Dialects of Spanish are so interesting!

[Villa]

One of the things that most interests and fascinates me about the Spanish language are the different dialects that Spanish has. For example the way Spanish is spoken in different Spanish speaking countries such as México, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Spain, New Mexico(New Mexico has a tradition of speaking Spanish that goes back to the Spanish colonial days before the U.S. took over in 1912) and so on and so forth. Actually there are 21 different Spanish speaking countries so right there that would be 21 different dialects. I started out learning Spanish in California from my Spanish speaking neighbors. I had Spanish speaking neighbors from several states of Mexico, two different regions of Cuba, El Salvador, Colombia(different parts of Colombia a proposito), Guatemala, Argentina Bolivia and even a neighbor from southern Spain. I noticed from the beginning that they all spoke with different accents and with some vocabulary differences. Different expressions etc. etc.

First though what is the definition of a dialect? I had a very good and interesting Spanish teacher from Mexico that explained it this way. (A dialect is a change in a language that still permits understanding. Actually that is my definition. Different accent and some vocabulary differences.) Any way my Mexican teacher explained that basically there are two types of dialects for Spanish or any other language. So dialects can be divided into geographical(regional) and social dialects. A geographical (regional dialect) would be for example different geographical locations. For example: Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Argentina etc. etc. Also another way to look at dialects which my teacher explained is that dialects can be divided into horizontal and vertical dialects. A horizontal dialect runs horizontal and is about a geographical location such as different Spanish countries and different locations within a Spanish speaking country. Your vertical dialects are composed of the amount of education a person has, social position, rural or city living etc. etc. So somebody from Cuba can speak a Cuban dialect but there can be still a different dialect spoken by a Cuban because of being a lawyer, teacher, doctor or based on education and for being from a rural setting such as a farmer. Think of how a person from a small rural town or a farmer in Arkansas or Oklahoma might speak compared to highly educated person from the same state.


Does anybody else have the same interest in dialects as I have?

[Glen]

Yes, I too am interested. Rightly or wrongly, I have heard (from a well-traveled native Spanish speaker) that there is not as much variation in the Spanish of those 21 countries as there is among the English of the U.S., Great Britain and Australia.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by Glen

Yes, I too am interested. Rightly or wrongly, I have heard (from a well-traveled native Spanish speaker) that there is not as much variation in the Spanish of those 21 countries as there is among the English of the U.S., Great Britain and Australia.

Hola Glen. Glad to hear you like to study and or are interested in Spanish dialects como yo.

Your well-traveled native Spanish speaker does have a point. A Spanish speaker from anyone of the 21 Spanish speaking countries can go to anyone of the other 21 Spanish speaking countries and communicate just fine. But then again a Spanish speaker can go to Italy even and communicate and learn Italian rápido. I did.

¿De dónde eres, a proposito/BTW Glen.?

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Villa

¿De dónde eres, a proposito/BTW Glen.?

Soy gringo de pasaporte, latino de corazón. De hecho, mis amigos mexicanos me llaman "el anglojicano".

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Glen

Soy gringo de pasaporte, latino de corazón. De hecho, mis amigos mexicanos me llaman "el anglojicano".

That's a good one.

[explorator]

Originally Posted by Villa

Hola Glen. Glad to hear you like to study and or are interested in Spanish dialects como yo.

Your well-traveled native Spanish speaker does have a point. A Spanish speaker from anyone of the 21 Spanish speaking countries can go to anyone of the other 21 Spanish speaking countries and communicate just fine. But then again a Spanish speaker can go to Italy even and communicate and learn Italian rápido. I did.

¿De dónde eres, a proposito/BTW Glen.?

Yes for a Spanish speaker is easy to understand Italian, and also French, Portuguesse... This is because the Spanish, the Italian, the French, and all the "Romance Languages" are also dialects, they are all Vulgar Latin dialects.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by explorator

Yes for a Spanish speaker is easy to understand Italian, and also French, Portuguesse... This is because the Spanish, the Italian, the French, and all the "Romance Languages" are also dialects, they are all Vulgar Latin dialects.

Tienes razón amigo explorator. Sin embargo, we should mention or point out that Vulgar Latin is a misnomer because it really wasn't vulgar Latin as in disgusting or vulgar/objectionable language. A better name for Vulgar Latin could be "common Latin" or "colloquial Latin". Colloquial Latin was the spoken Latin through out the Roman Empire from Rome to what is now Spain, France, England, Germany, Greece, Israel and even Northern Africa.

[mekdroid]

Tienes razón, en Español la diferencia entre los distintos dialectos es bastante pequeña. En general, mi experiencia en la América Latina es que las pocas palabras que no entendía es porque habían sido adaptadas de idiomas nativos.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by mekdroid

Tienes razón, en Español la diferencia entre los distintos dialectos es bastante pequeña. En general, mi experiencia en la América Latina es que las pocas palabras que no entendía es porque habían sido adaptadas de idiomas nativos.

Hola mekdroid.
Veo que vives en Miami. ¿Eres por casualidad cubano?
Si no eres cubano, de dónde eres? Sólo por curiosidad,
para ver qué dialecto o acento que tienes. Sobre todo
porque estamos hablando sobre dialectos y acentos del
español en este hilo.

[mekdroid]

Originally Posted by Villa

Hola mekdroid.
Veo que vives en Miami. ¿Eres por casualidad cubano?
Si no eres cubano, de dónde eres? Sólo por curiosidad,
para ver qué dialecto o acento que tienes. Sobre todo
porque estamos hablando sobre dialectos y acentos del
español en este hilo.

Soy un bicho raro ... nacido en Cuba, educado primero en España hasta los 18 y después en los Estados Unidos, así que una mezcla del demonio. Cuba en realidad no tiene un dialecto porque a los pobres Indios les dimos guiso en el primer siglo de la colonización y no tuvieron chance de pasarnos nada de su idioma. Mi acento es el de Castilla por haber crecido allí, pero el acento Cubano es básicamente algo parecido al de Andalucía y al de las Islas Canarias.