected: 10-18-18

Informant Data:

• The informant is Yasmin Ochoa. She was born in Michoacán, Mexico. She came to the United States when she was a toddler. She is currently a sophomore at Dartmouth College. She is a Spanish native speaker and only speaks with her family in Spanish. A lot of her family still resides in Mexico and she returns there for a month every year. She still feels very connected to the culture and people due to her visits to see her family in Mexico.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Tongue Twisters in Spanish speaking countries are used in a similar way and in similar places as other cultures. Tongue Twisters are most common with children who are taught them in order to learn difficult sounds and methods of speaking. These tongue twisters can be used as entertainment for children during playtime or be part of a tongue twister contest where students compete be able to speak it the fastest or the best at speaking it are some of the most popular uses. Spanish language has many difficult sounds and words with many consonants that have to be said rather fast.
• Social Context: This is a common Spanish language tongue twister. Considered an extremely challenging tongue twister that is focuses on the main word Parangaricutirimícuaro and is expanded to a full tongue twister, which makes it even more difficult. Not many people learn the whole tongue twister, but it would be expected that almost every Spanish speaker would know the word. It is a difficult word for non-Spanish speakers to say. Parangaricutirimícuaro is the name of a town in Mexico, but people learn how to say it all over. It is something that as a Spanish speaking child you learn to do, like you would learn the alphabet or count. As a child you must learn how to say it or other children will make fun of you for not being able to say it. It is considered fun to say and it is expected that a native Spanish speaker knows how to say it. The words in the tongue twister that rhyme with Parangaricutirimícuaro are all made up words and have no real meaning, however, one can tell from their endings the first two are treated as verbs and the last as a noun.

Item:

• Original Spanish: El volcán de Parangaricutirimícuaro se quiere desparangaricutirimicuarizar y quien lo desparangaricutirimicuarise será un gran desparangaricutirimicuarizador.
• Translation: The volcano in Parangaricutirimícuaro wants to desparangaricutirimicuarizar and who desparangaricutirimicuarise will be a great desparangaricutirimicuarizador.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Tongue Twister

Full Interview:

Informant’s Comments:

• The word was taught to her very young by her father and the entire tongue twister was taught to her in school.

Collector’s Comments:

• The informant  attempted to teach me this tongue twister for 25 minutes but eventually we gave it. The word is extremely long and difficult to say, especially quickly. For the sake of the recording I allowed her to say it slow because attempting to say it quickly she was unable to say it.

Collector’s Name: Caroline Atwood

Tags/Keywords:

• Tongue Twister
• Spanish
• Mexico