Talk:Spanish dialects and varieties/Archive 1

Seseo vs ceceo

In the main article we read the following "The first Spaniards to settle in the Americas, mostly Andalusians, brought..."
Where is the evidence that the first Spaniards were Andalusians? I know Boyd-Bowman studied this problem and came to the conclusion that many of the Spaniards that emigrated to America were from Andalucia but then again, many inmigrants may have claimed that they were Andalusians so they could get the preferential treatment accorded to Andalusians. Another consideration is the fact that most inmigrants embarked from Andalusian ports and it is easy to deduce that many would have stated their residence as being in Andalucia if they had moved to that area hoping to be able to embark to the colonies. Rowenna1019 (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Argentine LL and Y

Why say the LL and Y are pronounced similar to English Z in "azure" instead of using the symbols?: one reason would be that for most non-experts the symbols are meaningless. Non-experts will understand the sound when it relates to a word they already know. The use of the symbols may not communicate to them, and Wikipedia is a non-expert encyclopedia which is very useful to non-experts. When I learned to speak Castilian in Argentina in 1960 I learned this sound first from the comparison to "azure" and then by listening to the people in Cordoba and Buenos Aires. Incidentally, this sound seems to be gaining traction outside of Argentina and Uruguay. I have a number of friends in the United States, native Castilian-speakers all, who use this sound for those letters on a regular basis, and not only to imitate me.

Rcallen7 21:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Malmberg

Bertil Malmberg's position is from Det spanska Amerika i sprakets spegel, Stockholm, 1966

Other dialectal differences listed by Malmberg are leísmo/loísmo, hubo / hubieron perros, the sibilant pronunciation of rr and tr in Chile, Paraguay and Northern Spain (Ribera del Ebro?).

Those should be included or referenced in the article.

Perder

"Perder" is not an "irregular verb" really, only by tradition; in fact it's quite regular. (And regularity doesn't have much to do with being a good example of variation...) The changes in the root vowel in "perder" et al are not a product of dialectal variation, but of stress: "e" becomes "ie" when stressed. The changes in the position of stress are a product of dialectal variation, but only secondary to the change in the verb form. Some of these are truly irregular: I think I've heard "que (vos) perdás" here in Argentina, though in most cases one hears "que (vos) pierdas".

On the issue of these pseudo-irregular verbs, I remember people suggesting that Spanish grammars should add two conjugations, for verbs with alternating "e-ie" and "o-ue". --Pablo D. Flores 14:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Que vos perdás is not "truly irregular", it is merely the subjunctive form of voseo (compare: vosotros perdéis, que vosotros perdáis, vs. vos perdés, que vos perdás, vs. tú pierdes, que tú pierdas). But Argentinian voseo rarely uses the true voseo forms for the subjunctive, instead commonly replacing them with the tú forms (note the voseo pronominal paradigm is also a hybrid: vos/te/a vos/contigo/tu/tuyo). See my other comment below for an external reference. Uaxuctum 14:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

It just hurted my eyes to read belongs to a class of verbs where the root, and not just the verb endings, change as it is conjugated to just say "irregular". And perder suffers "perd -> pierd" in the present tense of all three moods, that's enough for me to call it irregular, otherwise... yes is quite regular, but still I wouldn't call it regular. The explanation is just something I jot down without really thinking, feel free to modify it. --SpiceMan 19:33, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

French influence

This also affects verb conjugations, which are replaced by forms related with the plural vosotros, either without the diphthongization of those forms or without the final s. This originated because an influence of French (where even if the singular 2nd person is Tu, when talking to someone with respect Vous [2nd person plural] is used).

Are you sure that French is the cause? Second person plural as respectful singular also happened in English, Romanian and Basque.--Error 02:15, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Second Person Verb Conjugation in Chile

I've removed the following lines:

In Chile informal speak has yet another aspect to Second Person Verb Conjugation. The second variant :used for the first person is simply applied to the second person as well.

Spain - yo soy moreno pero tu eres aún mas moreno

Chile - you soy moreno pero tu soy aún mas moreno

Though this variant is ill looked at and concidered to be found in the language of the lower class is :it quite wide spread as well.

It seems to me (without being a linguistic; only a Chilean and user of spanish on a daily basis) that rule is not right: the use of the term 'soi'(not 'soy') as second person conjugation is a degeneration rather the use of the first person's conjugation. Sometimes the forms 'erís'or 'erí' are also used. (Applied to other verbs: 'estái','querí','buscái',etc) Also i've some concerns about the generic examples of second person conjugation. I think it is important to emphatise that the forms presented as chilean conjugation are highly informal and familiar. Correct and accepted ways are spanish - standard ones. In other way, the form presented are mainly of popular and youth use and in a familiar and casual context: you may listen them in the telenovela, in a movie or in an radio show, but are total inacceptable for formal or educated talk. You are never listen the president, a politician or your news anchor talk like that; it is alos inacceptable for teachers o lecturers to address and audiencie and personally I'm not going to talk my boss or my grandparents using that language ;-). So, i question if this informal way of talk should be presented between 'vos'and 'usted', which are acceptable for the situations i've just described. ('vos' conjugation is the official one in Argentina) Baloo rch 23:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. In Argentina we also sometimes hear forms where the final -s has become -i (as in vos hablás → vos *hablái [bOh a'blaj]), but only in certain dialects, and it sounds extremely uneducated (though that might be my Rioplatense bias). I don't think such forms should be here; maybe in a separate article, probably as a section in Spanish dialects and varieties. If the phenomenon (-s → -i is widespread, it would be especially worth mentioning. --Pablo D. Flores 10:44, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

It's not that -s becomes -i, it's that Chilean-style voseo and Argentinian-style voseo have made different changes to the cantáis/bebéis/partís/sois/estáis/habéis/tenéis/vais diphthongized vosotros forms. Argentinian-style voseo reduces the diphthongs to its strong vowel, resulting in cantás/bebés/partís/sos/estás/habés/tenés/vas (note some of the resulting forms like estás and vas coincidentally merge with the tú forms). Chilean-style voseo keeps some diphthongs but dropping the final -s, while reduces others to the weak vowel of the diphthong (here a trace of the final -s is kept but frequently realized as a mere aspiration -h), resulting in cantái/bebís/partís/soi/estái/habís/tenís/vai (note the resulting soi coincidentally sounds the same as the 1st person soy). Imperatives in both drop the final -d: cantad/bebed/partid/sed/estad/habed/tened/id → cantá/bebé/partí/sé/está/habé/tené/andá* (given that the form í that would result from id is too short, it was replaced with the suppletive form andá from andar). The following essay explains the variations, origin and social status of voseo in detail: El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy. Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual por Norma Beatriz Carricaburo. Uaxuctum 14:01, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, and for the link. Again my dialectal bias (Rioplatense) showing through, alas. :) Also thanks for the note on Talk:Yeísmo, which I'm mentioning here also as advertising for other possible contributors that the page needs (on the issue of prescriptiveness). --Pablo D. Flores 14:36, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Cuando he llegado, la he visto

This sentence seems just bad. I think it should be one of the following:

• Cuando hube llegado, le he visto. (?)
• La he visto cuando llegé.

The previous construction is correct in Italian (Quando sono arrivato, l'ho vista), but I think it isn't in Spanish.

Maybe is not the best example for that section. -Mariano 09:26, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

the correct 'preterito anterior' usage is: hube llegado que comenzó la reunión (you'll never hear someone talk this way though xD). It implies a past action which was done right after something specific, usually implying that the previous action was a necessary condition for the next one. (hubo llegado el barco, partimos, etc.). Regarding the frase, I concur that is not spanish at all :P. Maybe something like la he visto al llegar? (la he visto cuando llegué is also fine with me, but I can't help but feel it unnatural, probably because we don't use perfect past tense in argetina, right, mariano?). SpiceMan 10:05, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm from Spain and I don't find anything wrong at all with "Cuando he llegado, la he visto", as long as you aren't talking about yesterday or some other 'non-current' time period. OTOH, the other two are wrong (in the standard language at least). The first should be "Cuando hube llegado, la ví" and it would always imply that you saw her right immediately after you arrived (the implication of immediate adjacency of the two events is absent in "Cuando he llegado, la he visto", but it doesn't rule it out). The main clause cannot be "la he visto" because the time period it is set in (the one established by the past anterior tense in the subordinate clause "cuando hube llegado") is an instantaneous 'finished' moment which is always seen as 'non-current', and so it clashes with the use contraints of the present perfect tense. The second should be either "La he visto cuando he llegado" (if you're talking about a 'current' time period like today or this morning) or "La ví cuando llegué" (in other cases). Uaxuctum 23:11, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Prince with a lisp story

I've heard from a number of places that in Spain, pronouncing s as /θ/ was to done to emulate a prince, but I've heard elsewhere that it is a myth. Which is it? I'm surprised to not see this discussed here.

It is most definitely an urban legend. The history of why Castilian Spanish has /θ/ is well known and well documented. It originates mainly from Latin "c" (before front vowels "e" and "i") and "t" (in the "-tion" ending), which eventually turned into affricates, later deaffricated into laminal sibilants, and finally became fronted into interdental in order to increase its acoustic distance from the apical sibilant "s" (which still remains as such in Castilian). Thus, actually the relevant question is not why in Castilian we pronounce /θ/ (we merely maintain a distinction between "s" and "c/z" that has always been there because they are of different etymological origin), but instead why Latin American and Andalusian accents have merged them. There is some explanation in Spanish phonology and Spanish dialects and varieties, and more in detail in Castilian lisp, but I think it would be fine to have it explained under a specific article on ceceo and seseo (both ceceo and seseo should be treated in the same article, because they are instances of the same phenomenon—that of merging the medieval laminal and apical sibilants into the laminal one). Uaxuctum 22:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Question

In the article it says

"Ascensión is pronounced in Spain as aSθenθión, while in Latin America is pronounced just asensión."

"s" is pronounced "s" in Spain, it's only the "z" and the "c" before i and e that is pronounced as "th". So it should be "asθensión", right? --Revolución (talk) 03:30, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's a mistake. I'll correct it right away. Uaxuctum 14:49, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Arabic ustad?

Quoth the article:

the formal pronoun is usted, which was originally "vuestra merced", meaning "Your (singular) grace" (though others have traced it to the Arabic Ustad, professor/sir).

Citation please? Who are these others? It just seems unlikely to me. First of all, correct me if I'm wrong, but usted came about after the Reconquista, did it not? Don Quijote, for example, written ~150 years after Arab rule of Spain, uses not usted but vuestro merced. So usted had not been fully developed at that point. Second, if usted comes from a word for "sir" or "doctor", why does it take the third person conjugation? "Your grace is" (vuestro merced es) makes sense; for the second person "doctor is" or "sir is" does not. –Andyluciano 20:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

French influence II; Ladino?

Since the statement on the French origin of the use of vos in Spanish was unsourced (and rather unlikely) and the question asked almost a year before now was never answered, I've removed it. I've also taken out some non-standard pronunciations and replaced them by IPA, but in some cases it was impossible (you simply can't describe a sound properly by saying it's "in between j and y"). Some parts of the article should be refactored, since they've accumulated several layers of edition of various qualities. I've done as much cleanup as I'm capable of.

I've also taken out a couple of sentences on a hypothetical pronunciation of vos with the s "as it should be" in Chile. The article is not meant to instruct people on how to deal with the natives in order to fit, and the whole "if you pronounce it like that you'll be marked as a foreigner" doesn't read well, really.

Besides that, I'd like to know why we need Ladino all over the article. Ladino is not a dialect of Spanish and is only tangentially important as a historical sample; the interested reader should jump directly to Ladino language. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 21:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Ladino

The formal Ladino language is a calquing language, used to render Hebrew and Aramaic into Romance. The spoken language of the Sefaradi people, Djidyo or Judeo-Spanish, is most certainly a dialect of Spanish, within it persists quite a bit of usage which was once common as well numerous innovations since 1492 and so it is quite relevant to the study of Spanish and Spanish dialectology as well as general linguistics. –Kadosh di Pomi

Ecuador and vos

I am an Ecuadorian and completely disagree with calling "vos" the most prominent form of second person singular. It is present, but it is by no means "the most prominent."

My Ecuadorian boyfriend agrees! He even says, he never ever heard this word in daily speaking亮HH 16:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Conjugation of the second person in Ecuador

Vos is NOT the most common form of second person, at all. It can, indeed, be heard sporadically throughout the country, but it is not very frequent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.13.186.1 (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

To answer both preceding comments, vos is definitely not used in the Costa region, where it is replaced in all aspects by tú. However, it is still used rather frequently in the Sierra region, where tú is barely used. I would say therefore say that tú is the more commonly used term due to the coastal region having a slightlier larger population than the highlands. I will edit the article to reflect this. (Relatedly, no distinctive Spanish dialects or accents have developed in the Amazonic region nor in the Galapagos Islands, since their populations were built by migrants from the two other regions.) 70.171.29.45 (talk) 00:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Le amo" vs. "lo amo"

Another case of Spain vs. Americas. "Le echo de menos" is common in Spain, but gramatically wrong... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elpincha (talk • contribs) 15:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

It's not gramatically incorrect, maybe in Latin American, but certainly not in Spain, and proper Spanish is European Spanish, so I would definitely say it’s proper Spanish.

Leismo is typical from part of the north half of Spain. You would struggle to find any leista where I come from, in Andalusia. Asterion^talk 01:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Saying "le" for a direct object is only permitted if you are talking about a male person. Using it for a female or an object, place, etc. would be "leísmo" and grammatically wrong. Hence, you can say both "le amo" and "lo amo", but only "la amo" if referring to a girl. Anna —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.45.103.12 (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Using Leismo, Loismo or even Laismo is not grammatically wrong or right - they are dialectal features marking a speakers connection to a certain dialect area or speech community. Thats why the page is called Spanish dialects and varieties. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Moved here from article

Malmberg is not a hispanist. (However, Malmberg and others have pointed) Who is others in this sentence? Please provide references or sources for such claims as “Others have pointed out that Mexican Spanish is tending towards stress timing and concomitant vowel reduction, and that this is likely to be caused by the influence of geographically close English of the United States and strong economic and social-cultural ties between the two countries” Any studies that have pointed this out? Proof? Retract statement as it is not true and there is no evidence for this claim. --Ecw3378 (talk · contribs)

The Bertil Malmberg covered by the article in English Wikipedia is another one! See sv:Bertil Malmberg (fonetiker). I read Malmberg and he said that, so please don't just claim that "it is not true". I don't have the book at hand, as I took it from a library years ago; it may or may not be the one cited in the References section (Bertil Malmberg, Det spanska Amerika i språkets spegel, Stockholm, 1966). Someone should check that. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A useful source

I don't know how much what this lot say is right (I tend to disregard value judgements about speech) but there's some good, if limited, analysis of many of the dialects of Spanish here (in Spanish). --Estrellador* 20:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Argentinean conjugation

With respect to the table in the article, shouldn't the most common conjugation for the 2nd person singular form of the present subjunctive in Argentina be "que vos perdás" instead of "que vos pierdas" ? 161.24.19.82 17:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

UN

Does anyone know which variety of Spanish, if any, is used by the UN? Brutannica 06:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think there is any need to do that. As long as slang is avoided, all varieties of Spanish are easily understood. Is there an official "English variety" for the UN ? --Jotamar 20:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - British English according to the Oxford English dictionary. See United Nations#Languages. Brutannica 21:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Second person singular in Uruguay

"In Argentina and Uruguay it is the standard form of the informal second person singular, and is used by all to address others in all kinds of contexts, often regardless of social status or age [...]"

This is incorrect; depending on region and people adressed, all three vos, usted and tú may be used by the same person. See a better description here. -- NaBUru38 15:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of Sumercé

I don't agree the use of the pronoun "sumercé" when it's referred to a Colombian form of speaking. I currently live in Colombia and it is so rare here, that, even though I know it exists, I actually have never seen somebody using it. I've heard "su persona" pronoun sometimes but nobody either uses it.

Kool Lat'n SD (talk) 20:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Spanish dialects and varieties/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Much of this article is most impressive, but the almost complete lack of in-line citations and the small number of sources certainly precludes any rating better than C class. There may be other issues (such as completeness), but I didn't check it right now. G Purevdorj (talk) 21:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 21:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 15:50, 1 May 2016 (UTC)