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 feature of this episode is the word nambe. It’s a contraction of the modern Spanish words, no and hombre, as in “no, hombre.” There’s an equal expression in English, “no, man.” In Caló, it’s used to emphasize a contradiction. You think she’s gonna win. Nambe¸ no chance. -
Órale, the feature of this episode, is the expression hacer rancho. It means make ranch or space in modern Spanish. In Caló, hacer rancho describes a situation or person that has gotten so out of control they’ve taken over control. You invite a vato to stay at your chante, and he takes over the place as if it were his? He hizo (made) rancho.
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Órale, we’re gonna continue with the susto theme. The Calo word for this episode is a nuance of a term we introduced in the past, con safos. It’s a preemptive, protective susto, but it can also be a way to say that the bad wish directed at you isn’t having its intended effect.
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Órale, for this episode of the story of how the piole rescued Salomón, were gonna feature the term rollo, which is pronounced royo. In modern Spanish it means a roll or script. In Caló, it means a scripted line, a practiced narrative of why something happened, or a prepared speech read from a sheet of paper. There’s nothing extemporaneous or self-exposing about a rollo. It’s full of guile and purpose and meant to convince or dissuade. You don’t say I love you with a rollo. You say a rollo to convince someone to love you. This is not to say that rollos are not to be trusted. Sometimes they’re a call to steer you to safe harbor in storm.
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Órale, for this episode of Caló, we’re gonna feature the expression le salió cola. In modern Spanish it means it sprung a tail. Nothing special. But in Caló, le salió cola means the situation became more complicated or difficult than expected— a surprise sudden turn for worse. You thought you could handle it, but then things got out of hand? Te salió cola, ese.
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Órale, the feature of this episode is susto. In modern Spanish is means a fright. In Caló, it means a spell. The victim is the sustado. Now, in the world of Caló, many things pass as a spell, but nobody thinks it’s possible to casts sustos so fantastical that people are tuned into frogs. It is thought, however, that everybody tries to cast sustos of some kind, but not everybody can. And among those who can, there are some who are better than others. Also sometimes a susto comes from beyond the horizon, seemingly out of nowhere. Then there are the timeless sustos that are ever present in the barrio and land on a sustado only when conditions allow, maybe once a generation or two.
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Órale, the next four episodes of Caló are going to be about the adventure of Boy and his friends bringing one of their carnales back to safety from the dark alleys. This first episode features the word piole, which means a group of steady friends. It comes from the Spanish word, piolar, which is the collective chirping of a brood of chicks. The term conveys the image of a pack of kids talking excitedly to each other in a playground or, in the case of the Southside, in the alleys.
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Órale, the featured word of this episode of Caló is vide. It’s old Castilian for “I saw you (or it).” In modern Spanish, the term that’s used is simply vi. In Caló, vide solves the problem of having to decide to speak in the formal or familiar at the same time it allows you to make clear who or what it was you saw. In other words, vide says it’s not that you could see, but that you for sure vide the person or thing you’re talking about.
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Órale, the featured word of this episode is despinchado. It means separated from its pinche, which means notorious in Romani or Caló. We’ve covered this word in a previous episode. Something that had the reputation of being pinche, but then lost it, is no longer useful or desirable. It’s despinchado, broken, undermined, or useless. People, machines, tools, relationships, and even situations can be despinchados.
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Órale, the featured word of this episode of Caló is contrato. It means contract in Spanish, but in Caló it’s a solemn promise or commitment. It’s an expression reserved for big moments in life that call for a heart-felt and consequential promise. The spiritual and reputational consequences of not fulfilling a contrato are high. Of course, the contrato itself may obligate you to an extraordinary end too.
