Some say you should avoid talking about politics with family around the holidays. Those people have never been around a group of Latinos debating whether the singular word fortamalesis "tamal"or "tamale."
These days, that debate happens mostly on Twitter and it starts every year, without fail, right after Thanksgiving.
"Everyone thinks the linguistic debate is 'Latinx'versus 'Latino,'but 'Tamal'v'Tamale'is the battle that's truly tearing our community apart," one user tweeted earlier this month.
The tweet is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's funny and I kind of agree.
To be honest, not long ago, I was thefirst to correct my South Texas friends or anyone around me who dared to call a "tamal"a "tamale."
My first language is Spanish. I was born in Mexico and went to school there from kindergartenup to the eighthgrade.
The singular word for tamales in Spanishis tamal. "That is what I was taught. That's correct Spanish," I kept telling people after my mother and I moved to Texas. If it sounds pretentious it probably very much was.
One day I just stopped stressing over it and I told my mom,"en México es tamal y aquí en Texas es tamale."
"In Mexico it's tamal and here in Texas it's tamale."
I've lived in Texas for close to 21 years. And most of that time growing up I spent ittrying to understand why even though Texas is so close to Mexico, its culture, its food and its language were still so different.
It took some college courses, learning some history andmeeting different people for me to understand. But most importantly, it was simply living and growing up in Texas that helped me embrace and fall in love with Texas food, culture and language. And this included being OK with calling a single tamal, a tamale.
So is the singular word for tamales'tamal' or 'tamale'?
I won't shame you. Call it what you want. But I am not a linguistic expert either.
While reporting on an article about the different kinds of tamales made in Texas, I sought an expert who could help me settle this debate or at least help me answer the question.
Marco Iñiguez-Alba, a senior lecturer of Spanish at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, saidin Spanish, the singular word for tamales is tamal —which was appropriated into Spanish from the Nahuatl word tamalli.
The appropriation into English is tamale, he said.
Iñiguez-Albateaches aheritage Spanish language class. Theclass is for those who learnedSpanish from hearing it and speaking it at home and in their community and did not learn it in a classroom setting.
"When you have people that learn heritage language, you believe what you hear and rightly so. That's your reality based on your experience. That's what you know until you grow and accept new forms that challenge your original beliefs," iñiguez-Alba said. "'Tamale'is one ofthose capsules of information that has been passed down from generation to generation."
Popular forms of language use exist and people who are part of speech communities are going to manufacture it and continue to transmit it because that’s what they know, he said.
And we're not alone. Every region around the worldhas similar configurations and debates about words and language.
"People everywhere popularize certain sayings, even if they're grammatically incorrect, even if the standard form is different from the popular form," Iñiguez-Alba said. "I don't put my students down for the way they speak or for the way that theywrite. In fact, I am always very curious about that."
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Austin American-Statesman reporterNatalia Contreras can be reached at 512-626-4036or ncontreras@statesman.com. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook, @NataliaECG.
