Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish is the set of varieties of Spanish spoken in Mexico, the country with the largest number of native Spanish speakers in the world at roughly 120 million. Central Mexican speech, closely associated with Mexico City, is often treated as the de facto reference form, but the dialect varies noticeably between the northern border states, the central highlands, the southern and Yucatan regions and the Gulf and Pacific coasts. Its most recognized features include yeismo, the retention of syllable-final /s/ in the highlands, and a lexicon heavily shaped by Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, which supplied everyday words like guajolote, jitomate and papalote alongside a pervasive fondness for diminutive forms.