In this paper effects of indigenous languages on Spanish and vice versa are discussed, raising a number of issues. These include a reflection on the variable nature of languages against an ethnocentric idea of a single abstract entity called (e.g. the Spanish, Nahuatl or Maya) “language”, which stems from monolingual approaches to linguistic phenomena. Such diverse configurations of Spanish and indigenous languages allows a characterization of different contact varieties in their social, ideological and political realms. Therefore contact effects will be treated holistically, closing the gap between different realms of the sociolinguistic analysis, including a critique of previous reductionist approaches and its implications from an actors’ perspective and their educational possibilities for (e.g. Mexican) society as a whole.