Spanish dialects and varieties are the regional variants of the Spanish language, some of which are quite divergent from standard written Spanish, which is based on the dialect of the province of Castile. While all Spanish dialects use the written standard, many spoken varieties differ from this standard variety. There is a gap between European Spanish and the Spanish of the Americas, as well as many different dialect areas both within Spain and within Latin America. The term "dialect" does not apply to the Spanish regional languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque. This article is about the international language known as Spanish. ... Standard Spanish or Neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety or lect that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. ... A former kingdom in modern-day Spain, Castile (Spanish: Castilla; usually pronounced Cast-EEL in English) now compromises the regions of Old Castile in the north-west, and New Castile in the center of the country. ... World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World consisting of the continents of North America[1] and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia (in the latter with the name of Valencian), and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of... Galician (Galician: galego, IPA: ) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community with the constitutional status of historic nationality, located in northwestern Spain and small bordering zones in neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castilla y León. ... Basque (native name: euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. ...

Prominent differences between dialects of Spanish include the distinction or lack thereof between /θ/ or /s/. The maintenance of the distinction, known in Spanish as distinción, is characteristic of the Spanish spoken in central Spain. Most dialects of Latin America and Southern Spain lack this distinction, and have merged the two sounds into /s/, a feature called seseo in Spanish dialectology. Dialects with seseo will pronounce the words casa ("house") and caza ("hunt") as homophones, whereas dialects with distinción will pronounce them differently (as [kasa] and [kaθa], respectively). In some parts of southern Spain, the two sounds have merged, but into sounds [θ]; these dialects are said to have ceceo. There are a series of significant differences in the way the Spanish language is spoken in the 20 or so countries and territories where it is an official language. ... Look up Homophone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ceceo is a phenomenon in the Spanish language whereby the voiceless interdental fricative (International Phonetic Alphabet , the th in think) is used in place of the voiceless dental fricative . ...

Another widespread dialectal difference concerns the existence, or lack thereof, of a distinction between the palatal lateral (spelled ll) and the palatal approximant (spelled y). In most dialects, the two sounds have merged together (a process known as yeísmo), though the realization of the resulting merged sound varies from dialect to dialect. This merger results in the words calló ("silenced") and cayó ("fell") being pronounced the same, whereas they remain distinct in dialects that have not undergone this merger. The palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... 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. ...

Another feature associated particularly with Caribbean and South American Spanish is the weakening (to [h]) or loss of the consonant /s/ when syllable-final.

A prominent grammatical feature that varies between dialects is the use of the 2nd person forms. In Spain, the informal second person plural pronoun is vosotros, which does not exist in Latin America, where the only second person plural pronoun is ustedes, which takes third person plural verb agreement. For the second person singular familiar pronoun, some dialects use tú, while others use vos (a phenomenon known as voseo), or use both tú and vos. Countries that feature voseo. ...

There are significant differences in vocabulary between regional varieties of Spanish, particularly within the domains food products, everyday objects, and clothes, and many Latin American varieties show considerable influence form Native American languages. Native American languages are the indigenous languages of the Americas, spoken by Native Americans from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland. ...

Map of dialects and regional languages in Spain.

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (817x500, 103 KB) Summary Map designed from Image:Autonomous_communities_of_Spain. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (817x500, 103 KB) Summary Map designed from Image:Autonomous_communities_of_Spain. ...

Pronunciation

Distinción vs. seseo/ceceo

Main article: Ceceo

Within Spain, in sociolinguistic terms, one can roughly distinguish between the standard Castilian and the Andalusian dialects of Castilian Spanish, though in purely linguistic terms one should also consider at least one 3rd dialect, for the s-aspirating area between Madrid and Andalusia. The first Spaniards to settle in the Americas, mostly Andalusians, brought some of their regionalisms with them. Today distinct accents are found in the different nations of the Americas. Typical of Latin America is seseo. The European Castilian phoneme IPA /θ/ as in ciento ("hundred"), caza ("hunt") (interdental voiceless fricative, like English th in thin) does not exist in American Spanish (except in some Andean portions of Peru where /θ/ exists in words like doce, trece); instead the phoneme has merged with /s/ and these example words are, in American Spanish, homophones of siento ("I feel"), and casa ("house"). Ceceo is a phenomenon in the Spanish language whereby the voiceless interdental fricative (International Phonetic Alphabet , the th in think) is used in place of the voiceless dental fricative . ... There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish (español) and Castilian (castellano). ... The Andalusian dialects (also called Andaluz) of European Spanish are spoken in Andalusia. ... Spanish () or Castilian () is an Iberian Romance language. ... World map showing the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere historically considered to consist of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... There are a series of significant differences in the way the Spanish language is spoken in the 20 or so countries and territories where it is an official language. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... See also architecture with non-sequential dynamic execution scheduling (ANDES). ...

Since some words would become homophones in Latin America with the confusion of the pronunciation of z or c before e or i and that of s, it is preferred to use instead synonyms or slightly different words. E.g., caza ("hunting") and casa ("house") become homophones, as do cocer ("to boil") and coser ("to sew"). So, in Latin America they use instead mostly cacería ("hunting expedition") and cocinar (which means "to cook" in other dialects). Homonyms (in Greek homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words which have the same form (orthographic/phonetic) but unrelated meaning. ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up E, e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up I, i in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Synonyms (in ancient Greek, συν (syn) = plus and όνομα (onoma) = name) are different words with similar or identical meanings. ... Homonyms (in Greek homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words which have the same form (orthographic/phonetic) but unrelated meaning. ...

The most distinctive feature of the Spanish variants is the pronunciation of s. In Northern and Central Spain, and in Antioquia, Colombia, it is apico-alveolar; in Southern Spain and most of Latin America it is lamino-alveolar or dental. In most of Latin America (except for Mexico, highland Guatemala, Costa Rica, Andean Venezuela, Quito and most of highland Ecuador, Argentina, highland Bolivia, and Bogotá) and in the southern half of Spain, syllable-final s is pronounced as an aspiration (a voiceless glottal fricative, /h/), or even not pronounced at all in some variants in rapid speech. For instance, Todos los cisnes son blancos ("All the swans are white"), can be pronounced as [todɔh lɔh sihnɛh sɔn blankɔh], or even [todɔ lɔ sinɛ sɔn blankɔ]. In parts of Andalusia, the distinction between syllables with a now-silent s and those originally without s is preserved by pronouncing the syllables ending in s with open vowels (that is, the open/closed syllable contrast has been turned into a lax/tense vowel contrast). Motto: Capital Medellín Governor Area 63,612 km² Population  - Total (2003)  - Density   5,750,478 90 people/km² Adjective antioqueño Antioquia was one of the states in the original United States of Colombia, and is now a department in the northwest part of the Republic of Colombia. ... An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i. ... A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Planes view of the Andes, Peru. ... Nickname: Luz de América Map of Ecuador showing location of Quito Coordinates: Country Ecuador Province Pichincha Canton Quito  - Mayor Paco Moncayo Area approx    - City 290 km²  - Land 290 km²  - Water 0 km² Elevation 2,800 m Population (2005, estimation)  - City 1,865,541 (canton)  - Density ~4,800/km² Time... Motto: Bogotá, 2600 metros más cerca de las estrellas Bogotá, 2600 meters closer to the stars Localities (localidades) of Bogotá Country Colombia Department Bogotá, D.C.* Foundation August 6, 1538 Government  - Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzón, PDA Area  - City 1,587 km²  (612. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a fricative, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ...

The pronunciation of the letter x in casual speech in Spain lenites and can drop the initial k component ending up just like their apico-alveolar s (/s̺/). In Latin America it is pronounced as ks, with a regular lamino-alveolar or dental s, but when an s sound (spelled s or c) follows, it is assimilated resulting in kss > ks. This merging of two adjacent s sounds also occurs in the cluster spelled sc, that in Latin America is pronounced merely s; while in Spain this cluster doesn't merge because for them there aren't two adjacent s, but the apico-alveolar /s̺/ followed by the interdental /θ/. For example, excelente is pronounced in Northern and Central Spain as [ɛs̺θeˈlɛnte], but as [ɛkseˈlɛnte] by the rest. "Ascensión" is pronounced in Spain as [as̺θɛnˈs̺jɔn], while in Latin America is pronounced just [asɛnˈsjɔn]. Look up X, x in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

In contrast to the speech of Central and Northern Spain, the pronunciation of /s/ in Andalusia and throughout most of Latin America is lamino-alveolar or dental. Nowadays these variants of Spanish, and other too, are also characterized by a highly relaxed pronunciation, which tends to aspiration and elision of many consonants, not just final s. This is not related to the elision of k in the pronunciation of x, which is general in most dialects of Spanish, except in formal speech. However, s is reinforced because of its dental, stressed realization, in some kind of assimilating phenomenon. Something similar occurs with other sibilant groups, like -sc-, -sz- or -xc- in seseo areas. Thus words like examen ("exam") or próximo ("nearby", "next") are pronounced as [esˈsamen] and [ˈprossimo], respectively, and words like descenso or excelencia in seseo areas become [desˈsenso] or [ɛsseˈlɛnsja]. Due to this tendency, it is not unusual to find similar cases of s assimilation and reinforcement even in cases where two s letters are added through prefixation into a single word, producing only a single s in Standard Spanish, and Northern or Latin American Speech: for example in digámoselo ("let's tell it to them"), formed from the verbal form digamos and clitic pronouns se and lo, a typically Andalusian pronunciation would be [diˈɡamosselo], or in desaborido ("untasteful" or "boring", "pessimistic"), from the prefix des ("un-") plus adjective saborido ("tasteful"), an Andalusian pronunciation would be [(d)essaboˈrido]. There are a series of significant differences in the way the Spanish language is spoken in the 20 or so countries and territories where it is an official language. ...

Ladino dialect is a special case, since due to the fact that its speakers were expelled from Spain in the 15th century, they have preserved the old sibilants, where /z/ and /s/ are respectively distributed for simple, voiced intervocallic s and voiceless, initial, implosive, or doubled intervocallic s, e.g.: rosa ("rose") becoming [ˈroza] and assentarse ("to sit down") becoming [asenˈtarse]. Due to an archaic seseo phenomenon in Ladino, the two kinds of old Spanish zetas, the voiced z [dz] and the voiceless ç [ts], have also been treated in a similar way. Fazer ("to make") becoming [faˈzer] instead of the medieval [faˈdzer] and plaza ("square") becoming [plasa] instead of medieval [platsa]. Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish), Hebrew, Turkish and some French and Greek. ... There are a series of significant differences in the way the Spanish language is spoken in the 20 or so countries and territories where it is an official language. ...

Yeísmo

Main article: Yeísmo

Traditionally Spanish had a phoneme /ʎ/, a palatal lateral, written ll. This phoneme has been lost in most of the Americas, with the exception of bilingual areas where Quechua, Guaraní and other indigenous languages that have this sound in their inventories are spoken (this is the case of Peru, Bolivia and, especially, Paraguay), but now it is also being lost in Spain (also with the exception of bilingual areas of Catalan and other languages that have preserved this sound in their inventories). It has been preserved in Ladino however, as well as in Tagalog (Filipino) words of Spanish origin such as kordilyera (Tagalog /koɾdiʎeɾa/). In many Spanish-speaking regions, the palatal lateral /ʎ/ has merged with the palatal approximant /ʝ/ (usually written y), and this merged phoneme is pronounced in a variety of ways. This phenomenon is called yeísmo. In most of the area where yeísmo is present, the phoneme is pronounced just as /ʝ/, or even /j/. In the area around the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay) this phoneme is pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, voiceless or weakly voiced (similar to /ʃ/ or /ʒ/). 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. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Quechuan languages. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia (in the latter with the name of Valencian), and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of... 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. ... Río de la Plata in relation to Uruguay and Argentina A satellite view of the estuary The Río de la Plata (Spanish: Silver River) — which is often referred to in English-speaking countries as the River Plate (as in the Battle of the River Plate), or sometimes as...

Sets of variants

In a broad sense, Latin American Spanish pronunciation can be grouped in five sets of variants. The first group, the Caribbean, is spoken in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panamá, the Colombian Caribbean, and the Caribbean parts of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Mexico. The second one is the South American Pacific, which comprises Perú, Chile and Guayaquil, Ecuador. The third is the Central American, spoken in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The fourth is the Argentine-Uruguayan-Paraguayan variant, which probably includes Eastern Bolivia (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando). The fifth, which probably is not a group but a cluster of places that resisted changes in the pronunciation of the s sound at the end of a syllable, has been called the Highland Latin American Spanish, and is spoken in México, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Andean Colombia, Andean Venezuela, Quito, the Peruvian Sierra and Bolivia (except in Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando). Spanish sound library Caribbean Spanish (español caribeño) is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. ... For other uses, see Central America (disambiguation). ...

Grammar

Second person singular

Related article: Voseo.

Most Spanish dialects have two second person singular pronouns, one for informal use and one for more formal treatment. In most dialects the informal pronoun is tú, which comes directly from the Latin, and the formal pronoun is usted, which is usually considered to originate from "vuestra merced", meaning "Your (singular) grace" (though others have traced it to the Arabic 'ustādh, "professor/sir"). In a number of regions tú is replaced by another pronoun, vos, and the verb conjugation changes accordingly (see details below). "Vos" comes from Latin vos, which was simply the second person plural informal pronoun. Countries that feature voseo. ...

In any case, there is wide variation as to when each pronoun (formal or informal) is to be used. In Spain, tú is informal (for example, used with friends), and usted is formal (for example, used with older people). In several countries, however, the formal usted is also used to denote a closer personal relationship (parts of Central America and, especially, in Colombia). Many Colombians and some Chileans, for instance, employ usted not only for a child to address a parent, but also for a parent to address a child. Some countries, like Cuba and the Dominican Republic, prefer the use of tú even in very formal circumstances, and usted thus is seldom used. Meanwhile, in other countries, the use of formal rather than informal second-person pronouns denotes authority. In Peru, for example, senior military officers will use tú to speak to their subordinates, while junior officers will only use usted to address their superior officers.

Using tú informally, especially in contexts where usted was to be expected, is called tuteo. The corresponding verb is tutear (a transitive verb, the direct object being the person addressed with the pronoun). Tutear is used even in those dialects where the informal pronoun is vos. A transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. ...

The use of vos instead of tú is called voseo. Voseo is informal in most countries. 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, including by cultured/educated speakers and writers, in television, advertisements, and even in translations from other languages. In Uruguay vos and tú are used concurrently, though vos is much more commonplace. In both cases the verb is conjugated as vos ("Vos querés / Tú querés", rather than "Vos querés / Tú quieres"). Countries that feature voseo. ...

The name Rioplatense is applied to the particular dialect, spoken around the mouth of the Río de la Plata and the lower course of the Paraná River, where vos is always used, with verb conjugations that resemble those of the Castilian second person plural. This area comprises the most populated 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 also the most prominent form throughout the country, though it does coexist with usted and the lesser used tú. Vos is regarded as the unofficial standard, but it is not used in public discourse, the media or television. To complicate things more, in Ecuador the choice of pronoun to be used depends on the participants' likeness in age and/or social status. Based on these factors, the addresser can assess himself as being an equal, superior or inferior to the addressee, and the appropriate choice of pronoun to be employed can then be made. Ecuadorians 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.

Vos can be heard throughout most of Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, and a small part of Peru as well, but in these places it is reproached as substandard and the speech of the uneducated and ignorant. It is also used as the unofficial standard in the Department of Antioquia (Colombia), in Maracaibo (Venezuela), in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the State of Chiapas in Mexico.

In Chile, tú is the preferred pronoun in all normal and educated speech. Vos is used, pronounced with an aspiration at the end instead of s. When so pronounced, it is always derisive to some extent, with the magnitude of this disdain depending on the inflection of speech. In this form, it is used in informal speech between very close friends as playful banter (usually among men), but even then a change in inflection can change the meaning of a statement, which can result in an offensive comment.

A usage similar to voseo is vos with the verb in the grammatically plural form (as if it were vosotros). It appears as a formal or disrespectfully familiar use in the works of the Spanish Golden Century/Golden Age and period works placed in that era. In Colombia, the choice of second person singular varies with location. In most of inland Colombia (chiefly the Andean region), usted is the pronoun of choice for all situations, even in speaking between friends or family, but in large cities (Bogotá mainly), the use of tú is becoming more accepted in informal situations, especially between young interlocutors of the opposite sex and among young women. In Valle del Cauca (Cali), Antioquia (Medellín) and the Pacific coast, the pronouns used are vos/usted. On the Caribbean coast (mainly Barranquilla and Cartagena), tú is used for practically all informal situations and many formal situations, usted being reserved for the most formal environments. A peculiarity occurs in Boyacá and among older speakers in Bogotá: usted is replaced by sumercé for formal situations (it is relatively easy to spot a Boyacense by his/her use of this pronoun). Sumercé comes from su merced ("your mercy"). The siglo de oro (a Spanish-language phrase meaning golden century) was to the great age of Spanish wealth and power, roughly from the early-to-mid-16th century to the early-to-mid-17th century. ... Planes view of the Andes, Peru. ... Motto: Bogotá, 2600 metros más cerca de las estrellas Bogotá, 2600 meters closer to the stars Localities (localidades) of Bogotá Country Colombia Department Bogotá, D.C.* Foundation August 6, 1538 Government  - Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzón, PDA Area  - City 1,587 km²  (612. ... Valle del Cauca is a department of Colombia. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Motto: Capital Medellín Governor Area 63,612 km² Population  - Total (2003)  - Density   5,750,478 90 people/km² Adjective antioqueño Antioquia was one of the states in the original United States of Colombia, and is now a department in the northwest part of the Republic of Colombia. ... Nickname: Location of the city (urban in red) and municipality (dark gray) of Medellín in Antioquia Department. ... The Pacific Ocean (from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, peaceful sea, bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan) is the largest of the Earths oceanic divisions. ... Map of Central America and the Caribbean Caribbean Sea from space (top left). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other places of the same name, see Cartagena Bocagrande Cartagena San Pedro Square,Old City Cartagena Cartagena, Colombia, also known as Cartagena de Indias, is a large seaport on the north coast of Colombia. ... Motto: Capital Tunja Governor Jorge Eduardo Londoño Area 23,189 km² Population  - Total (2003)  - Density   1,411,239 61 people/km² Adjective Boyaca (Spanish: Boyacá) is a department of Colombia, one of the original nine states of the United States of Colombia. Boyacá is centrally located within Colombia, almost...

In parts of Spain, fifty years ago a child would not use tú but usted to address a parent. This would be very unusual today. Among the factors for the ongoing substitution are the new social relevance of youth and the reduction of social differences. Being addressed as usted makes one feel older. It has also been attributed to the egalitarianism of the right-wing party Falange. By contrast, Spanish leftists of the early 20th century would address their comrades as usted as a show of respect and worker's dignity. Yoke and Arrows. ...

Joan Corominas explains that vos was a peasant form in classical Castilian, and since most Spanish immigrants to the New World belonged to this class, vos became the unmarked form.

Another explanation is that in Spain, although vos denoted high social status by those who were addressed as such (monarchs, nobility, etc.), these people never actually used the pronoun themselves since there were not any people above them in society. Those who used vos were the inferiors (lower classes and peasants). When the waves of Spanish immigrants arrived to populate the New World, they were primarily comprised of these lower classes and peasants. They would then want to raise their social status from what it was in Spain and would demand to be addressed as vos. Everyone thus became vos in the Americas, and the pronoun was transformed into an indicator of low status not only for the addresser, but also for the addressee. Conversely, in Spain today "vos" is still considered a highly exalted archaism that is confined to liturgy, and its use by native Spaniards is seen as deliberate archaism.

Speakers of Ladino still use vos as it was originally used, 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, hence vos is still used in Ladino much as usted is used in modern Spanish.

Other less frequent forms analogous to usted are voacé, bosanzé and boxanxé (by Moriscos), vuecencia, v/usía. The latter are short for vuestra excelencia and vuestra señoría. The most common analogous form of usted still used today is vusted, which can be heard in Andean regions of South America. Morisco (Spanish Moor-like) or mourisco (Portuguese) is a term referring to a kind of New Christian in Spain and Portugal. ...

Second person plural

In Standard European Spanish the plural of tú is vosotros and the plural of usted is ustedes. In Latin 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 and a Latin American will use ustedes. The verb conjugation for ustedes employs a grammatically third person plural form (even though ustedes is semantically second person).

In Argentina and Chile, school children are taught the conjugation of vosotros and are not taught to use usted at all. However, it is only a formality, as they rarely if ever use vosotros in real-life situations.

The only vestiges of vosotros in America are boso/bosonan in Papiamento and the use of vuestro/a in place of sus (de ustedes) as second person plural possessive in the Cusco region of Peru. Papiamento or Papiamentu is the primary language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (the so-called ABC islands). ...

Joan Corominas supposes that the vos forms in the Caribbean were perceived as slave-talk, and disrespectful for whites initially, and later for everybody. Joan Coromines i Vigneaux, in Spanish Joan Corominas (Barcelona, 1905 - Pineda de Mar, Catalonia, 1997), was a linguist who made important contributions to the study of Catalan, Spanish and other Romance languages. ...

The plural of the Colombian sumercé is sumercés/susmercedes, from Sus Mercedes ("Your Mercies").

In some parts of Andalusia (the lands around the Guadalquivir river and western Andalusia), the usage is what is called ustedes-vosotros: ustedes is combined with the verbal forms for vosotros. The Guadalquivir is the second longest river in Spain (after the Tagus). ...

In Ladino vosotros is still the only second person plural pronoun, since usted does not exist.

Conjugation of the second person

Changes in the pronoun also bring along a change in the second person of the verb. Speakers who use vos also replace the corresponding verb forms with other forms related to the plural form used with vosotros, either without the diphthongization of those forms or without the final s. When irregular verbs are observed it is obvious that vos conjugations are related to the vosotros forms. Some examples follow (note that in Ladino -áis is pronounced [aʃ], and the medial s in vosotros is voiced to [z]).

• "You speak" (second person singular)

Iberian Castilian - tú hablas (Andalusian Spanish pronounced tú hablah (the second a of hablah is opened)/tú habla'

Argentina and Central America - vos hablás

Uruguay - vos hablás, tú hablás

Chile - tú hablas, tú hablái, vos hablái

Colombia - usted habla, tú hablas, sumercé habla, vos hablás

Mexico - tú hablas

Venezuela (Maracaibo) and archaic Spanish formal singular - vos habláis

Ecuador - vos hablas, vos hablás, vos habláis

Ladino formal - vos favláis

• "You speak" (second person plural)

Iberian Castilian - vosotros habláis

Andalusian Spanish - ustedes habláis, pronounced uhtedeh habláih/uttede' hablai'

Canarian Spanish - ustedes hablan

Latin American Spanish - ustedes hablan

Ladino formal and informal - vosotros favláis pronounced vozotros favlash

• "That you lose" (subjunctive) - Note that perder is a semi-regular verb, with vowel alternation according to stress position.

Iberian Castilian singular - que tú pierdas

Central America - que vos perdás

Argentina - que vos pierdas

Ecuador - que vos pierdas

Uruguay - que vos pierdas, que tú pierdas

Chile - que tú pierdas, que tú perdái, que vos perdái

Colombia - que usted pierda, que tú pierdas, que sumercé pierda, que vos perdás

Mexico - que usted pierda, que tú pierdas

Venezuela (Maracaibo) and archaic Spanish formal singular: que vos perdáis

Ladino formal singular - que vos perdáis pronounced perdásh

Iberian Castilian plural - que vosotros perdáis

Andalusian Spanish plural - que vosotros/ustedes perdáis

Latin American Spanish plural - que ustedes pierdan

Ladino formal and informa plural - que vosotros perdáis pronounced ke vozotros perdásh

• "Come" (imperative mood)

Iberian Castilian singular- ven tú

Argentina, Central America, Uruguay, Venezuela (Maracaibo) - vení vos

Ecuador - vení vos, ven vos

Ladino formal singular - vení/d vos

Chile - ven tú, ven vos

Colombia - venga usted, ven tú, venga sumercé, vení vos

Mexico - venga usted, ven tú

Spain Spanish plural - venid vosotros

Andalusian Spanish plural - venid ustedes

Latin American Spanish plural - vengan ustedes/vustedes or vengan susmercedes

Ladino formal and informal plural - vení/d vosotros

The term voseo also applies when a pronoun other than vos is used but the verb immediately following is nonetheless conjugated according to the norms of vos: hence "tú subís, tú decís, tú querés" is still considered voseo. In linguistics, Alternation is when a set of morphosyntactic properties is phonologically expressed in two or more different ways in different words. ...

Verb tenses

Spanish has two ways to express an action finished in the past: the simple past called pretérito indefinido, and the compound tense called pasado perfecto:

• Yo he viajado a los Estados Unidos. "I have travelled to the USA."
• Cuando llegué, la vi. "When I arrived, I saw her."

In a few areas of Spain and some other places, the compound tense is preferred in most cases:

• Yo he viajado a los Estados Unidos. "I have travelled to the USA."
• Cuando he llegado, la he visto. "When I have arrived, I have seen her."

However, most Spanish speakers follow the oposite tendency to use the simple past tense in most cases:

• Yo viajé a los Estados Unidos. "I travelled to the USA."
• Cuando llegué, la vi. "When I arrived, I saw her."

Indeed, in Latin America, the compound past tense is used rarely, most notably when the action has been finished recently, to stress its immediacy, much like the present perfect in English, but even in those cases the simple past tense is prevalent:

• ¿Dónde estuviste? "Where were you?"

In this dialect, the first example of the compound past given above (Yo he viajado...) is grammatical, though it sounds affected or foreign. In fact, most Latin Americans would consider Spaniards uneducated by their excessive use of the compound tense. This tendency in Spain is regional though (mostly Galicia), and is not prevalent in the rest of Spain. Both French and Italian languages tend to use the compound tense when the simple past would be more suitable. The second example (Cuando he llegado), however, would be considered grammatically incorrect due to the presence of the compound tense in the clause started by cuando ("when").

In Latin America one could say "He viajado a España varias veces", "I have travelled to Spain several times", to express frequency or tendency like in English. It would be utterly incorrect to say " Ayer, he viajado a España" or " Yesterday, I have travelled to Spain" since it was a definite past stressed by the word yesterday. In Spain, people use the "haber + verb" to express things done in the past when the period of time considered hasn't ended, like "he comprado un coche este año" "I have bought a car this year". A Latin American would correct the individual by saying "Compré un coche este año" meaning "I bought a car this year".

More examples of the way in which the 2 tenses are used in most of Spain :

• "Hoy he cantado" / "Esta mañana he cantado" / "Ayer canté" / "Anoche canté"
• "Este mes he cantado" / "El mes pasado canté"
• "Este siglo he cantado" / "El siglo pasado canté"

Evolution

The Swedish Hispanist Bertil Malmberg held^[1] that there is a tendency in the evolution of Spanish to prefer syllables that end in vowels. In variants like that of Argentine gauchos, which were less subject to the standard, this leads to a weakening of final consonants like /l/, /r/ or /s/. The realization of syllable-final /s/ as a barely audible [h] or simply nothing is rather noticeable in many dialects, including the Argentine ones. In the Castilian variety, this tendency did not exist in the past but has recently appeared due to the influence of southern dialects (Andalusia, Madrid, La Mancha, etc.). Bertil Frans Harald Malmberg (August 13, 1889--February 11, 1958) was a Swedish author, poet, and actor. ... Gauchos taming horses in Corrientes Province, Argentina. ...

However, Malmberg and others have pointed out that in Mexican Spanish, it is vowels that lose strength, while consonants are fully pronounced. It has been 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. Timing, in linguistics, refers to the rhythmic qualities of speech in a given language, in particular how syllables are distributed across time. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... For other uses, see American English (disambiguation). ...

Mutual comprehension

The different dialects and accents do not severely block cross-understanding among the educated. The basilects have diverged more. As an example, early sound films were dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. Currently, non-Spanish (usually Hollywood) productions are dubbed separately into each of the major accents, but productions from another Spanish-language country are never dubbed. The popularity of telenovelas and Latin American music familiarize the speakers with other varieties of Spanish. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the languages speakers. ... Accents mark speakers as a member of a group by their pronunciation of the standard language. ... In linguistics, a basilect is a dialect of speech that has diverged so far from the standard language that in essence it has become a different language. ... 1902 poster advertising Gaumonts sound films, depicting an optimistically vast auditorium A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. ... In filmmaking, dubbing or looping is the process of recording or replacing voices for a motion picture. ... ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Latin American music, or the music of Latin America, is sometimes called Latin music. ...

Prescription and a common cultural and literary tradition, among other factors, have contributed to the formation of a loosely-defined register which can be termed Standard Spanish (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, preserving (for example) certain verb tenses considered "bookish" or archaic in most other dialects. In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for the use of a language. ... In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. ... Standard Spanish or Neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety or lect that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. ...

See also

List of dialects and varieties

Spain

• Andalusian Spanish
• Canarian Spanish
• Churro Spanish
• Extremaduran
• Murcian Spanish
• Northern Spanish
• Standard Spanish

The Andalusian dialect (also called andaluz) of European Spanish is spoken in Andalusia (including Gibraltar). ... The Canarian dialect (Spanish: dialecto canario or habla canaria) is a Spanish dialect spoken in the Canary Islands and in some parts of the southern United States by Isleño communities that emigrated to the Americas as early as the 18th century. ... Extremaduran is a Romance language spoken by some thousands in Spain, most of them in the autonomous community of Extremadura and the province of Salamanca. ... The Murcian is a dialect of the Spanish who speaks itself nowadays in the Region of Murcia and in the provinces of Alicante and Albacete, in Spain. ... Standard Spanish or Neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety or lect that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. ...

The Americas

• Amazonian Spanish
• Andean Spanish
• Antioqueño Spanish
• Camba Spanish
• Caribbean Spanish
  • Cuban Spanish
  • Dominican Spanish
  • Maracucho Spanish
  • Panamanian Spanish
  • Puerto Rican Spanish
  • Venezuelan Spanish
• Central American Spanish
  • Spanish of Panama
• Chilean Spanish
  • Chilote Spanish
• Cundiboyacense Spanish
• Equatorial Spanish
• Mexican Spanish (Central Mexico)
  • North Mexican Spanish
  • South Mexican Spanish
• New Mexican Spanish
• Paraguayan Spanish
• Peruvian Coast Spanish
• Rioplatense Spanish
• Santandereano-Tachirense Spanish
• Spanish in the Philippines
• Spanish in the United States
• Spanish of El Salvador
• Yucateco Spanish

Caribbean Spanish (español caribeño) is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. ... In Cuba, the Spanish language has some different features than in other dialects. ... This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... Puerto Rican Spanish (español puertorriqueño) is a Spanish dialect spoken in Puerto Rico and by people of Puerto Rican descent elsewhere. ... Venezuelan Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken in Venezuela. ... While Central America is politically divided into five sovereign states (excluding Panama), it is no more fragmented linguistically in Spanish than Argentina, Mexico or Colombia. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Chilote is the dialect of Chilean Spanish spoken on the southern Chilean island of La Gran Isla de Chiloé (English: The Great Island of Chiloe) or simply, Chiloé. It has distinct differences from standard Chilean Spanish in accent and pronunciation, especially influenced by Mapudungun (also known as Mapuche) and other... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... New Mexican Spanish is a variant or dialect of Spanish spoken in the United States, primarily in the northern part of the state of New Mexico and the southern part of the state of Colorado. ... Peruvian Coast Spanish is the form of the Spanish language spoken in the coastal region of Peru. ... Main urban centers of Rioplatense Spanish. ... Spanish is a language of enormous historical and cultural significance in the Philippines. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Caliche or Salvadoreño is a collection of slang words unique to Salvadoran Spanish. ...

Other dialects

• The Ladino language of the Sephardic Jews

Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish), Hebrew, Turkish and some French and Greek. ... In the strictest sense, a Sephardi (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Səfardim, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardîm) is a Jew original to the...

Other

• Spanish phonology
• Linguistic history of Spanish
• Spanish pronouns

Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with History of the Spanish language. ... The Spanish language has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. ...

External links

• Isogloss maps of phonetic variants in the Iberian Peninsula
• Map of Spanish dialects in the Iberian Peninsula
• Costa Rican Spanish Dictionary

References

Further reading

• Alonso Zamora Vicente, Dialectología Española (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1960) is highly detailed.