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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, another Hispanic Heritage Month call in and I think this one's going to be really fun. While many countries in Latin America may speak Spanish, each country has its unique spin on the language. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we invite you now to give us a call and teach everyone else a bit of slang or some idioms from your country of origin or maybe the country of origin of your parents or grandparents, and that language got handed down to you these turns of phrase.

Give us a call at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Is there a way, for example, that you use a certain word in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, or Venezuela that's really different from other countries? For example, the Spanish word guey means ox or sometimes slow-witted, but if you're in Mexico, it's used the same way as we use dude or bro. The word that's pronounced wey.

Or maybe you use a word that represents something about the history of your country like in Uruguay people often say ciao to say goodbye just like the Italian ciao. That's because of a wave of Italian immigration to the country in the 1800s according to culturetrip.com. In Cuba, they use the word asere which is a friendly way to address someone. That comes from the enslaved Africans from previous centuries, as I understand it. It means I salute you, asere.

Maybe your Spanish uses a lot of Indigenous words that you happen to know, share one with us. 646-435-7280, that's 646-435-7280. Here's another one. Did you catch The New York Times piece earlier this month titled Dancing Through New York in a Summer of Joy and Grief? In it, the writer talks about the Spanish word despojo. To the writer, it means expressing a physical craving for spiritual catharsis via dancing. Google translate, however, says despojo means dispossession. She writes, "I guess despojo comes to me, via Puerto Rican Spanish, in a register already worked through by ritual, by generations of people who’ve had to scavenge something good from the many losses of forced migration."

Listeners, is there a concept in your variety of Spanish or maybe Spanglish that we just don't have in English, something that reveals something special about the culture of your country of origin, of your parents or grandparents, country of origin, that's different from other countries in Latin America even? 646-435-7280. Let's start with Victor in Western New York. Victor, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Victor: Good morning, Lehrer and hola a todo el mundo en Nueva York. We use the word sipote and that means kid. When we meet with friends, we always say, "¿Cómo estás, sipote?" so, "How are you, kid?" That's our word that we use over in El Salvador. That's from our native language, Nawat.

Brian: Do you think that that's different from how a kid might be greeted? I know it's not just for kids, but it's like, "Hey, kid." Is that used for children or also adults informally?

Victor: We use it amongst friends and family. Yes, it doesn't matter how old you are. Once you see someone, it's like going to talk about old times and so on.

Brian: Got it. Did you say it came from an Indigenous language?

Victor: Yes. From our natives Indigenous, that's Nawat, and Pipiles was the name of our native people.

Brian: Say the phrase one more time.

Victor: ¿Cómo estás, sipote?

Brian: Victor, thanks for starting us off. Keep calling us. Ariana in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hi, Ariana.

Ariana: Hi, Brian.

Brian: Got a word for us?

Ariana: Yes. My word is pariguayo. I am a first-generation Dominican American and it's said to be a loser but very playfully in a sense, though, as well. It comes from when there were American soldiers stationed in the Dominican Republic in the '30s. They used to go to parties, but they wouldn't really join in on the fun. They would just sit back and watch, so they were called Party Watchers. The word eventually evolved to pariguayos which is what we use today.

Brian: Pretty funny. Is that like a party pooper in English, right?

Ariana: Yes and no. Anybody can call you a parguayo for any reason. It doesn't only have to be a party pooper. It could just be like you don't know how to pick up a girl or something like that, they'll call you a pariguayo.

Brian: Got you, Ariana. Hopefully not a lot of pariguayos out there or if you are, you just need more confidence. Fidel in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fidel.

Fidel: Hey. I have two food-related situations if you will. I'm Cuban so we call oranges naranja, where other Caribbean countries call them China. I think it's specifically Puerto Rico and maybe Dominican Republic as well. The other one is for bananas. We call them plátanos and I believe Puerto Rican's call them guineo.

Brian: Good ones. Fidel, thank you very much. We're going to go to Ernesto in Brooklyn.

Ernesto: Hi, Brian. The word that Mexicans use to refer to Americans is usually gringo, but really what Mexicans use is the word gabacho. Gabacho is really the term for Americans in Mexican dialect.

Brian: Does it have a different implication than gringo?

Ernesto: No, same meaning. Just means Americans.

Brian: Ernesto, Thanks a lot. Rosie in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rosie.

Rosie: Hi. I'm from Colombia. I'm really happy to see that so many people are holding onto their Indigenous and original background. Because we say Latino or Hispanic heritage but we are so much native American or original nations from Mexico, Central America, South America. In Colombia, we use the word parcero to mean friend. It comes from somebody that follows you around. It's used in the same way as guey in Mexico but it's parcero.

Brian: It's very social media, isn't it? I realize it's an old word, but you can friend somebody on Facebook or have followers on Twitter. We don't necessarily previously think of friends and followers in the same way. A friend is more of a reciprocal one-to-one relationship, give and take.

Rosie: Correct.

Brian: A follower is more like hanging around. Did this word parcero mean both of those things in either way?

Rosie: No. It comes more from small towns where people would get together, come up with specific activities, and then everybody would follow them into the mountains, the lakes, or to the farm for the weekend.

Brian: That is cool. It is interesting that the call-out, the way I set up the segment for Hispanic Heritage Month for people to call with whatever Latin American heritage, if they speak Spanish, to talk about a word or a phrase. And I said, "You can talk about how it related to the Indigenous languages that Spanish may have interacted with in whatever country." And so many of the calls so far have made Indigenous language references. You said that makes you happy, does it surprise you?

Rosie: Very much, because we are not Latin. We are not. None of us speak Latin. Our original root is Indigenous, and then we were colonized. Through the centuries, we still hold onto our roots and that makes me very proud and very happy.

Brian: So you don't like this whole Latin American, Latino, Latina tag in the first place, it sounds like.

Rosie: I'm Hispanic. Who's Panic?

Brian: Of course, so. What? Who's Panic?

Rosie: Yes, Hispanic. Who's Panic?

Brian: Right. Like, "Who's Panic? Not me." Like that?

Rosie: Exactly. Like in panic.

[laughter] Thank you.

Brian: Thank you, Rosie. Call us again. All right. Here's another way to say friend after we just learned that one from Rafael in Hoboken. Hi Rafael, you're on WNYC.

Rafael: Thank you, Brian. Great to be on the show this morning. Thank you. I listen to you every day. I'm from Lima, Peru. In Lima we use the word chochera to refer to a close friend, buddy, if you will, in English. I will call you and say, "Hey, chochera chocherita," or "choche." Those three versions in order to refer to my buddy, my close friend instead of amigo, for instance, which is very generic, very general. In Lima, we use chochera. I just wanted to share that.

Brian: If it's a closer friend, you're saying.

Rafael: Correct. Somebody who means a lot to you, that is close to you, that is like your best friend, your chochera, your choche or chocherita.

Brian: Now, tell me this. Do politicians use amigo in Peru the way politicians in this country use friend or friends? John McCain, for example, used to call everybody my friend, "Well, my friend" and a lot of politicians do that. Do people use amigo as opposed to chochera in that way? Does amigo get used in that kind of political way?

Rafael: Yes, it could be. Although, politics like any other place in Peru is very, very controversial. If a politician is going to call somebody amigo, that might refer to something else.

Brian: Okay. I will take that as an implication for a conversation another day.

[laughter]

Rafael, thank you very much. Janet in Hopewell, you're on WNYC. Hi, Janet. Janet, you there?

Janet: Hi. Sorry, you were on mute for a second.

Brian: That's okay, we got you.

Janet: My family's from Ecuador. The translation for brother or sister in Spanish is hermano or hermana, but in Ecuador, we use the term ñaño and ñaña. It's a Quechua term and it refers to your brothers and sisters. You would say mi ñaño or mi ñaña or to a very intimate friend, you will refer to them as ñaño and ñaña.

Brian: Almost like what we were hearing from the last caller, how the word for a very close friend would be different from a word for a friend in general. In this case, it could be for a family member who you're particularly tight with too, I think you're saying.

Janet: Right. Specifically for your brother or sister, you would say mi ñaño or mi ñaña. That's how you would refer to them.

Brian: If you didn't like your brother and sister you wouldn't really say that.

Janet: [laughs] No, you wouldn't. Sometimes you wouldn't even use your brother or sister's name, you would just say ñaño. "Ñaño ven acá," like come here Ñaño.

Brian: Yes. You'd address them like that.

Janet: Right.

Brian: Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Maria in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Maria.

Maria: Hi, Brian. Well jumping back on that amigo/friend train. I'm Cuban American. The way we say amigo is asere, so you say, "What's up asere?" That's very common among the Cuban people. What I had originally called for was to give a slang term, very Cuban slang, and it's "tremendo paquete," which literally translated means a tremendous package, but what you use it as is something that's major drama.

Brian: Can you give me an example of how you may have used it or seen it used on TMZ or something like that?

Maria: That could be used for probably all the time on TMZ or just any major drama major event, like, "Oh my gosh." Somebody just got into a car chase or somebody's getting into a fight or parties getting broken up or people are yelling at each other, anything like that, you're like, "Whoa, tremendo paquete."

Brian: Maria, thank you very much. We're almost at a time, we'll get a couple more in here as for Hispanic Heritage Month. We're taking your calls on a way that you with your particular country's heritage use a word or phrase. It could be Spanish or Indigenous from a Latin American country or the way they interact that a lot of other people from other countries might know, let's get Eddie in Astoria in here. Hi, Eddie.

Eddie: Hi. I'm from Caracas, Venezuela. We use this word chévere, which means cool. I haven't heard it in any other place in Latin America. I don't know if it's Indigenous or not, but it doesn't sound Spanish either, but chévere is -- The other one, the meaning of despojo in Venezuela, where my family come from there they used to live close to our mountain where it's believed to be a goddess, María Lionza. My family on my father's side used to do spiritism. If you think you have a bad spirit in your family, you hire a witch to come to give you a despojo to get rid of the bad spirit. People would actually spend a lot of money paying this person to come and do all kinds of things in your house and get rid of the bad spirit. You did a despojo that you needed to do otherwise, something bad going to happen to you.

Brian: Well, what I can say is that you and all the other callers did a despojo for all the listeners to this show at this moment, because this was definitely a spiritual catharsis. Eddie, thank you very much. Thanks to all of you. That was so much fun. We'll do more Hispanic heritage segments as the month goes on. I know it's the last day of September, but it's kind of a middle of September to middle of October month, so more to come.

The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, and Carl Boisrond, with Zach Gottehrer-Cohen working on our daily podcast, Liora Noam-Kravitz and Juliana Fonda at the audio controls.

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