Dominican Spanish is Castilian Spanish as spoken in the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola (Española in Spanish) and throughout the Dominican diaspora (mostly in New York and Miami). It is similar to Puerto Rican Spanish, Cuban Spanish and Venezuelan Spanish. This article is about the international language known as Spanish. ... Early map of Hispaniola The island of Hispaniola (from Spanish, La Española) is the second-largest island of the Antilles, lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. ... Puerto Rican Spanish (español puertorriqueño) is a Spanish dialect spoken in Puerto Rico and by people of Puerto Rican descent elsewhere. ... In Cuba, the Spanish language has some different features than in other dialects. ... Venezuelan Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken in Venezuela. ...

Phonology

• Like many other dialects, Dominican Spanish features yeísmo: the sounds represented by ll (the palatal lateral /ʎ/) and y (historically the palatal approximant /j/) have fused into one. This merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a y [j] or j [dʒ] (these are the sounds in English yellow and 'judge. That is, in the Dominican Republic, se cayó "he fell down" is homophonous with se calló "he became silent".

• The fricatives /s/ have a tendency to become an indistinct aspiration or disappear or to become (a voiceless glottal fricative, /h/) at the end of syllables. This change may be realized only at the word level or it may also cross word boundaries. That is, las mesas son blancas "the tables are white" is pronounced [lah'mesah sɔn 'blankah], but in las águilas azules "the blue eagles", syllable-final /s/ in las and águilas might experience liaison with the initial vowels of the following words and remain [s] (/la'sagila sa'sulɛh/), or become [h] (the exact pronunciation is largely an individual choice).

• In some areas, speakers tend to drop the final r sound in verb infinitives. This elision is considered a feature of uneducated speakers in some places, but it is widespread in others, at least in rapid speech.

• The weak r, final or not, tends to be changed in many words by an i sound in the Northerly Cibao region and by Ls in the Eastern and capital city (Santo Domingo), i.e., the verb correr (to run) is pronounced correi and correl, respectively; perdón (forgiveness): peidón and peldón. This substitution for i is delicately (almost mutely) present in Andalusian Spanish, and the L use is prototypical, and more marked, in Puerto Rican Spanish, and is believed to be of African origin.

• In the Southwestern region, the L sound is usually emphasized so much that it turns into an r, with the classical example being maldito (damned) turned into mardito.

• The creation of diphtongs in everyday speech is common, like the phonetic contraction of "voy a" into "vuá" or "voá", or "¿para adónde vas?" into "¿p'ónde va'?". Another great example of strong contraction is the following phrase: "Taco 'tá 'co'ta'o", from "Taco está acostado" ("Taco is lying down").

• Almost exclusively Dominican in use, is the incorrect grammatical placement of the second person singular pronoun of tú before the verb in the question form: "¿Cómo tú estás?" instead of the correct "¿Cómo estás tú?". This mistake, nonetheless, is not made when using the more formal usted, instead of tú, where the correct grammatical order is used.

Other differences with "standard" Castilian include subtleties like hypercorrection. Nevertheless, speakers of the Dominican variant of Castilian Spanish usually have no trouble understanding speakers of other Castilian dialects or visa versa. Yeísmo is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the merger of the palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ll) with another phoneme, usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. ... The voiceless glottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Cibao is a sub-region of the Dominican Republic, located at the geographical center of the country. ... Santo Domingo de Guzmán, population 2,061,200 (Metro) (2003), estimated 2,253,437 (Metro) in 2006, is the capital and the largest city of the Dominican Republic. ... The Andalusian dialect (also called andaluz) of European Spanish is spoken in Andalusia (including Gibraltar). ... Puerto Rican Spanish (español puertorriqueño) is a Spanish dialect spoken in Puerto Rico and by people of Puerto Rican descent elsewhere. ... World map showing location of Africa A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second_largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ... Standard Spanish or Neutral Spanish, is a linguistic variety or lect that is considered the correct educated standard for the Spanish language. ... Hypercorrection comprises two linguistic phenomena: elaborate, prescriptively based correction of common usage, often introduced in an attempt to avoid vulgarity or informality, that results in wording commonly considered clumsier than the usual, colloquial usage. ...

Anglicisms (due to cultural and commercial influence from the U.S.) are extremely common in Dominican Spanish, more so than in any other Spanish variant, save for Puerto Rican and maybe Northern Mexican. An anglicism is a word borrowed from English into another language, but considered by a fair part of the influential speakers of that language to be substandard or undesirable. ... For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ...

The Dominican variant of Castilian may be related to that of Andalusian Spanish and Canary Island Spanish.

Dominican expressions who are different from Castilian Spanish

• wild - spanish: agresivo/-a, bravo/-a - dominican: guapo/-a
• pretty - spanish: guapo/-a - dominican: lindo/-a, bonito/-a

„Una chica guapa“: in Spain "a pretty girl", in the Dominican Republic "an angry girl"

• the orange – spanish: la naranja – dominican also: la china
• the tangerine – spanish: la mandarina – dominican: la italiana
• the passion fruit – spanish: la maracuyá – dominican: la chinola
• the papaya / pawpaw – spanish: la papaya – dominican: la lechoza
• the money - spanish: el dinero - dominican: el dinero, also: el cuarto (i.e.: a quarter)

e.g.: No tengo cuarto - I don't have money

• a bit – spanish: un poco – dominican also: un chin
• a little bit - spanish: un poquito – dominican also: un chin chin
• small - spanish: pequeño/-a - dominican also: chiquito/-a
• very small - spanish: muy pequeño/-a - dominican also: chiquitico/-a
• a little baby - spanish: el bebé, el pequeño - dominican: el chichí
• the boy - spanish: el chico, el niño – dominican: el varón, el muchacho, el muchachito, el tiguerito (i.e. the small tiger)
• the girl - spanish: la chica, la niña – dominican also: la hembra, la muchacha, la muchachita)
• the coach - spanish: el autobús - dominican: la guagua
• the motorbike taxi - doesn't exist in Spain - dominican: el motoconcho
• the scooter - spanish: la moto - dominican: la pasola
• the jeep / SUV - spanish: el (vehículo) todoterreno, el jeep - dominican: la jeepeta
• an old or rotten car - spanish: un coche viejo / roto - dominican: un carro viejo / roto, also: un tiesto (spoken: un tieto); (i.e. a cullet / shard / potsherd)
• the stranger - spanish: el extranjero / la extranjera - dominican also: el gringo / la gringa
• the Haitian - spanish and dominican: el haitiano / la haitiana - dominican also: el garzón (from french word: „garçon“ = „the boy“ - it's sometimes used even for girls!), el azulito / la azulita ("the blue one"), el moráo / el morado / la morada („the violet one“) - all of these expressions show the racism of many Dominicans towards Haitians.