Caló is the latest addition to Marfa Public Radio's programming. Created by Oscar Rodriguez, who sometimes goes by the name "El Marfa," the series honors the Texas borderlands patois commonly called Caló.
Oscar grew up speaking this language in Ojinaga and Odessa. He remembers the unique dialect filling the barrios and countryside of his childhood in West Texas. Each week on Caló, Oscar will feature words and phrases from Caló then explore their meaning with a personal anecdote.
Oscar was born and raised in Ojinaga, West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico. He has lived in and out of Texas since he graduated from Ector High School in Odessa in the late-1970s, including a couple of years in the 1990s when he lived in Marfa and taught at Sul Ross State University. Oscar is also an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Tribe and an avid researcher of Native history in Texas and New Mexico — specifically in the La Junta region.
He hopes by sharing his knowledge of this colorful language, he can help keep it alive.
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Órale, today’s episode is about the words ‘torcido’ and ‘pinta.’ In modern Spanish, torcido means twisted and pinta means painted. In Caló, torcido means,… -
Órale, in today's episode we’re going to use the word ‘escamar.’ It means to spook or frighten. It’s not modern Spanish, but it’s rooted in the old…
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Órale, today the focus is going to be on the word ‘gacho.’ It means undesireable, mean, bad. It’s rooted in the French word for left-handed, ‘gauche,’ which back in time represented the wrong way. That meaning evoled in Caló to the point the term is now very value laden, as in, “Que gacho George. He wouldn’t co-sign my car loan. Now I have to buy something gacho.”
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Órale, today’s episode is about the word ‘watcha.’ It means look at, get my point, or watch out. It comes from the English word, watch. It could very well…
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Órale, the Caló word for this episode is ‘morra.’ It means girlfriend. It implies mutual attraction, but it’s gender specific. The masculine counterpart,…
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Órale, the word ‘cóncono’ is the word we're exploring this episode. Cócono means turkey. It’s an onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like the object being…
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The Caló expression 'le canta' is this episode’s feature. It comes from the Spanish verb cantar, to sing. In Caló it means to speak strongly or with great intention about something. When somebody la canta to somebody else, it’s usually to mark a boundary or give a warning, as in to say, “pay attention to what I’m saying because what comes next is action.”
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The Caló word for this episode is ‘rola,’ which means song. It comes from the juke box brand that launched in the 1930s, Rock-Ola. Each song in the Rock-Ola came to be known as a rola, over time so too did the songs that played on the radio or were accessible from vinyl albums, compact discs, and electronic playlists.
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Órale, today’s episode is about the word, chisgado, an adjective that describes a bad state of mind or, better yet, being out of one’s proper mind. It…
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This episode is about the word, onda. In modern Spanish it means wavelength or radio signal. In Caló it refers to the state of one’s mind or that of the…