![Dialectos_español_de_Perú](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Dialectos_espa%C3%B1ol_de_Per%C3%BA.png)
Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar.
While all
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
dialects adhere to approximately the same written standard, all spoken varieties differ from the written variety, to different degrees. There are differences between European Spanish (also called
Peninsular Spanish
Peninsular Spanish ( es, español peninsular) (also known as the Spanish of Spain ( es, español de España, links=no), European Spanish ( es, español europeo, links=no), Iberian Spanish ( es, español ibérico, links=no) or Spanish Spanish ( es ...
) and the
Spanish of the Americas, as well as many different dialect areas both within Spain and within the Americas.
Chilean and
Honduran Spanish have been identified by various linguists as the most divergent varieties.
Prominent differences of pronunciation among dialects of Spanish include:
# the maintenance or lack of distinction between the phonemes and (''
distinción'' vs. ''
seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
'' and ''
ceceo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
'');
# the maintenance or loss of distinction between phonemes represented orthographically by ''ll'' and ''y'' (''
yeísmo
''Yeísmo'' (; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ) and its merger into the phoneme (written ), u ...
'');
# the maintenance of syllable-final vs. its weakening to (called aspiration, or more precisely
debuccalization
Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspira ...
), or its loss; and
# the tendency, in areas of central Mexico and of the Andean highlands, to
reduction (especially
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...
), or loss, of
unstressed vowel
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
s, mainly when they are in contact with
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
consonants.
Among grammatical features, the most prominent variation among dialects is in the use of the second-person
pronouns
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts o ...
. In Hispanic America the only second-person plural pronoun, for both
formal and informal treatment, is , while in most of Spain the
informal
Formal, formality, informal or informality imply the complying with, or not complying with, some set of requirements (forms, in Ancient Greek). They may refer to:
Dress code and events
* Formal wear, attire for formal events
* Semi-formal attire ...
second-person plural pronoun is with used only in the formal treatment. For the second-person ''singular'' familiar pronoun, some American dialects use (and its associated
verb forms), while others use either (see ''
voseo
In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal for ...
'') or both ''tú'' and (which, together with ''usted'', can make for a possible three-tiered
distinction of formalities).
There are significant differences in vocabulary among regional varieties of Spanish, particularly in the domains of food products, everyday objects, and clothes; and many American varieties show considerable lexical influence from
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
.
Sets of variants
While there is no broad consensus on how American Spanish dialects should be classified, the following scheme which takes into account phonological, grammatical, socio-historical, and
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
data provides a reasonable approximation of Latin American dialect variation:
*
Mexican (except coastal areas) and southwestern US (including
New Mexican).
*
Central American
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Ce ...
, including southwestern Mexico.
*
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
(
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
,
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
,
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
,
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
,
Caribbean Colombia, and Caribbean and Pacific Coasts of Mexico).
* Inland
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
and the speech of neighboring areas of Venezuela.
* Pacific coast of
Colombia, Ecuador, and
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
* Andean regions of
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
,
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
,
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
, southwestern Colombia, northwestern Argentina, and northeastern Chile.
*
Chilean, including western Argentina.
*
Paraguayan
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, including northeastern Argentina, and eastern Bolivia.
*
Rioplatense
Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is the ...
(coastal Argentina and Uruguay).
The greatest division in Old World varieties is from north to south:
* Northern Peninsular (Asturias, Castilla y León, Cantabria, Basque country, Navarre, Aragón, Rioja, Provinces of Guadalajara and Cuenca).
* Central-Southern Peninsular (Madrid, Toledo, La Mancha).
* Southern Peninsular (
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
,
Extremadura
Extremadura (; ext, Estremaúra; pt, Estremadura; Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is an autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, it ...
, and
Murcia
Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...
).
*
Canarian
Canary Islanders, or Canarians ( es, canarios), are a Romance people and ethnic group. They reside on the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain near the coast of northwest Africa, and descend from a mixture of European settlers and abo ...
(Canary Islands).
The non-native Spanish in
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
and
Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...
(formerly
Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...
) has been influenced mainly by varieties from Spain. Spanish is also an official language in Equatorial Guinea, and many people speak it fluently.
Though no longer an official language in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
Philippine Spanish
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
has had a tremendous influence on the native tongues of the archipelago, including
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
.
The Spanish spoken in
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
is essentially not different from the neighboring areas in Spain, except for
code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
with English and some unique vocabulary items. It is frequently blended with English as a sort of
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
known as
Llanito
''Llanito'' or ''Yanito'' () is a form of Andalusian Spanish heavily laced with words from English and other languages, such as Ligurian; it is spoken in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It is commonly marked by a great deal o ...
.
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...
, a "
Jewish language
Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian exile. Jewish langua ...
", encompasses a number of linguistic varieties based mostly on 15th-century Spanish; it is still spoken in a few small communities, mainly in Israel, but also in Turkey and a number of other countries. As Jews have migrated since their expulsion from Iberia, the language has picked up several loan words from other languages and developed unique forms of spelling, grammar, and syntax. It can be considered either a very divergent dialect of Spanish, retaining features from Old Spanish, or a separate language.
Pronunciation
Distinción vs. seseo and ceceo
The distinction between and is maintained in northern Spain (in all positions) and in south-central Spain (only in syllable onset), while the two phonemes are not distinguished in the Americas, the Canary Islands, and much of Andalusia. The maintenance of phonemic contrast is called ''distinción'' in Spanish. In areas that do not distinguish them, they are typically realized as , though in parts of southern Andalusia the realization is closer to ; in Spain uniform use of is called ''
ceceo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
'' and uniform use of
''
seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
''.
In dialects with ''seseo'' the words ('house') and ('hunt') are pronounced as
homophones
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
(generally ), whereas in dialects with ''distinción'' they are pronounced differently (as and respectively). The symbol stands for a voiceless sibilant like the ''s'' of English ''sick'', while represents a voiceless interdental fricative like the ''th'' of English ''think''.
In some cases where the phonemic merger would render words
homophonic
In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ...
in the Americas, one member of the pair is frequently replaced by a
synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
or derived form—e.g. ''caza'' replaced by , or ('to boil'), homophonic with ('to sew'), replaced by . For more on ''seseo'', see González-Bueno.
Yeísmo
![Yeismo en Países de Habla Hispana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Yeismo_en_Pa%C3%ADses_de_Habla_Hispana.png)
Traditionally Spanish had a phonemic distinction between (a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lowercas ...
, written ''ll'') and (a
voiced palatal approximant
The voiced palatal approximant, or yod, is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic no ...
, written ''y''). But for most speakers in Spain and the Americas, these two phonemes have been merged in the phoneme . This merger results in the words ('silenced') and ('fell') being pronounced the same, whereas they remain distinct in dialects that have not undergone the merger. The use of the merged phoneme is called "
yeísmo
''Yeísmo'' (; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ) and its merger into the phoneme (written ), u ...
".
In Spain, the distinction is preserved in some rural areas and smaller cities of the north, while in South America the contrast is characteristic of bilingual areas where
Quechua languages
Quechua (, ; ), usually called ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widely ...
and other
indigenous languages
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...
that have the sound in their inventories are spoken (this is the case of inland Peru and Bolivia), and in Paraguay.
The phoneme can be pronounced in a variety of ways, depending on the dialect. In most of the area where ''yeísmo'' is present, the merged phoneme is pronounced as the
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
or
approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
, and also, in word-initial positions,
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s and (the latter is also used in other positions as variants of ). In the area around the
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and fo ...
(
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
,
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
), this phoneme is pronounced as a
palatoalveolar sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
fricative, either as voiced or, especially by young speakers, as voiceless .
Variants of
One of the most distinctive features of the Spanish variants is the pronunciation of when it is not ''aspirated'' to or elided. In northern and central Spain, and in the
Paisa Region
A Paisa is someone from a region in the northwest of Colombia, including part of the West and Central ''cordilleras'' of the Andes in Colombia. The Paisa region is formed by the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío. ...
of
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
, as well as in some other, isolated dialects (e.g. some inland areas of Peru and Bolivia), the sibilant realization of is an
apico-alveolar retracted fricative , a sound transitional between
laminodental and
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
. However, in most of Andalusia, in a few other areas in southern Spain, and in most of Latin America it is instead pronounced as a
lamino-alveolar
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
or
dental sibilant. The phoneme is realized as or before voiced consonants when it is not aspirated to or elided; is a sound transitional between and . Before voiced consonants,
~ is more common in natural and colloquial speech and oratorical pronunciation,
~ is mostly pronounced in emphatic and slower speech.
In the rest of the article, the distinction is ignored and the symbols are used for all alveolar fricatives.
Debuccalization of coda
![S aspiration in Spanish](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/S_aspiration_in_Spanish.png)
In much of Latin America—especially in the Caribbean and in coastal and lowland areas of Central and South America—and in the southern half of Spain,
syllable-final is either pronounced as a
voiceless glottal fricative
The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant ''phonologically'', but ...
, that is commonly voiced to before voiced consonants (
debuccalization
Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspira ...
, also frequently called "aspiration"), or not pronounced at all. In some varieties of Hispanic American Spanish (notably Honduran and Salvadoran Spanish) this may also occur intervocalically within an individual word—as with , which may be pronounced as —or even in initial position. In southeastern Spain (eastern
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
,
Murcia
Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...
and part of
La Mancha
La Mancha () is a natural and historical region located in the Spanish provinces of Albacete, Cuenca, Ciudad Real, and Toledo. La Mancha is an arid but fertile plateau (610 m or 2000 ft) that stretches from the mountains of Toledo to the ...
), the distinction between syllables with a now-silent ''s'' and those originally without ''s'' is preserved by pronouncing the syllables ending in ''s'' with (that is, the open/closed syllable contrast has been turned into a tense/lax vowel contrast); this typically affects the vowels , and , but in some areas even and are affected, turning into . For instance, '' '' ('all the swans are white'), can be pronounced , or even (Standard Peninsular Spanish: , Latin American Spanish: ) (the sequence is commonly degeminated to a short regardless of the dialect). This vowel contrast is sometimes reinforced by
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, so that ''casas'' 'houses' differs from ''casa'' not only by the lack of the final in the former word but also in the quality of both of the vowels. For those areas of southeastern Spain where the deletion of final is complete, and where the distinction between singular and plural of nouns depends entirely on vowel quality, the case has been made to claim that a set of
phonemic split
In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones ...
s has occurred, resulting in a system with eight vowel phonemes in place of the standard five.
is more common in natural and colloquial speech, whereas
tends to be pronounced in emphatic and slower speech. In oratorical pronunciation, it depends on the country and speaker; if the Spanish speaker chooses to pronounces all or most of syllable-final
it is mostly voiced to [] before voiced consonants.
Vowel reduction
Although the vowels of Spanish are relatively stable from one dialect to another, the phenomenon of vowel reduction—devoicing or even loss—of unstressed vowels in contact with voiceless consonants, especially , can be observed in the speech of central Mexico (including Mexico City). For example, it can be the case that the words ('pesos
oney Oney may refer to:
* Oney, France, a subsidiary of French Auchan Holding and Banque Accord
* Oney, Oklahoma, an unincorporated community in Oklahoma
* "Oney" (song), a song written by Jerry Chesnut and sung by Johnny Cash, 1972
* Oney Judge, a ...
), ('weights'), and ('fish
l.) sound nearly the same, as . One may hear ('well (then)') pronounced . Some efforts to explain this vowel reduction link it to the strong influence of
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
and other
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
in Mexican Spanish.
Pronunciation of ''j''
In the 16th century, as the
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Spain began colonizing the Americas under the Crown of Castile and was spearheaded by the Spanish . The Americas were invaded and incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, British America, and some small regions ...
was beginning, the phoneme now represented by the letter ''j'' had begun to change its place of articulation from palato-alveolar to palatal and to velar , like German ''ch'' in ''Bach'' (see
History of Spanish
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
and
Old Spanish language
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
). In southern Spanish dialects and in those Hispanic American dialects strongly influenced by southern settlers (e.g.
Caribbean Spanish
*
Caribbean Spanish ( es, español caribeño, ) is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. The Spanish language was introduced to the Caribbean in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. It resembles the S ...
), rather than the velar fricative , the sound was backed all the way to , like English ''h'' in ''hope''. Glottal is nowadays the standard pronunciation for ''j'' in Caribbean dialects (Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican) as well as in mainland Venezuela, in most
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
n dialects excepting Pastuso dialect that belongs to a continuum with
Ecuadorian Spanish
Spanish is the most-widely spoken language in Ecuador, though great variations are present depending on several factors, the most important one being the geographical region where it is spoken. The three main regional variants are:
* Equatoria ...
, much of Central America, southern Mexico,
the Canary Islands, Extremadura and western Andalusia in Spain; in the rest of the country, alternates with a "raspy" uvular fricative , sometimes pronounced with a simultaneous voiceless uvular trill. In the rest of the Americas, the velar fricative is prevalent. In Chile, is fronted to (like German ''ch'' in ''ich'') when it precedes the front vowels and : , ; in other phonological environments it is pronounced or
For the sake of simplicity, these are given a broad transcription in the rest of the article.
Word-final ''-n''
In standard European Spanish, as well as in many dialects in the Americas (e.g. standard Argentine or Rioplatense, inland Colombian, and Mexican), word-final is, by default (i.e. when followed by a pause or by an initial vowel in the following word), alveolar, like English in ''pen''. When followed by a consonant, it assimilates to that consonant's place of articulation, becoming dental, interdental, palatal, or velar. In some dialects, however, word-final without a following consonant is pronounced as a velar nasal (like the ''-ng'' of English ''long''), and may produce vowel nasalization. In these dialects, words such as ('bread') and ('well') may sound like ''pang'' and ''byeng'' to English-speakers. Velar ''-n'' is common in many parts of Spain (Galicia, León, Asturias, Murcia, Extremadura, Andalusia, and Canary Islands). In the Americas, velar ''-n'' is prevalent in all Caribbean dialects, Central American dialects, the coastal areas of Colombia, Venezuela, much of Ecuador, Peru, and northern Chile.
This velar ''-n'' likely originated in the northwest of Spain, and from there spread to Andalusia and then the Americas.
Loss of final ''-n'' with strong nasalization of the preceding vowel is not infrequent in all those dialects where velar ''-n'' exists. In much of Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela (except for the Andean region) and Dominican Spanish, any pre-consonantal or can be realized ; thus, a word like ''ambientación'' can be pronounced .
''R'' sounds
All varieties of Spanish distinguish between a "single-R" and a "double-R" phoneme. The single-R phoneme corresponds to the letter ''r'' written once (except when word-initial or following ''l'', ''n'', or ''s'') and is pronounced as , an alveolar
flap
Flap may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film
* Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis''
* Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland''
Biology and he ...
—like American English ''tt'' in ''better''—in virtually all dialects. The single-R/double-R contrast is
neutralized in syllable-final position, and in some dialects these phonemes also lose their contrast with , so a word such as may sound like ''altesanía''. This neutralization or "leveling" of coda and is frequent in dialects of southern Spain, the Caribbean, Venezuela and coastal Colombia.
The double-R phoneme is spelled ''rr'' between vowels (as in ''carro'' 'car') and ''r'' word-initially (e.g. ''rey'' 'king', ''ropa'' 'clothes') or following ''l'', ''n'', or ''s'' (e.g. ''alrededor'' 'around', ''enriquecer'' 'enrich', ''enrollar'' 'roll up', ''enrolar'' 'enroll', ''honra'' 'honor', ''Conrado'' 'Conrad', ''Israel'' 'Israel'). In most varieties it is pronounced as an alveolar
trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is an Internet Standard implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and is the application of link-state routing to the VLAN-aware cus ...
, and that is considered the prestige pronunciation. Two notable variants occur additionally: one
sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
and the other
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
or
uvular
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not prov ...
. The trill is also found in lexical derivations (morpheme-initial positions), and prefixation with ''sub'' and ''ab'': ''abrogado'' (also pronounced , or ), 'abrogated', ''subrayar'' (also pronounced , or ), 'to underline'. The same goes for compound word ''ciudadrealeño'' (from ''Ciudad Real''). However, after vowels, the initial ''r'' of the root becomes ''rr'' in prefixed or compound words: ''prorrogar, infrarrojo, autorretrato, arriesgar, puertorriqueño, Monterrey.'' In syllable-final position, inside a word, the tap is more frequent, but the trill can also occur (especially in emphatic or oratorical style) with no semantic difference, especially before ''l'', ''m'', ''n'', ''s'', ''t'', or ''d''—thus ''arma'' ('weapon') may be either (tap) or (trill), ''perla'' ('pearl') may be either or , ''invierno'' ('winter') may be or , ''verso'' ('verse') may be or , and ''verde'' ('green') or . In ''word''-final position the rhotic will usually be: either a trill or a tap when followed by a consonant or a pause, as in ''amo'' ''paterno'' 'paternal love') and ''amo'', with tap being more frequent and trill before ''l'', ''m'', ''n'', ''s'', ''t'', ''d'', or sometimes pause; or a tap when followed by a vowel-initial word, as in ''amo'' ''eterno'' 'eternal love') (Can be a trill or tap with a temporary glottal stop in emphatic speech: ''amo'' ''eterno'', with trill being more common). Morphologically, a word-final rhotic always corresponds to the tapped in related words. Thus, the word ''olor'' 'smell' is related to ''olores, oloroso'' 'smells, smelly' and not to ''*olorres, *olorroso'', and the word ''taller'' 'workshop' is related to ''talleres'' 'workshops' and not to ''*tallerres''.
When two rhotics occur consecutively across a word or prefix boundary, they result in one trill, so that ''da rosas'' ('s/he gives roses') and ''dar rosas'' ('give roses') are either neutralized, or distinguished by a longer trill in the latter phrase, which may be transcribed as or (although this is transcribed with in
Help:IPA/Spanish, even though it differs from purely by length); ''da rosas'' and ''dar rosas'' may be distinguished as vs. , or they may fall together as the former.
The pronunciation of the double-R phoneme as a voiced strident (or sibilant)
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
is common in New Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay; in western and northern Argentina; and among older speakers in highland areas of Colombia.
Some linguists have attempted to explain the
assibilated ''rr'' (written in IPA as []) as a result of influence from
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, and it is true that in the Andean regions mentioned an important part of the population is bilingual in Spanish and one or another indigenous language. Nonetheless, other researchers have pointed out that sibilant ''rr'' in the Americas may not be an autonomous innovation, but rather a pronunciation that originated in some northern Spanish dialects and then was exported to the Americas. Spanish dialects spoken in the Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja, and northern Aragon (regions that contributed substantially to Spanish-American colonization) show the fricative or
postalveolar variant for ''rr'' (especially for the word-initial ''rr'' sound, as in ''Roma'' or ''rey''). This is also pronounced voiceless when the consonants after the trill are voiceless and speaking in emphatic speech; it is written as [], it sounds like a simultaneous and . In Andean regions, the alveolar trill is realized as an alveolar approximant or even as a voiced apico-alveolar , and it is quite common in inland Ecuador, Peru, most of Bolivia and in parts of northern Argentina and Paraguay. The alveolar approximant realization is particularly associated with the substrate of Native American languages, as is the assibilation of to in Ecuador and Bolivia. Assibilated trill is also found in dialects in the /sr/ sequence wherein /s/ is unaspirated, example: ''las rosas'' ('the roses'), ''Israel'' . The assibilated trill in this example is sometimes pronounced voiceless in emphatic and slower speech: ''las rosas'' ('the roses'), ''Israel'' .
The other major variant for the ''rr'' phoneme—common in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic—is articulated at the back of the mouth, either as a glottal followed by a voiceless apical trill [] or, especially in Puerto Rico, with a posterior articulation that ranges variously from a velar fricative to a uvular trill . Canfield describes it as a voiceless uvular trill . These realizations for ''rr'' maintain their contrast with the phoneme , as the latter tends to be realized as a soft glottal : compare ''Ramón'' ('Raymond') with ''jamón'' ('ham').
In Puerto Rico, syllable-final can be realized as (probably an influence of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
), aside from , , and , so that ''verso'' ('verse') becomes , alongside , , or ; ''invierno'' ('winter') becomes , alongside , , or ; and ''parlamento'' (parliament) becomes , alongside , , or . In word-final position, the realization of depends on whether it is followed by a consonant-initial word or a pause, on the one hand, or by a vowel-initial word, on the other:
* Before a consonant or pause: a trill, a tap, an approximant, the lateral , or elided, as in ''amo'' ''paterno'' ('paternal love').
* Before a vowel: a tap, an approximant, or the lateral , as in ''amo'' ''eterno'' ('eternal love').
The same situation happens in
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
and the
Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina
The Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina ( es, Archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina, ), or San Andrés and Providencia, is one of the departments of Colombia, and the only one in North America. It cons ...
, in these cases an influence of British English.
In Paraguay, syllable-final is pronounced as before ''l'' or ''s'' and word-final position, influenced by a substrate from Native American languages.
In Chile, as in
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
, the archiphoneme in the sequence is sometimes assimilated to in lower-class speakers, and sometimes in educated speakers. Thus, ''jornada'' 'workday' may be pronounced .
Pronunciation of ''x''
The letter ''x'' usually represents the phoneme sequence . An exception to this is the pronunciation of the ''x'' in some place names, especially in Mexico, such as and the name itself, reflecting an older spelling (see
"Name of Mexico"). Some personal names, such as ''Javier'', ''Jiménez'', ''Rojas'', etc., also are occasionally spelled with ''X'': ''Xavier'', ''Ximénez'', ''Roxas'', etc. and the pronunciation of ''x'' is either . A small number of words in Mexican Spanish retain the historical pronunciation, e.g. .
There are two possible pronunciations of in standard speech: the first one is , with a voiceless plosive, but it is commonly realized as instead (hence the phonemic transcription ). Voicing is not contrastive in the syllable coda.
In dialects with ''
seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
'', ''c'' following ''x'' pronounced is deleted, yielding pronunciations such as for .
Adoption of the affricates ''tz'' and ''tl''
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of Dialect, dialects and Sociolect, sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in a ...
and some other Latin American dialects have adopted from the
native languages the
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several type ...
and many words with the cluster (originally an affricate ) represented by the respective digraphs and , as in the names
Atzcapotzalco and
Tlaxcala
Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...
. is a valid onset cluster in Latin America, with the exception of Puerto Rico, in the Canary Islands, and in the northwest of Spain, including Bilbao and Galicia. In these dialects, words of Greek and Latin origin with , such as and , are also pronounced with onset : , . In other dialects, the corresponding phonemic sequence is (where is the onset), with the coda realized variously as and . The usual pronunciation of those words in most of Spain is and .
The sound also occurs in European Spanish in loanwords of Basque origin (but only learned loanwords, not those inherited from Roman times), as in ''
abertzale
''Abertzale'' (; English: "patriot", literally "fond of the fatherland") is a Basque term usually referring to people or political groups who are associated with Basque nationalism.
Although the term is synonym of "patriot", its common use in Ba ...
''. In colloquial Castilian it may be replaced by or . In
Bolivian
Bolivian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Bolivia
** Bolivian people
** Demographics of Bolivia
** Culture of Bolivia
* SS ''Bolivian'', a British-built standard cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries ...
,
Paraguayan
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, and
Coastal Peruvian Spanish, also occurs in loanwords of Japanese origin.
Other loaned phonetics
Spanish has a fricative for loanwords of
origins from native languages in Mexican Spanish, loanwords of French, German and English origin in Chilean Spanish, loanwords of Italian, Galician, French, German and English origin in Rioplatense Spanish and
Venezuelan Spanish
Venezuelan Spanish ( or ) refers to the Spanish spoken in Venezuela.
Spanish was introduced in Venezuela by colonists. Most of them were from Galicia, Basque Country, Andalusia, or the Canary Islands. The last has been the most fundamental ...
, Chinese loanwords in
Coastal Peruvian Spanish, Japanese loanwords in Bolivian Spanish, Paraguayan Spanish,
Coastal Peruvian Spanish, Basque loanwords in Castilian Spanish (but only learned loanwords, not those inherited from Roman times), and English loanwords in
Puerto Rican Spanish
Puerto Rican Spanish (''español puertorriqueño'' ) is the variety (linguistics), variety of the Spanish language as characteristically spoken in Puerto Rico and by millions of people of Puerto Rican people, Puerto Rican descent living in the ...
and all dialects.
Pronunciation of ''ch''
The Spanish digraph ''ch'' (the phoneme ) is pronounced in most dialects. However, it is pronounced as a fricative in some
Andalusian dialects,
New Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish ( es, español neomexicano, novomexicano) refers to a variety of Spanish spoken in the United States in New Mexico and the southern part of the state of Colorado. It includes a Traditional dialect spoken generally by the Hi ...
, some varieties of northern
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of Dialect, dialects and Sociolect, sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in a ...
, informal and sometimes formal
Panamanian Spanish
Panamanian Spanish is the Spanish (Castilian) language as spoken in the country of Panama. It is closely related to other varieties of Caribbean Spanish.
The variations among different speaker groups of the same language can be lexical (vocabul ...
, and informal
Chilean Spanish
Chilean Spanish ( es, español chileno) is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Stand ...
. In Chilean Spanish this pronunciation is viewed as undesirable, while in Panama it occurs among educated speakers. In Madrid and among upper- and middle-class Chilean speakers, it can be pronounced as the
alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* ...
affricate .
Open-mid and open front vowels
In some dialects of southeastern Spain (Murcia, eastern Andalusia and a few adjoining areas) where the weakening of final leads to its disappearance, the "silent" continues to have an effect on the preceding vowel,
opening the mid vowels and to and respectively, and fronting the open central vowel toward . Thus the singular/plural distinction in nouns and adjectives is maintained by means of the vowel quality:
* ''libro'' 'book', but ''libros'' 'books'.
* ''libre'' 'free, ''singular'' ', but ''libres'' 'free, ''plural.
* ''libra'' 'pound', but ''libras'' 'pounds'.
Furthermore, this opening of final mid vowels can affect other vowels earlier in the word, as an instance of
metaphony
In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be s ...
:
* ''lobo'' 'wolf', but ''lobos'' 'wolves'.
(In the remaining dialects, the mid vowels have nondistinctive open and closed
allophones
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
determined by the shape of the syllable or by contact with neighboring phonemes. See
Spanish phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system ...
.)
Post-tonic ''e'' and ''o''
Final, non-stressed and may be raised to and respectively in some rural areas of Spain and Latin America. Examples include 'night', . In Spain, this is mainly found in Galicia and other northern areas. This type of raising carries negative prestige.
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish (often called ''Ladino'') refers to the Romance dialects spoken by Jews whose ancestors were
expelled from Spain near the end of the 15th century.
These dialects have important phonological differences compared to varieties of Spanish proper; for example, they have preserved the
voiced/voiceless distinction among
sibilants
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
as they were in
Old Spanish
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
. For this reason, the letter , when written single between vowels, corresponds to a voiced —e.g. ('rose'). Where is not between vowels and is not followed by a voiced consonant, or when it is written double, it corresponds to voiceless —thus ('to sit down'). And due to a phonemic neutralization similar to the ''
seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
'' of other dialects, the Old Spanish voiced and the voiceless have merged, respectively, with and —while maintaining the voicing contrast between them. Thus ('to make') has gone from the medieval to , and ('town square') has gone from to .
A related dialect is
Haketia
Haketia ( he, חַכִּיתִּיָה; ar, حاكيتيا; es, Haquetía) (also written as Hakitia or Haquitía) is an endangered Jewish Romance language also known as ''Djudeo Spañol'', ''Ladino Occidental'', or Western Judaeo-Spanish. It ...
, the Judaeo-Spanish of northern Morocco. This too tended to assimilate with modern Spanish, during the Spanish occupation of the region.
Tetuani Ladino
Tetuani (or ; ar, تطوانى; or ''Haketia'') is a dialect of Judaeo-Spanish, a Jewish Romance language historically spoken by the North African Sephardim in the Algerian city of Oran.Oran
Oran ( ar, وَهران, Wahrān) is a major coastal city located in the north-west of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria after the capital Algiers, due to its population and commercial, industrial, and cultural ...
in Algeria.
Grammar
Variation in second-person pronouns and verbs
Spanish is a language with a "
T–V distinction
The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
" in the second person, meaning that there are different pronouns corresponding to "you" which express different degrees of formality. In most varieties, there are two degrees, namely "formal" and "familiar" (the latter is also called "informal").
For the second person ''formal'', virtually all Spanish dialects of Spain and the Americas use and (singular and plural respectively). But for the second person ''familiar'', there is regional variation—between and for the singular, and, separately, between and for the plural. The use of ''vos'' (and its corresponding verb forms) rather than ''tú'' is called ''
voseo
In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal for ...
''.
Each of the second-person pronouns has its historically corresponding verb forms, used by most speakers. Most speakers use both the pronoun ''vos'' and its historically corresponding verb forms (e.g. ''vos '', 'you have'). But some dialects use the pronoun ''tú'' with "''vos'' verb forms" (verbal ''voseo''—''tú ''), while others use ''vos'' with "''tú'' verb forms" (pronominal ''voseo''—''vos '').
Second person singular
In most dialects the familiar second person singular pronoun is ''tú'' (from Latin ''tū''), and the formal pronoun is ''usted'' (usually considered to originate from '' '', meaning 'your grace' or, literally, 'your mercy'). In a number of regions in the Americas, ''tú'' is replaced by another pronoun, ''vos'', and the verb conjugation changes accordingly (see details below). Spanish ''vos'' comes from Latin ''vōs'', the second person ''plural'' pronoun in Latin.
In any case, there is wide variation as to when each pronoun (formal or familiar) is used. In Spain, ''tú'' is familiar (for example, used with friends), and ''usted'' is formal (for example, used with older people). In recent times, there has been a noticeable tendency to extend the use of ''tú'' even in situations previously reserved for ''usted''. Meanwhile, in several countries (in parts of
Middle America, especially, Costa Rica and Colombia), the formal ''usted'' is also used to denote a closer personal relationship. Many Colombians and some Chileans, for instance, use ''usted'' for a child to address a parent and also for a parent to address a child. Some countries, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic, prefer the use of ''tú'' even in very formal circumstances, and ''usted'' is seldom used.
Meanwhile, in other countries, the use of formal rather than familiar second-person pronouns denotes authority. In Peru, for example, senior military officers use ''tú'' to speak to their subordinates, but junior officers use only ''usted'' to address their superior officers.
Using the familiar ''tú'', especially in contexts where ''usted'' was to be expected, is called . The corresponding verb is (a
transitive verb
A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''.
Transitiv ...
, the direct object being the person addressed with the pronoun). The verb ''tutear'' is used even in those dialects whose familiar pronoun is ''vos'' and means 'to treat with the familiar second-person pronoun'.
Pronominal
voseo
In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal for ...
, the use of the pronoun ''vos'' instead of ''tú'', is the prevalent form of the familiar second person singular pronoun in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. In those countries, it is used by many to address others in all kinds of contexts, often regardless of social status or age, including by cultured/educated speakers and writers, in television, advertisements, and even in translations from other languages. In Guatemala and Uruguay, ''vos'' and ''tú'' are used concurrently, but ''vos'' is much more common. Both pronouns use the verb forms normally associated with ''vos'' (''vos '' / ''tú querés'', 'you want').
The name ''
Rioplatense
Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is the ...
'' is applied to the dialect of Spanish spoken around the mouth of the Río de la Plata and the lower course of the Paraná River, where ''vos'', not ''tú'', is invariably used, with the ''vos'' verb forms (''vos tenés''). The area comprises the most populous part of Argentina (the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe) as well as an important part of Uruguay, including Montevideo, the capital.
In Ecuador, ''vos'' is the most prominent form throughout the Sierra region of the country, though it does coexist with ''usted'' and the lesser-used ''tú''. In this region, ''vos'' is regarded as the conversational norm, but it is not used in public discourse or the mass media. The choice of pronoun to be used depends on the participants' likeness in age and/or social status. Based on these factors, speakers can assess themselves as being equal, superior, or inferior to the addressee, and the choice of pronoun is made on this basis, sometimes resulting in a three-tiered system. Ecuadorians of the Highlands thus generally use ''vos'' among familiarized equals or by superiors (in both social status and age) to inferiors; ''tú'' among unfamiliarized equals, or by a superior in age but inferior in social status; and ''usted'' by both familiarized and unfamiliarized inferiors, or by a superior in social status but inferior in age. In the more-populated coastal region, the form ''tú'' is used in most situations, ''usted'' being used only for unfamiliar and/or superior addressees.
''Vos'' can be heard throughout most of Chile, Bolivia, and a small part of Peru as well, but in these places it is regarded as substandard. It is also used as the conversational norm in the
Paisa Region
A Paisa is someone from a region in the northwest of Colombia, including part of the West and Central ''cordilleras'' of the Andes in Colombia. The Paisa region is formed by the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío. ...
and the southwest region of Colombia, in
Zulia State
Zulia State ( es, Estado Zulia, ; Wayuu language, Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the States of Venezuela, 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest popu ...
(Venezuela), in Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the state of Chiapas in Mexico.
In Chile, even though ''tú'' is the prestige pronoun among educated speakers, the use of "verbal
voseo
In Spanish grammar, () is the use of as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces , i.e. the use of the pronoun and its verbal for ...
", i.e. "''tú'' + verb conjugation of ''vos''" (e.g. ''tú '') is widespread. On the other hand, "pronominal voseo", the use of the pronoun ''vos''—pronounced with
aspiration of the final —is used derisively in informal speech between close friends as playful banter (usually among men) or, depending on the tone of voice, as an offensive comment.
In Colombia, the choice of second person singular varies with location. In most of inland Colombia (especially the
Andean
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...
region), ''usted'' is the pronoun of choice for all situations, even in speaking between friends or family; but in large cities (especially
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
), the use of ''tú'' is becoming more accepted in informal situations, especially between young interlocutors of opposite sexes and among young women. In
Valle del Cauca (
Cali
Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...
),
Antioquia (
Medellín
Medellín ( or ), officially the Municipality of Medellín ( es, Municipio de Medellín), is the second-largest city in Colombia, after Bogotá, and the capital of the department of Antioquia. It is located in the Aburrá Valley, a central re ...
) and the Pacific coast, the pronouns used are ''vos'' and ''usted''. On the Caribbean coast (mainly
Barranquilla
Barranquilla () is the capital district of Atlántico Department in Colombia. It is located near the Caribbean Sea and is the largest city and third port in the Caribbean Coast region; as of 2018 it had a population of 1,206,319, making it Col ...
and
Cartagena), ''tú'' is used for practically all informal situations and many formal situations as well, ''usted'' being reserved for the most formal environments. A peculiarity occurs in the
Altiplano Cundiboyacense
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alti ...
and among some speakers in Bogotá: ''usted'' is replaced by for formal situations (it is relatively easy to identify a ''Boyacense'' by his/her use of this pronoun). ''Sumercé'' comes from ''su merced'' ('your mercy').
In parts of Spain, a child used to use not ''tú'' but ''usted'' to address a parent. Today, however, this usage is unusual. Among the factors for the ongoing replacement of ''usted'' by ''tú'' are the new social relevance of youth and the reduction of social differences. In particular, it has been attributed to the egalitarianism of the right-wing
Falange
The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS; ), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco F ...
party. By contrast, Spanish leftists of the early 20th century would address their comrades as ''usted'' as a show of respect and workers' dignity.
According to
Joan Coromines
Joan Coromines i Vigneaux (; also frequently spelled ''Joan Corominas''; Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, by Joan Corominas icand José Antonio Pascual, Editorial Gredos, 1989, Madrid, . Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain 1 ...
, by the 16th century, the use of ''vos'' (as a second person ''singular'' pronoun) had been reduced to rural areas of Spain, which were a source of many emigrants to the New World, and so ''vos'' became the unmarked form in many areas of Latin America.
A slightly different explanation is that in Spain, even if ''vos'' (as a singular) originally denoted the high social status of those who were addressed as such (monarchs, nobility, etc.), the people never used the pronoun themselves since there were few or no people above them in society. Those who used ''vos'' were people of the lower classes and peasants. When the waves of Spanish immigrants arrived to populate the New World, they primarily came from these lower classes. In the New World, wanting to raise their social status from what it was in Spain, they demanded to be addressed as ''vos''.
Through the widespread use of ''vos'' in the Americas, the pronoun was transformed into an indicator of low status not only for the addresser but also for the addressee. Conversely, in Spain, ''vos'' is now considered a highly exalted archaism virtually confined to liturgy.
Speakers of
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
still use ''vos'' as it was used in the Middle Ages, to address people higher on the social ladder. The pronoun ''usted'' had not been introduced to this dialect of Spanish when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 so ''vos'' is still used in Ladino much as ''usted'' is used in modern Spanish.
A variant of ''usted'', ''
vusted'', can be heard in Andean regions of South America. Other, less frequent forms analogous to ''usted'' are (short for '' ''), and ''usía'' (from ''vuestra '').
There is a traditional assumption that Chilean and River Plate ''voseo'' verb forms are derived from those corresponding to ''vosotros''. This assumption, however, has been challenged, in an article by —in the theoretical framework of classical
generative phonology
Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics ...
—as
synchronically inadequate, on the grounds that it requires at least six different rules, including three
monophthongization
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs ...
processes that lack phonological motivation. Alternatively, the article argues that the Chilean and River Plate ''voseo'' verb forms are synchronically derived from
underlying representations that coincide with those corresponding to the
non-honorific second person singular ''tú''. The proposed theory requires the use of only one special rule in the case of Chilean ''voseo''. This rule—along with other rules that are independently justified in the language—makes it possible to derive synchronically all Chilean and River Plate ''voseo'' verb forms in a straightforward manner. The article additionally solves the problem posed by the alternate verb forms of Chilean ''voseo'' such as the future indicative (e.g. ''vay a bailar'' 'will you dance?'), the present indicative forms of ''haber'' (''habih'' and ''hai'' 'you have'), and the present indicative of ''ser'' (''soi'', ''eríh'' and ''erei'' 'you are'), without resorting to any ad hoc rules.
Second person plural
In Standard European Spanish the plural of ''tú'' is ''vosotros'' and the plural of ''usted'' is ''ustedes''. In Hispanic America ''vosotros'' is not used, and the plural of both ''tú'' and ''usted'' is ''ustedes''. This means that speaking to a group of friends a Spaniard will use ''vosotros'', while a Latin American Spanish-speaker will use ''ustedes''. Although ''ustedes'' is semantically a second-person form, it is treated grammatically as a third-person plural form because it originates from the term '' '' ('your
l.mercies,' sing. ''vuestra merced'').
The only vestiges of ''vosotros'' in the Americas are / in
Papiamento
Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Arub ...
and the use of ''vuestro/a'' in place of '' ( ustedes)'' as second person plural possessive in the Cusco region of Peru.
In very formal contexts, however, the ''vosotros'' conjugation can still be found. An example is the
Mexican national anthem
The "Mexican National Anthem" ( es, Himno Nacional Mexicano, nah, Mexihcaletepetlacuicalt), also known by its incipit "Mexicans, at the cry of war" ( es, Mexicanos, al grito de guerra), is the national anthem of Mexico. The anthem was first u ...
, which contains such forms as and .
The plural of the Colombian (Cundi-Boyacense Plateau) ''sumercé'' is ''sumercés/susmercedes'', from ''sus mercedes'' ('your mercies').
In some parts of Andalusia (the lands around the
Guadalquivir
The Guadalquivir (, also , , ) is the fifth-longest river in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-longest river with its entire length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is the only major navigable river in Spain. Currently it is navigable from the Gulf ...
river and western Andalusia), the usage is what is called ''ustedes-vosotros'': the pronoun ''ustedes'' is combined with the verb forms for ''vosotros''. However, this sounds extremely colloquial and most Andalusians prefer to use each pronoun with its correct form.
In
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
, ''vosotros'' is still the only second person plural pronoun, since ''ustedes'' does not exist.
Second-person verb forms
Each second-person pronoun has its historically corresponding verb forms. The formal ''usted'' and ''ustedes'', although semantically second person, take verb forms identical with those of the third person, singular and plural respectively, since they are derived from the third-person expressions ''vuestra merced'' and ''vuestras mercedes'' ('your grace
). The forms associated with the singular ''vos'' can generally be derived from those for the plural ''vosotros'' by deleting the palatal
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...
of the ending (''vosotros habláis'' > ''vos hablás'', 'you speak'; ''vosotros coméis'' > ''vos comés'', 'you eat').
General statements about the use of ''voseo'' in different localities should be qualified by the note that individual speakers may be inconsistent in their usage, and that
isoglosses
An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major d ...
rarely coincide with national borders. That said, a few assertions can be made:
* "Full" ''voseo'' (involving both pronoun and verb—''vos comés'', 'you eat') is characteristic of two zones: that of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and that of Central America and the Mexican state of Chiapas.
* Pronominal ''voseo'' (''vos tienes'', ''vos dices'', etc. but ''vos sos'') is common in
Santiago del Estero Province
Santiago del Estero (), also known simply as Santiago, is a province in the north of Argentina. Neighboring provinces, clockwise from the north, are Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.
History
The indigenous inhabitant ...
, Argentina
* "Full" ''voseo'' coexists with the use of ''tú'' and its verb forms (e.g. ''tú comes'') in Colombia and Ecuador, and in parts of Colombia also with ''usted'' (with its standard verb forms) as a familiar form.
* In Chile there is coexistence of three usages:
** ''tú'' and its verb forms (''tú comes'');
** "full" ''voseo'' with uniquely Chilean ''voseo'' verb endings (''-ái'', ''-ís'', and ''-ís'' respectively for ''-ar'', ''-er'', and ''-ir'' verbs: ''vos hablái''—'you speak', ''vos comís''—"you eat", ''vos vivís''—'you live'); and
** verbal ''voseo'' with the Chilean verb endings (''tú hablái'', ''tú comís'', etc.).
* "Full" ''voseo'' coexists with verbal ''voseo'' (''tú comés'') in Uruguay.
* In Venezuela's
Zulia
Zulia State ( es, Estado Zulia, ; Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest population among Venezuela's states. It ...
State and parts of the state of
Falcón
)
, anthem =
, image_map = Falcon in Venezuela.svg
, map_alt =
, map_caption = Location within Venezuela
, pushpin_map =
, pushpin_map_alt =
, pushpin_mapsiz ...
there is no deletion of the palatal semivowel, creating ''vos coméis'', ''vos habláis'', and ''vos seáis''. In
Trujillo State
Trujillo State ( es, link=no, Estado Trujillo, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. Its capital is Trujillo but the largest city is Valera. The state is divided into 20 municipalities and 93 parishes. Trujillo State covers a total surface ...
, the "voseo" is like that of Argentina, with the exception of the imperative mood, which is like that of the standard ''tú''.
* ''Voseo'' is absent from the Spanish of Spain, and from most of Mexico, Peru, and the islands of the Caribbean.
As for the second person familiar ''plural'', it can be said that northern and central Spain use ''vosotros'' and its verb forms (''vosotros habláis'', 'you
l.speak'), while the rest of the Spanish-speaking world merges the familiar and formal in ''ustedes'' (''ustedes hablan''). Usage in western Andalusia includes the use of ''ustedes'' with the traditional ''vosotros'' verb form (''ustedes habláis'').
In
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
, the second-person pronouns are quite different from those of Spain and Latin America. The forms ''usted'' and ''ustedes'' had not yet appeared in 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain. Speakers of Ladino still use ''vos'' as it was used in the Middle Ages (as a singular) to address people higher on the social ladder. And ''vosotros'' is the only second person plural pronoun. In Ladino the formal singular for 'you speak' is ''vos avláis'' (pronounced , and the same verb form serves for the plural, both formal and familiar: ''vosotros avláis'' (). The subjunctive 'that you lose (formal singular)' is ''que vos pedráis'' (), while the plural (both formal and familiar) is ''que vosotros pedráis'' (). The formal ''singular'' imperative ('come') is ''venid'' or ''vení'', and the same form serves as the ''plural'' imperative, both formal and familiar.
Verb tenses for past events
In a broad sense, when expressing an action viewed as finished in the past, speakers (and writers) in most of Spain use the perfect tense—e.g. ''he llegado'' *'I have arrived')—more often than their American counterparts, while Spanish-speakers in the Americas more often use the preterite (''llegué'' 'I arrived').
The
perfect is also called the "
present perfect
The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like " ...
" and, in Spanish, ''pasado perfecto'' or ''pretérito perfecto compuesto''. It is described as a
"compound" tense (''compuesto'' in Spanish) because it is formed with the
auxiliary verb
An auxiliary verb (abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a p ...
''haber'' plus a main verb.
The
preterite
The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pas ...
, also called the "simple past" and, in Spanish, ''pretérito indefinido'' or ''pretérito perfecto simple'', is considered a "simple" tense because it is formed of a single word: the verb
stem
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
with an
inflectional ending for person, number, etc.
The choice between preterite and perfect, according to
prescriptive grammars from both Spain and the Americas,
is based on the psychological time frame—whether expressed or merely implied—in which the past action is embedded. If that time frame includes the present moment (i.e. if the speaker views the past action as somehow related to the moment of speaking), then the recommended tense is the perfect (''he llegado''). But if the time frame does not include the present—if the speaker views the action as only in the past, with little or no relation to the moment of speaking—then the recommended tense is the preterite (''llegué''). This is also the real spontaneous usage in most of Spain.
Following this criterion, an explicit time frame such as ''hoy'' ('today') or ''este año'' ('this year') includes the present and thus dictates the compound tense: ''Este año he cantado'' ('I have sung this year'). Conversely, a time frame such as ''ayer'' ('yesterday') or ''la semana pasada'' ('last week') does not include the present and therefore calls for the preterite: ''La semana pasada canté'' ('I sang last week').
However, in most of the Americas, and in the Canary Islands, the preterite is used for all actions viewed as completed in the past. It tends to be used in the same way in those parts of Spain where the local languages and vernaculars do not have compound tenses, that is, the
Galician-speaking area and the neighbouring
Astur-Leonese
Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Asturi ...
-speaking area.
In most of Spain, the compound tense is preferred in most cases when the action described is close to the present moment:
*''He viajado a (los) Estados Unidos.'' ('I have (just) traveled to the USA')
*''Cuando he llegado, la he visto.'' ('when I arrived, I saw her')
*''¿Qué ha pasado?'' ('What has happened?')
Prescriptive norms would rule out the compound tense in a ''cuando''-clause, as in the second example above.
Meanwhile, in Galicia, León, Asturias, Canary Islands and the Americas, speakers follow the opposite tendency, using the simple past tense in most cases, even if the action takes place at some time close to the present:
*''Ya viajé a (los) Estados Unidos.'' ('I
ave alreadytraveled to (the) USA')
*''Cuando llegué, la vi.'' ('when I arrived, I saw her')
*''¿Qué pasó?'' ('what happened?')
For some speakers of American Spanish, the compound tense can sound affected, bookish, or foreign.
In Latin America one could say, "''he viajado a España varias veces''" ('I have traveled to Spain several times'), to express a repeated action, as in English. But to say ''El año pasado he viajado a España'' would sound ungrammatical (as it would also be in English to say "last year, I have traveled to Spain", as ''last year'' implies that the relevant time period does not include the present). In Spain, speakers use the compound tense when the period of time considered has not ended, as in ''he comprado un coche este año'' ('I have bought a car this year'). Meanwhile, an American Spanish-speaker is more likely to say, "''compré un carro este año''" ('I bought a car this year').
Vocabulary
Different regional varieties of Spanish vary in terms of vocabulary as well. This includes both words that exist only in certain varieties (especially words borrowed from indigenous languages of the Americas), and words that are used differently in different areas. Among words borrowed from indigenous languages are many names for food, plants and animals, clothes, and household object, such as the following items of Mexican Spanish vocabulary borrowed from
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
.
In addition to loan words, there are a number of Spanish words that have developed distinct senses in different regional dialects. That is, for certain words a distinct meaning, either in addition to the standard meaning or in place of it, exists in some varieties of Spanish.
Mutual comprehension
The different
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s and
accents do not block cross-understanding among the educated. Meanwhile, the
basilect
A post-creole continuum (or simply creole continuum) is a dialect continuum of varieties of a creole language between those most and least similar to the superstrate language (that is, a closely related language whose speakers assert or asserted d ...
s have diverged more. The unity of the language is reflected in the fact that early imported
sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
s were
dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. Currently, films not originally in Spanish (usually
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
productions) are dubbed separately into two accents: one for Spain and one for the Americas (using a neutral standardized accent without regionalisms). Some high-budget productions, however, such as the
''Harry Potter'' film series, have had dubs in three or more of the major accents. On the other hand, productions from another Spanish-language country are seldom dubbed. Exceptionally, the made-in-Spain animated features ''
Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds
''Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds'' (Spanish: ''D'Artacán y los Tres Mosqueperros''; Japanese: ''ワンワン三銃士 Wan Wan Sanjuushi'', lit., ''Woof Woof Three Musketeers'') is a children's animated television series that adapts the cl ...
'' and ''
The World of David the Gnome
''The World of David the Gnome'', originally titled ''David, el Gnomo'' (also known as ''David, the Gnome''), is a Spanish animated television series based on the children's book ''The Secret Book of Gnomes'', by the Dutch author Wil Huygen and ...
'', as well as TV serials from the
Andean
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...
countries such as ''Karkú'' (Chile), have had a Mexican dub. The popularity of ''
telenovela
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...
s'' and music familiarizes the speakers with other accents of Spanish.
Prescription and a common cultural and literary tradition, among other factors, have contributed to the formation of a loosely defined
register
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), th ...
which can be termed
Standard Spanish
Standard Spanish, also called the es, label=none, norma culta, lit=cultivated norm, refers to the standard, or codified, variety of the Spanish language, which most writing and formal speech in Spanish tends to reflect. This standard, like other ...
(or "Neutral Spanish"), which is the preferred form in formal settings, and is considered indispensable in academic and literary writing, the media, etc. This standard tends to disregard local grammatical, phonetic and lexical peculiarities, and draws certain extra features from the commonly acknowledged
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
, preserving (for example) certain verb tenses considered "bookish" or archaic in most other dialects.
See also
Cants and argots
*
Bron
Bron () is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, eastern France.
Geography
Bron lies east-southeast of central Lyon. It is the sixth-largest suburb of the city of Lyon, and is adjacent to its east side.
Climat ...
of migrant merchants and artisans of Asturias and León
*
Caló language
Caló (; ; ; ) is a language spoken by the Spanish and Portuguese Romani. It is a mixed language (referred to as a Para-Romani language in Romani linguistics) based on Romance grammar, with an adstratum of Romani lexical items through language ...
of
Gitanos
*
Caló of
Chicano
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
s
*
Coa of Chilean criminals
*
Cheli
Cheli is a Spanish-language juvenile sociolect or jargon diatopically restricted to the Madrid area, developed in the 1970s, primarily associated to the post-Francoist counterculture. It drew influence from the hampa and drug-dealing jargons, an ...
of Madrid
*
Gacería
Extension of the Gacería in the province of Segovia
Gacería is the name of a slang or argot employed by the (or makers of the , or threshing-board, as well as threshing-sledge) and the (or makers of : metathesis of Spanish word sieve) in ...
of
Cantalejo, Spain
*
Germanía
Germanía () is the Spanish term for the argot used by criminals or in jails in Spain during 16th and 17th centuries. Its purpose is to keep outsiders out of the conversation. The ultimate origin of the word is the Latin word , through Catalan ...
of
Spanish Golden Century
The Spanish Golden Age ( es, Siglo de Oro, links=no , "Golden Century") is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish Empire under the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Ha ...
criminals
*
Lunfardo
Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and from there spread to other urban are ...
of
Porteño
In Spanish, the term (feminine: ''Porteña'') means "port city person". It is used to refer to residents of port cities such as Buenos Aires, Argentina; El Puerto de Santa María, Spain; Valparaíso, Chile; Mazatlán, Veracruz, Acapulco and Tamp ...
Spanish
*
Parlache originated in the city of
Medellin
Mixes with other languages
*
Spanish-based creole languages
A Spanish creole, or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which Spanish serves as its substantial ''lexifier''.
A number of creole languages are influenced to varying degrees by the Spa ...
*
Annobonese language
Annobonese Creole is a Portuguese creole known to its speakers as or ( pt, Fala de Ano-Bom). It is spoken on the Annobón and Bioko Islands off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, mostly by people of mixed African, Portuguese and Spanish descen ...
of
Annobón Province and
Bioko
Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...
,
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
*
Belgranodeutsch of Buenos Aires
*
Castrapo
Castrapo (a portmanteau of ''castelán'' and ''trapo'', meaning ''rag''), is the form of Spanish in the region of Galicia that uses much Galician vocabulary and syntax.
The dictionary published by the Royal Galician Academy defines it as a "vari ...
of
Galicia
*
Amestao of
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...
*
Chavacano
Chavacano or Chabacano is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of speakers. ...
of the Philippines
*
Cocoliche
Cocoliche is an Italian–Spanish contact language or pidgin that was spoken by Italian immigrants in Argentina (especially in Greater Buenos Aires) and Uruguay between 1870 and 1970. In the last decades of the 20th century, it almost completel ...
of Buenos Aires
*
Frespañol
Frespañol or frespagnol (also known as ''frañol'' or ''fragnol''), is a portmanteau of the words (or in Spanish) and , which mean French and Spanish mixed together, usually in informal settings. This example of code-switching is a mixture b ...
of French–Spanish contact
*
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...
, also known as Ladino, the language of the
Sephardic Jew
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
s
*
Llanito
''Llanito'' or ''Yanito'' () is a form of Andalusian Spanish heavily laced with words from English and other languages, such as Ligurian; it is spoken in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It is commonly marked by a great deal o ...
of
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
*
Palenquero
Palenquero (sometimes spelled Palenkero) or Palenque ( pln, Lengua) is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in Colombia. It is believed to be a mixture of Kikongo (a language spoken in central Africa in the current countries of Congo, DRC, Gab ...
of Colombia
*
Papiamento
Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Arub ...
of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire
*
Pichinglis
Pichinglis, commonly referred to by its speakers as ''Pichi'' and formally known as Fernando Po Creole English (''Fernandino''), is an Atlantic English-lexicon creole language spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. It is an offshoo ...
of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea
*
Portuñol
Portuñol (Spanish spelling) or Portunhol (Portuguese spelling) () is a portmanteau of the words portugués/português ("Portuguese") and español/espanhol ("Spanish"), and is the name often given to any non-systematic mixture of Portuguese and ...
of the Brazilian border
*
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
of the United States of America
*
Jopara language
Jopara () or Yopará () is a colloquial form of Guarani spoken in Paraguay which uses a number of Spanish loan words. Its name is from the Guarani word for "mixture".Britton, A. Scott (2004). ''Guarani-English/English-Guarani Concise Dictionary' ...
in Paraguay with
Guarani language
Guaraní (), specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guarani ( "the people's language"), is a South American language that belongs to the Tupi–Guarani family of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of P ...
Other
*
History of the Spanish language
The language known today as Spanish is derived from a dialect of spoken Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans after their occupation of the peninsula that started in the late 3rd century BC. Influenced by the peninsul ...
*
Spanish phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system ...
*
Andalusian Spanish
The Andalusian dialects of Spanish ( es, andaluz, , ) are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varietie ...
**
Andalusian language movement
Andalusian is a dialect of Spanish spoken in Andalusia, Spain. However, a recent fringe movement has aimed at the differentiation of Andalusian from Spanish and at its standardization. Several groups and organizations have emerged attempting to ...
*
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langua ...
*
Central American Spanish
Central American Spanish ( es, español centroamericano or ) is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in Central America. More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, ...
*
South American Spanish
The Spanish language in South America varies within the different countries and regions of the continent. The term "South American Spanish" (Spanish: ''español sudamericano'' or ''español suramericano'') is sometimes used as a broad name for the ...
*
Equatoguinean Spanish
Equatoguinean Spanish ( es, Español ecuatoguineano) is the variety of Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea. This is the only Spanish variety that holds national official status in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is regulated by the Equatoguinean Academy ...
*
Philippine Spanish
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
Notes
Bibliography
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Further reading
* Alonso Zamora Vicente, ''Dialectología Española'' (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1960) is highly detailed.
External links
Isogloss maps of phonetic variants in the Iberian PeninsulaMap of Spanish dialects in the Iberian PeninsulaCosta Rican Spanish DictionarySpanish learning site with Argentinian speakersHispanic American Dictionary with variants for every countryCOSER Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spanish Dialects And Varieties
Dialects And Varieties