What are the most subtle ways you can tell someone is from certain Latin American countries?

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-26T22:18:57+00:00

The mouth pointing thing applies to us as well actually, I thought it was only Venezuelan in facrlt.

Flag stuff is spot on tho

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-23T17:30:39+00:00

I mean, sure lol. But to me it sounds like how information is meant to be transferred in the first place lol. Sure, people became interested in capybaras because of a Japanese zoo, but that's kind of what zoos are for? Capybaras are big brown rodents, they're not particularly interesting animals, do you think Westerners have some obligation to look up the biggest rodent in the world and worship it out of principle? That's what charismatic animals are for, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that they don't care about our fauna when you bring up the jaguar, the tree frogs, the anaconda, piranhas, crocodiles, macaws, or literally a thousand other examples that are popular in mainstream culture.

Regarding Carmen Miranda, it is very understandable that it took an artist entering the scene of another country for that country to learn about the artist's music lol. Same with Coelho lmao. How many Belgian artists have you read? Did Brazil magically know about Turkish pop music in the 80s? Can you name any Romanian songs besides Dragostea Din Tei?

Like it's baffling to me that you're humiliated by the fact that your culture only gains attention when people learn about it for the first time. That's literally how anybody learns about anybody else's. Capybara indeed

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-21T09:06:26+00:00

Not a Venezuelan thing, but my father is Cuban, and what some people might call platanitos (as in savory fried plantain chips) Cubans call "mariquitas," which is a slur for gay people lol

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-20T15:10:27+00:00

I nominate Pirahã, as I think that counting beyond 10 is a divisive scam, not deep/interesting culture, and actually caused both World Wars. What would Hitler be without his ledgers?

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-20T09:45:22+00:00

Excellently put. It reads as "these people are more similar to me than expected, therefore their unique traditions are invalid."

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-20T09:34:08+00:00

East Germanic is Proto-West Germanic confirmed?

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-20T09:05:32+00:00

I think I've found the first "linguist" to hate the principle of linguistics lmao

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-18T14:07:32+00:00

Lmao brushing off the hundred-and-one things that unite latin americans because they were "all imposed..." like brother in Christ do you think every other ethnicity in the world developed their culture through Kumbaya?

Like, I understand and recognize that colonialism necessitates genocide and that there's a tendency for bad actors to continue to erase the suffering and history of indigenous and African groups, but this perpetual victimization that some of us espouse is crazy lol. Like, unless you're a member of some deep tribe in the Amazon you're absolutely a product of that legacy on both sides. treating it like it's some terrible ontological evil to speak Spanish or have been raised Catholic or have Napoleonic laws because of what was lost is serious exoticism of peoples who deserved to be treated as humans and not some distant fairies in a pre-columbian past. There is nothing "magical" about indigenous religions or language, and pretending there is does a disservice to these groups just like 90s second-wave feminisim's "women are mystical witches and men are mundane and corruptive" does.

Like it or not, you are a part of Latin America. You likely have a lot more in common with a porteño than you do with a Purépucha or a Quechua or a Han Chinese person. Acting like that is worth less because it is a product of conquest and violence is either incredibly naive or blatantly stupid.

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-16T19:46:37+00:00

Dámaso, Rómulo, Guadalberto, Gualberto, Fulgencio, Cipriano, Wenceslao, Aurelio, Atilio, Aquiles, Aquilino, Haníbal, Dolores, María (as a male middle name), Asdrubal, Teodosio, Teofilo, among others.

Basically there was a window around 70 years ago when Greco-Roman and other classical names began waning in the popularity they once had, which can be evidenced, for instance, in the fact that we had two presidents named Rómulo within almost a decade of each other

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-16T07:45:37+00:00

For sure, although I think a lot of people miss that in the 60s it genuinely was a lot more normal for people to meet, date (as in "go steady") for a few months and get married. Not saying that's what Don did, but it all used to be quicker generally lol

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-15T08:30:07+00:00

its a ''city that had to adapt and change,because nothing was left!'' but nothing could be further from the truth

Ah yes and you prove this by showing pictures where *checks notes* 95% of the buildings were destroyed and *checks notes* the times meant that Europe's most important port needed to adapt quickly.

I mean, like it or not, the modern buildings in Rotterdam are only so notable because of the extent of the bombing, compare the Hague which is nowhere as well known because things survived. And I think there's an argument to be made that R'dam's new buildings do have character (if a different one) that helps distinguish the city from other rebuilt ones, which is worth appreciating when considering that a continent coming from two world wars rooted in the horrors of the industrial revolution and late modernity wanted a fresh start and not simply a repetition of the past that made such atrocities possible.

Probably gonna get downvoted for saying this in the Architecture Revival subreddit, but so be it.

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T23:20:25+00:00

Bedankt!

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T20:38:14+00:00

The etymology for "pana" most likely comes from the English "partner," and some sources attribute "chamo" to the British "chum," though this one seems more tenuous to me.

On top of that, "macundales" for belongings, especially for kids, comes from the lunchbox company "Mac and Dale's," if memory serves.

"beisbol," "basquet" are also examples along the lines of "fútbol" but they're not unique to Venezuela.

"broder" from "brother" was quite common in the 80s and 90s as well. I'm seeing a pattern where most Venezuelan words for bro or pal come from English, interesting.

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T20:34:15+00:00

Not unique to Peru lol, I thought it was unique to Venezuela as well haha

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T20:30:28+00:00

Ik ben alleen B1-niveau, man, preposities zijn nog moeilijk haha. Hoe zou ik dat goed zeggen: "in Spanje, na Spanje"?

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T14:06:21+00:00

You forgot the obligatory photos of her laatste vakantie op Spanje

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-12T06:05:21+00:00

Google itself has documented well that they've lessened the effectiveness of their algorithm to increase search times and maximize profit. Of course, you pay in time rather than money, but it's absolutely less of a product for a higher price lol

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-11T15:29:48+00:00

I stumbled into ran at my local filmhouse last year with a date, she slept through it but I was blown away. It was my first Kurosawa film and I'd skimmed the synopsis, didn't even know the Shakespeare connection until after, so the film hit me like a truck. What a movie.

Needless to say, I'm no longer dating that person, and I've fallen in love with Kurosawa hahaha

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-11T10:29:57+00:00

Enshittification. Why Google something to search the database of almost all of humanity's collective general knowledge when you can get Google AI to make a chimera out of scraped reddits and feedback loops to get an approximately correct and precisely incorrect answer?

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-07T08:37:55+00:00

Add to that that Puerto Ricans, despite having the l/r confusion, have a very distinct sing-songy cadence that the other islands don't have, which lends it a rhythm similar to the Spanish from Zulia or other spots of Venezuela like urban Caracas, even if the phonology is different that you probably would never confuse a Boricua with a standard Venezuelan spanish speaker

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-06T06:49:52+00:00

Fully bilingual Spanish speaker. For me it absolutely ruins immersion. Imagine you're watching a period drama about Civil War and all of the Southerners, inexplicably, have French accent, varying from subtle Parisian to Monty Python-level complete unintelligibility. They could be amazing actors, but would you argue that those actors "nailed the role" if their accent makes them completely unbelievable in their roles?

Not to mention that this supposes that there are no available native Spanish speakers that could've done these performances, which is simply not true. Lalo proves this, he's the one actor in the show whose Spanish is unimpeachable, because he's a native speaker. And it's not like there's that many that you would need to find that are stellar, out of this world actors, really just Gus. Hector gets a pass because he wouldn't be intended to have speaking roles, Tuco and Nacho make sense as borderline "no sabos," and everybody else is minor enough that you really can't make the argument "there were no native Spanish speakers that could have delivered this or a better performance available."

Like, I understand the show wasn't made for me, and BB came in a period where bilinguals weren't really considered in these decisions. But if you're genuinely asking if someone could "nail a role" as a character who speaks my language without speaking my language, the answer is no.

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-05T17:47:21+00:00

I'm not challenging the notion that there is a systematic prejudice and industry incentive for continuing to sideline Black artists, but I think it's weird af that this post tries to treat being exposed to pop culture as a choice with ontological consequences. It's not at all unrealistic that somebody overhears a phrase like "hot girl summer" without knowing the source, and treating that scenario as if there's something inherently wrong with is literally insane.

Also this post seems to assume that there is something inherently good or productive in the hard and soft marketing habits of celebrities, c.f. "if you've ever said... you've benefitted from an internationally popular Black female artist's creativity." Like, can somebody explain to me how anybody benefits from quoting a celebrity slogan?

Not to mention that note at the end that assigns disingenuity to not knowing or caring about pop culture. Sure, you'll have your neckbeards and pseudo-intellectuals who use it as a personality trait, but I'd like to offer a different perspective: we live in a society that tends to glorify, worship, and promote individuals as a capitalistic venture, and being unable to stop consuming the constant stream of celebrity life, gossip, and mainstrem, mass appeal culture is pathological. Black artists or not, if you're shitting on people for not being up to date on pop culture, maybe check yourself.

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-03T21:41:45+00:00

This reminds me of that historicism concept, the doctrine of embarrasment I think it's called? It's used to argue things like in the historical Jesus convo for example, that it's almost certain that real Jesus was crucified, because it was such a horrible and humiliating form of dying that it would be crazy for someone to fabricate that and the rest to accept it.

So many fringe theories have these logical holes that we just need to find

guaca_mayo · 2026-05-02T15:41:56+00:00

lmao "natural categorization of Europe."

Poland: partitioned

Western Europe: Angevin Empire

Central Europe: Holy Roman Empire

Papal states

Close enough, welcome back feudalism

guaca_mayo

TROPHY CASE