The phrase ‘A María se le metió el agua’- which translates to ‘the water got to Maria’doesnt mean anything to most Spanish speakers, let alone those who speak English. But it is widely used in Costa Rica.

When ‘the water gets to’ someone, it means they committed some minor act of lunacy or, at the very least, something out of the ordinary.

‘Sos la pura chapa’, meaning ‘you are clumsy’, and ‘esa yuca no me la como’, I don’t believe that tale, are other examples of terms not found in the ‘Real Academia’ dictionary – the Spanish equivalent of the Oxford or Webster’s – dictionaries – that are commonly used by ‘Ticos’ (Costa Ricans).

Now, thanks to a group of linguists in the University of Costa Rica, ‘tiquismos’ – phrases and words widely used in the Central American country) figure in the ‘New Dictionary of Costa Rican Spanish.’

“This work, without doubt, will help determine the relationship between language and culture with the idea of promoting pride and loyalty toward our linguistic idiosyncracies,” said Victor Manuel Sanchez, in charge of the project.

Several dictionaries have been published previously that cover the particular lexicon of the country but they tended to stigmatise Costa Rican expressions as “corruptions of the language,” at least until the 1970s, said Sanchez.

The first of these works, in 1892, was the ‘Dictionary of Barbarisms and Provincialisms of Costa Rica,’, by Carlos Gagini Chavarria. The new initiative to compile a new dictionary was born out of a project to study hispano-Costa Rican lexicography, headed by Sanchez.

One dictionary version will serve as support material for the national educational system, to be known as the “Diccionario Basico Escolar del Espanol de Costa Rica,” (Basic School Dictionary of Costa Rican Spanish.”

The ‘New Dictionary of Ciosta Rican Spanish’ will take its material from popular literature, slang, journalism, religion, the economy, the electoral and political rhetoric, and urban and rural speech use.

Up until now research has covered the basic vocabulary of the written press, radio and pre-school and school age children. These tasks are carried out jointly by teaching staff, researchers and university action within society, said Sanchez.

The new works, despite being descriptive and not aiming to become norms, end up becoming authoritative, proving the “existence” of terms which never appeared in a dictionary before.

“The dictionary clearly notes the grammatical category, style, geographical distribution, diachronic and attitude of the word,” said Sanchez.