Mexican Spanish versus Iberian Spanish

>surrounding region, outnumbering the
When speaking about languages, is there reallySpanish-speakers for several generations.
such a thing as Mexican? Is Mexican really soConsequently, Mexico City exercised a
different from the Spanish spoken in Spain?standardizing effect over the entire country,
Is the official language spoken Mexico trulymore or less, becoming a distinctive dialect of
different that the Spanish spoken in Spain?Spanish which incorporated a significant number of
The differences existing between Spanish spokenhispanicized Nahuatl words.
in Spain and Mexican Spanish are no greater thanThe Spanish of the Yucatán Peninsula is different
the differences found in American and Britishfrom all the other forms of the language, both as
English. There are without doubt nuisances andfar as the intonation and the incorporation of
colloquialisms that are particular to each country,Mayan words is concerned, whilst the Spanish
but deviations similarly exist in regional areas withinspoken in the areas that border Guatemala
Mexico, or in Spain, or for that matter in any Latinresembles the variation of Central America
American country.Spanish spoken in that country.
As far as Mexico is concerned there are a varietyInterestingly those areas were originally part of
of "lenguas indígenas" or indigenous languagesthe Audiencia of Guatemalan and only became
that are spoken, but Spanish remains the officialpart of Mexico after the wars of colonial
language. The rise of Spanish is of course tied toindependence; until the 1870s most of the
the Spanish conquest of the New World.southern state of Chiapas and the Soconusco
As a result of Mexico City's central role in theregion did not officially become part of Mexico.
colonial administration of New Spain, the populationThe migrations that took place in the 19th and
of the city naturally included large numbers ofthe 20th century from Mexico to the United
speakers from Spain. Mexico City (Tenochtitlán)States have caused Mexican Spanish to become
had also been the capital of the Aztec Empire,the most widely spoken variety of Spanish in the
and many speakers of the Aztec languageUnited States of America, except in the East
Nahuatl continued to be spoken there and in theCoast.