Caló: A Borderland Dialect
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, the featured Caló word of the week is pocho. In Caló, it means alternatively Spanglish, a jumble of Spanish and English, or someone who can only speak Spanglish. It’s a contraction of the Spanish words poco (little or scant) and mocho (short of a whole). To be sure, you can be pocho as much to English speakers as Spanish speakers, but you can’t be a pocho if you speak either Spanish or English well. -
Órale, the featured word for this episode of Caló is plegostia. It means someone who, despite your admonitions and pleas to the contrary, follows you into danger or where they should not go. The comparable term in modern Spanish is plegoste, which means a sticky or hardened spot or wrinkle. A different but close term in Caló is tirilongo, which means a hanger-on or groupie. The difference is that plegostia is associated with a conflict, fight or traumatic engagement. And it refers to an innocent at-risk follower, who doesn’t know what they’re getting into or isn’t a party to the conflict they’re headed into. You’re not a plegostia if you’re an informed participant in the conflict.
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Órale, the featured Caló word this week is Mexa. It means someone from the interior of Mexico, that is, from south of the border region. As the world of Caló straddles the border, the people there don’t distinguish each other in terms of on what side of the border they were born. Of course, there are many other distinguishing characteristics, like extended family, neighborhood of origin, etc. Otherwise, everybody on the border sees each other as the same people, some of whom circulate primarily on the Mexican side of the border and others who circulate primarily on the US side. But if you’re a Mexa, you’re an outsider. And you see the people from the border as different from yourself. They likewise see you as not one of their own.
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Órale, for March, we’re gonna touch on one of the central cultural experiences that informs Caló: poverty. Much of the aesthetic of Caló is an adaptation to this experience. That is, what’s thought to be pretty and ugly and good and bad in Caló reflects this experience of poverty. Of course, every language expresses poverty in its own way, not just Caló. In the case of Caló, however, poverty is expressed as hunger and scarcity of the resources needed to survive, like clean water, safety and effective medical care. Things like worn out shoes and coats come in a different order of need. Seeing your family go hungry is poverty, not poor shoes and coats. The Caló word for this episode is féria. It means cash or change, whether bills or coins. To say someone has lots of féria is to say they’re rich.
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Órale, raza. This is the last episode on the toilet seat up or down onda. The featured word is patón. It derives from the Spanish word for an animal’s foot. In Spanish, some anatomical parts have one name if it’s attached to a human being and a different name if it’s attached to an animal. It’s considered a pejorative if the term reserved for animals is applied to a human. The word for mouth, for example, is boca for humans and hocico for animals. The word for foot, is pie if on a human, and pata if on an animal. If somebody annoying cuz they’re saying things you don’t like, you might say ‘shut your hocico, ese’. The standard rule for the use of aggrandizing suffixes, like -ón, apply for these terms, as in bocón, hocicón, and patón. But in Caló, the former two mean loudmouth—and disrespectfully, and the latter means big person—and slightly complimentary, not someone with big feet. A big woman or man is a patona or patón, as if the feet are the measure of an individual.
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Órale, raza. Cuz there’s been some positive reaction to the topic of toilet seats up or down, we’re gonna do two more episodes about it. The issue’s important and needs to be talked about. Y pos we’re gonna put another pesteta into it to say that the most moral position is also the most elegant.The feature of this episode is bárbaro. In modern Spanish, it means a barbarous person or activity. In Caló, it means outstanding or extraordinary, good or bad. It’s in the same category as eeee, but more pointed. Comparable terms in colloquial English are sick, crazy and bomb, as in that feat was crazy. To be sure, the adjective modifies the onda, not the person causing it. You tell a very funny joke in public that makes everybody crack up? Bárbaro! Someone hands you an outrageous assignment? Bárbaro!
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Órale, raza. This is the last episode dedicated to the pinche heavy onda of modern civilized convention regarding the household toilet seat: up or dow—or up. And the word featured word this week is perrada. In modern Spanish is means, pack of or a group of more and one rushing dog. In Caló it means a mobilized pack of beasts, dogs, people and otherwise. When they’re perreando, the individuals that make up the perrada are participating in a mob action. They’re blindly following the lead of the individual in front of them, leading the whole to do what none of its members would have tried on their own. It used to be used to call out a swarm of police, whether in cars or on foot, as in the arrival of a pack of sicced dogs. Today it refers to mob action in general, whether to party, fight or troll a discussion on the internet. What happened that you look all desmadrado, ese? Pos, the perrada came to my chante after bar hours and didn’t leave until sunup.
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Órale, the feature of this episode is the expression haciendo males. The literal translation in Spanish is doing bad things, but in Caló it means to be on a rampage or wilding, as in on a campaign to do bad things. You’re said to be haciendo males when it appears you’re intent on doing bad things, not just actually doing them. Kids are doing males when they’re hunting vulnerable mailboxes with a baseball bat on a lonely country.
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Órale, the feature word of this episode is currelear. There’s no comparable word in Spanish or English. It’s Romani for the act of trying to get somebody to fall in love with you. In Caló, it’s often mispronounced as “corralear” or corral, as in entrap or fence in, not at all what’s meant with currelear. To currelear is to get your mark to become attracted to you fulsomely, not deceitfully, mistakenly or haphazardly. For you don’t pursue fools or prisoners in a curreleada. You aim to win a committed lifelong friend or romantic partner.
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Órale, the feature of this episode of Caló is the verb abueyar. It’s based on the Spanish word buey, or ox, but it’s use as a verb in Caló. It invokes the image of a big water buffalo submitting to the whims of its master. A somewhat close term in English is kowtow. In Caló, the general idea conveyed by abueyear is that of a mighty and willful agent accepting its subjugation. The term refers as much to the act of the subjected as to that of its master. It speaks to an unnatural relationship, where a huge and powerful being comes under the control of a smaller, otherwise unlikely master. In this sense, you can’t abueyar a weakling or dependent being that’s already bent toward submission. They’re already owned, like a dog or parrot. Only the indomitable are subject to being abueyados. Nothing else fits the description.
