[Svartalfiar]

I worked for an oil company in Venezuela in the '80s. One of the many things I learned was that there is a lingual pecking order in South America.

I was told that Ecuador was on top since they spoke the closest to Castilian Spanish, and so on down the line to Mexico, because they had the most native words.

Yup. Mostly because Mexico had the largest number of native tribes (Maya, Aztec, Zapotec mostly), so they had the greatest amount of mixing in the blood. As you go farther south, there were generally fewer natives to supplant, and hence less intermixing of language and culture.

Even within Mexico, you essentially had a caste system between white (Spanish) Mexicans, and brown (tribal) Mexicans. Most of the official separation was eliminated after the Mexican Revolution, but there's still a clear societal divide that pretty clearly follows skin color.

[combat_boots]

This is too true

I once saw the head guy at “El Pais” and the head guy from Mexico DF’s paper almost throw down right in front of me. I was even in the front row. I wasn’t ready for that.