Pedro Fernández Riquelme publishes in MIRCo blog the second of the two parts of his article The Murcian Variety and Humor: A Model of Unintelligibility? Riquelme is a professor and researcher at the Universidad de Murcia. The first part is available here.
4. Films and TV shows
In the musical Explota Explota (2020), the actress Verónica Echegui suggested that her character speak with a Murcian accent. According to her, this accent “was more comedic” and would serve to make it more distinct, “harder than usual”[1].
In the movie Cuerpo de Élite (2016), Agent Camacho (Pepa Aniorte), in the role of “Murcian”, cannot be understood when she speaks, which creates very funny scenes.
Orthographic transcription with dialectal features (fragment from Cuerpo de Élite) [2]
- Superior: This is our department of I+D. Here we will give you the most modern technology.
- Superior (presenting): She is agent Camacho, head of the department.
- Agent Camacho: (with Murcian accent, almost incomprehensible): A veh zagaleh, oíime bieh…
- Superior: Agent Camacho is Murcian…
- Agent Camacho: Ehtaoh (Incomprehensible), que lo vai a explicah un veh na mah (I’m only going to explain it once, Murcian accent).
- An agent: Um, sorry, but I can’t understand you with the toothpick.
- Agent Camacho: What? Ehto? (This, in murcian accent).
- Agents: Yes.
- Agent Camacho: ¿Que se te ha figurao que ehtto eh un mordadienteh, no? (What do you think, that this is a toothpick, no?, Murcian accent). Well no, (throwing it at an agents neck). Eh (Its, Murcian accent) a tranquilizer dart.
- Superior (looking at the objects): Well… And ehhto (this, murcian accent) this is crazy! Ehhto (This, Murcian accent) is just insane! Mirahh (look, murcian accent).
- An agent: (Speaks with an accent from Eastern Andalucia) Look: a shino (Chinese, Murcian accent) cat.
- Other agent: (With a standard accent) Its name is maneki-neko. They say that they have the power to magically give money. You know the PER[3] for andalucians? Well, this is the same.
- Superior: Well, en verdah (actually, murcian accent) it’s a proyectaoh (Project, Murcian accent) of (incomprehensible).
- An agent: Of what?
- Agent Camacho (correcting): Of hologram (with accent), Of hologram!
- Everyone: Ohh.
- Agent Camacho: (an agent tries to touch Camacho, but it’s a hologram) Here, suormah (idiot, Murcian accent).
- An agent: Shit!
- Agent Camacho: (An agent touches Camacho’s brests and she hits him) you’re stupider than a mata de habah (bush of fava beans, Murcian accent). Well, esteh, esteh (this: murcian accent), is the thing that me tié (has me, murcian accent) crazy. Ehte (this: murcian accent) is the invention that ehttoy (I’m, murcian accent) máh (most, murcian accent) proud of: el moduladoh de acentoh (the accent modulator, murcian accent).
- An agent: Well, I…actually, what did you say?
- Agent Camacho: (Switches to standard Spanish ) The accent modulator. It allows you to speak with the perfect accent of any autonomous region. (Switches to Galician accent) You can pass inadvertidiños (unnoticed, with the -iño associated to Galician accent) in any part of Spain. And it has a “male” and “female” option. And how does it work? Well its very simple (removes the modulator).
- Everyone: No, no, no, no!
- Agent Camacho:(Returns to Murcian accent) Pueh (Well, Murcian accent) eh mu (it’s very, Murcian accent) simple: the glándulah salivareh (salivery glan, Murcian accent) works to reposition the partículah (particles, Murcian accent) that float in the saliva (salivery, Murcian accent) flow in the cavidadeh oraleh (oral cavities, Murcian accent).
Phonetically adapted sentences
- “A veh zagaleh, oííme bieh…” or “Let’s see guys, listen to me carefully”
- Transcription: [A beh θagaleh, oi̞ˈme βje̞h]
- (reduction of initial syllables, vowel lengthening, /s/ aspiration, vowel opening)
- “Ehtaoh, que leh voi a explicá una veh na máh.” or “I’m only going to explain this one time”
- [ˈehtao̞ ke leh ˈβoi a ehpliˈka una βeh na ˈmah]
- (aspiration, loss of /d/, final /s/ neutralization → [h])
- “¿Que ehtto eh un mordadienteh, no?” or “That this is, a toothpick no?
- [ke ˈehtto̞ eh um mo̞ɾðaˈðjenteh no̞]
- (aspiration, syllable simplification, vowel opening)
- “Eh un dardo narquetizante” or “This is a tranquilizer dart”
- [eh um ˈdaɾðo̞ naɾketiˈθante]
- (article reduction, /d/ lenition)
- “Ereh máh tonto que una mata de habah” or “You’re stupider than a bush of fava beans”
- [ˈeɾeh mah ˈtonto ke ˈuna ˈmata ðe̞ ˈaβah]
- (final aspiration, vowel opening, /d/ lenition)
- “Ehteh el cacharrico que me tié loca” or “this is the thing that’s got me crazy”
- [ˈehte eh el kaˈtʃari̞ko ke me ˈtje ˈloka]
- (diphthong reduction, /s/ aspiration, /d/ elision)ç
- “Pueh eh mu sencillo: la glándulah salivareh recolocan…” or “well it’s very simple: the salivary grand repositions…”
- [pweh eh mu senˈsiʝo̞ la ˈɡlandulah saliˈβaɾeh rekoˈlokan]
Most recently, in the movie La cena (2025) there’s an appearance of a Murcian character that is characterized by a stereotypical and exaggerated use of this regional variety. This trend has been growing in creshendo since Miguel Mihura depicted a Murcian as provincial, repressed and unsophisticated in his play Ninette and a man from Murcia (1964). Later, Pedro Almodóvar characterized another Murcian in the same way in Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980), as previously mentioned. Since then, dozens of tv shows and films have portrayed the unsophisticated Murcian, to the point which it has replaced Andalucian accent as the primary form of ridicule, especially in the past fifteen years. Media outlets, celebrities and programs like David Broncano, Muchachada Nui and Murcian comedians themselves have all contributed to this characterization.
5. Parodies and viral versions
Similarly, another notable phenomenon is based on parodies by Murcia comics or influencers about films, songs, or popular scenes (for example, Murcian versions of ‘Ocho Apellidos Vascos’, Murcian versions of hit summer songs, etc.) which appear frequently on the internet. Many of these parodies exploit the exaggeration of the accent and local expressions to provoke laughter. Part of the humor lies in the fact that the listener recognizes what is different – what “sounds like Murcian” [4]. For example, in one of his monologues the comic Chema Ruiz introduced ‘made in Murcia’ words and confesses that some people ‘don’t really understand them’ if they’re not from the region.
In the trilogy of short films of by the Murcian actor and stand-up comedian Pedro Ángel Roca, composed of Logopeda, Endogamia y Paparajote, unintelligibility is emphasized:
- “You don’t know how to pronounce half of the vowels” (Speech therapist).
- “I used to date a stutterer, and now you want me to date a Murcian? (speech therapist).
- I can go to a speech therapist” (speech therapist).
- A Manchego (person from Castilla de la Mancha) speaking Murcian (it’s a dream): “Acho (Dude, in murcian accent) what’s happening to me (Paparajote, typical Murcian dessert).
- He wakes up from the dream: “Carloss, thee ratsss…I know how to speak (Paparajote, typical Murcian dessert).
In the same way, the Madrid band Gavira published a song called “Murcia” in 2022 with the following lyrics:
I have a Murcian friend / From the exterior space / He speaks a strange language / That I don’t understand / “Acho”, “pijo”, “wea” / He won’t stop speaking / He speaks of some beach / But I’m from Madrid
We observe an example of hyper-dialectalization (“wea” for “huevos”?) at the same time that another form of intelligibility appears (He speaks a strange language / that I don’t understand”).
6. Rushed diction, tensions between the standard language and spontaneous/confused speech
Everyone uses humor and performance, but they also reveal sociolinguistic tensions and cultural stereotypes.
To say something is unintelligible means that, for a significant portion of the public, that thing cannot be understood without a large effort or without context. Let’s examine to what extent this is true for Murcian.
We found some arguments which in theory can support this claim. Non-standard phonological features (omission of consonants, gemination, liquid substitution, variation of unstressed vowels, and vowel opening following the aspiration of the final consonant) lead to the loss of important phonetic sequences, which can hinder the automatic recognition for a speaker of northern variety. This increases the difficulty of comprehension, especially if in addition to what has been previously mentioned, we add the speed of speech, background noise, or unfamiliarity with the vernacular lexicon.
Consonant germination resulting from consonant loss is typical of many varieties of the southern and southeastern peninsula (part of eastern Andalucian, Vega Baja del Segura – Alicante-), like the as is vowel opening following the loss of /s/, but its association to the Murcian type by way of the interest to ridicule the speaker of this variety, that appears to be constructed as a poorly educated person that is the subject of mockery and ridicule. This separation from standard Castilian is reinforced because the humor is based on surprise, on the unexpected, on that which sounds strange. When the Murcian variety is exaggerated the features which separate it from the standard are intensified, which implies a greater cognitive load to understand what the Murcian speaker is saying and, at the same time, part of the humorous effect is conditioned by the difficulty indecoding the message: the listener laughs because they recognize something different, an accent, a “twisted” pronunciation, a strange expression: leja, zagal,, picoesquina, boria, bajocas, ababol (García Soriano, 1932), A pajera abierta, ¿Qué giro?…
In the national media, it’s common to treat Murcia as the object of jokes (“Murcia, the new Lepe” is mentioned in various articles and reports), which suggests that the idea exists that Murcia speaks in a different way than the rest of Spain[5] and, therefore, its susceptible to mockery, otherwise known as stigmatization, the same which Andalucians have, and continue to, suffer (Méndez Santos, 2025).
Nevertheless, even though there are marked differences, in phonetic studies Murcian continues to be recognized as a variety of Spanish; there’s no complete breakdown in total comprehension of rapid speech, but rather variations in clarity and familiarity. In Monroy and Hernández-Compy’s article they don’t speak of automatic unintelligibility, but of distinctive features, phonetic and phonological variations. To learn more about Murcian features, we recommend consulting the Enciclopedia Concisa de los Dialectos del Español en el Mundo (ENCODES, 2025), where we found works that address the phonetic level (Campoy y Cutillas, 2025) and morphosyntactic level (Mercedes Abad, 2025) of the Murcian geolect.
Many Spanish speakers are exposed to various varieties (through tv shows, the internet, regional coexistence), which reduces the real unintelligibility in practice. Something that can be hard for a person from another region to understand at the beginning improves with more exposure. With humor, the context (gestures, situations, cultural familiarity) helps a lot: even though some words or pronunciations may be difficult, the comedic context, the shared references, and the extremes/exaggerated limits help with general comprehension.
However, the topic that has been created stigmatizes, to the point that outside of the realm of comedic fiction, memes and jokes appear on social media around this “mantra” of the understanding of Murcian. One of those was the product of a terrible racist manhunt in the Murcian town of Torre Pacheco:
7. Conclusion
The model of the unintelligibly of Murcian in humor has real elements: there are phonetic and lexical features which can complicate the comprehension between speakers from outside the region, and many comedians use these differences as a comedic resource by exaggerating them.
However “unintelligible” in an absolute sense is not linguistically justified: this is not a matter of differences typical of a separate language, but rather barriers (phonetic, lexical, cultural) that can be overcome through familiarity or context. In general, Murcian humor exploits difference: accent, idioms, local expressions, rare pronunciations, because part of the “comedic effect” is precisely this linguistic otherness. This exploitation can lead to those who are not accustomed needing more time to process in order to understand; part of the laughter may stem from the difficulty itself or the stereotype that “Murcia speaks strangely”. But this comprehension is neither total or generalized, it is partial and dependent on factors such as area, register (colloquial versus forma), level of exposure, etc.
What is articulated here is as clear case of “accentism” (Blanchet, 2016), where the Murican speech is transformed into a hyperbolic parody. In line with Bourdieu (1985), these humorous products reproduce “discredited speech” (low linguistic capital), reinforcing the image of Murcian as a linguistic subaltern. The speaker is represented as naïve, crude or marginal.
In the project we are working on we demonstrates how Murcianphobia has created a paradoxical effect: the symbolic exclusion has given way to an incipient regional linguistic consciousness. Symbolic forms of resistance emerge through memes, comics and viral videos, which align with similar phenomena as those observed in Andalucia[6], like the performances of Chema Ruiz, the show Ocho apellidos murcianos, the Super Perrete campaign (first Murcian superhero) or one of Pedro Ángel Roca’s monologues, (dedicated to a sex study where Murcia is ranked at the top). The videos “El Murciano” (Notodofilmfest, 2018)[7] and “Murcianico Style”[8] transform dialectal features and regional topics in acts of political-linguistic humor: they laugh with their variety, they reclaim it and they exhibit it as an active part of the contemporary audiovisual cultural.
This is part of a timid resistance via local humor. These cases reveal attempts at resignification and linguistic pride, although they are still a minority. These processes can be the foundation of a subaltern glottopolotics that questions the rules of linguistic prestige from within.
Nevertheless, reappropriation does not neutralize the stigma (Méndez, 2025), since the social effect continues to be one of ridicule and discredit, especially when the dialect is represented as a symptom of lack of culture or deficiency (associated with OCD, speech therapy, etc.).
Through the case of Murcian it can be clearly observed why the category of dialect is neither neutral or transparent: far from simply indicating a local variety, its social use implies a hierarchical position within the Spanish linguistic market. In contemporary cultural media, Murcian serves as a systematically delegitimized form of speech – associated to ignorance, rusticity, automatic comedic effect or exaggerated unintelligibility- and transformed into a recurrent object of humorous glottophobia. The hyperbolic representation of its phonetic and lexical features, like the reiterated construction of the “inferior speaker” (Bourdieu), demonstrate that what is in play is not only the linguistic description, but also the reproduction of power relations which situation Murcian in a subaltern position. For this reason, avoiding the category dialect in this case does not negate the variation, but rather recognizes that the label contributes to naturalize processes of devaluation and exclusion that hinder a proper understanding of the articulation between language, power, and subjectivity.
REFERENCES
Abad, M. (2000). “Las hablas murcianas en la obra de Muñoz Garrigós”. Revista de investigación lingüística, número 2, pp: 9-30. Universidad de Murcia.
Blanchet, P. (2016). Discriminations: combattre la glottophobie. Paris: Éd. Textuel, coll. Petite Encyclopédie critique.
Bourdieu, P (1985). ¿Qué significa hablar?. Madrid: Akal
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garcia Soriano, J. (1932). Vocabulario del dialecto murciano. Madrid: C. Bermejo, impresor
Jiménez Cano, J. M. (2024). “Debate social sobre cuestiones lingüísticas en la Región de Murcia” en Molina Martos, I. et al (eds).Caminos y palabras. Estudios de variación lingüística dedicados a Pilar García Mouton. Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch.
Méndez Santos, M. (2025). No me gusta cómo hablas (o más bien no me gustas tú). Crítica de la discriminación lingüística. Madrid: Pie de Página.
Monroy, R.; Hernández-Campoy, J. M. (2015). “Murcian Spanish”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45(2), 229–240.Zamora Vicente, A. (1960). Dialectología española. Madrid: Gredos,
[1] https://los40.com/los40/2020/10/01/cinetv/1601572622_703465.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcDKkrjcsWE
[3] Plan de Fomento de Plan Agrario, now referred to as Renta Agraria, is a form of government aid for unemployed seasonal agricultural workers in Andalusia and Extremadura. It allows them to receive unemployment benefits while working on rural works and services, which are managed by municipal councils and provincial governments to improve infrastructure and sustain rural employment.
[4] https://www.laopiniondemurcia.es/sociedad/2017/11/17/murcia-merece-risas-31808083.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[5] https://www.publico.es/sociedad/humor-murcia-nuevo-lepe.html
[6] https://www.diariodesevilla.es/andalucia/Molletes-rap-memes-nuevo-andalucismo_0_1659135875.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFsN1op74_c&t=1s
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA8-xiCsqT8&list=RDXA8-xiCsqT8&start_radio=1
