ansina
n.— «Gente humilde, casi todos indígenas o mestizos morenos. Que no saben usar palabras elegantes. Que champurran el spanglish con los “haiga”, los “ansina”, los “mesmamente” y los “dendenantes.” Que gustan de andar de sombrero y botas. De bigote ancho, y cinturón ‘pipeao’.» —“Mexicanos discriminando paisanos: El racismo que faltaba” by César Fernando Zapata in Dallas, Texas La Crónica (Juárez, Mexico) Sept. 25, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...
“Ansina” is absolutely NOT “bad Spanish”! It is actually an older form of “asÃ,” and its use reflects the fact that some areas of the world have retained the usage of older terms which were common at the time of colonization.
In fact, many Sephardic Jewish communities, descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 (irony of ironies) also use “ansina” in their daily speech, reflecting the Spanish of the time of their expulsion — and their long-standing presence in Spain before that horrible event.
In short, those who criticize users of such words as “ansina” are themselves ingnorant and should study a bit of their linguistic history. Or perhaps their criticism reflects some sort of misguided “elitism” — sometimes dubbed self-hate, which plagues many of our communities today, both in the U.S. and throughout Latin America, as though some of use have “bluer blood” than the rest. It’s a shame.
I admire those native communities in latin america. They speak what some people call bad spanish. Doi nolt forget that they have another language. Their native language.n TheY ARe the real owner of the land and, a culture thAT were stolen from them in the name of God(AKA INQUISITION). For sure theu deserve respect and opportunities.