Symbolic values borrowed from Spanish into Mexicano (Nahuatl) usage simultaneously express differences in ritual status internal to peasant communities in central Mexico, but have also come to symbolize the threat to the peasant mode of production from a hostile peripheral‐capitalist marketplace. A system for examining the interaction of “voices” developed by Bakhtin applied to Mexicano discourses shows how examination of language use can contribute to the study of consciousness among proletarianizing peasant groups. [consciousness, Nahuatl, Mexico, Bakhtin, purism in language]