Argentinian and Mexican terms!

"Hablo castellano limeño."

Probably a common phrase said by Limeños abroad when trying to distinguish their Spanish dialect from the rest Latin American dialects.

As I've said before in other posts, I really like the Colombian accent because it's very clear and understandable, but I recently read this Wikipedia article, which describes the Spanish dialect I speak and its main characterisitic: NEUTRALITY. The article is in Spanish, of course.

"El español peruano ribereño es un dialecto del idioma español que se habla a lo largo de la costa norte y central del Perú. Se puede decir que tiene hoy dos sociolectos principales.

La primera es la ribereña central o limeña, con origen en la ciudad de Lima de donde se irradió a toda la costa. Lima fue entre 1535 y 1739 la capital del imperio español en Sudamérica y su habla se convirtió en la más prestigiada de la región debido a su importancia política y cultural (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos) y al hecho que fue la ciudad que contó con el mayor número de títulos nobiliarios de Castilla fuera de España. Se trata aún hoy por hoy del patrón común que habla alrededor del 30% del total de la población.

Entre las características fonológicas principales están:

-La falta de un ritmo melódico característico, siendo el más neutral del mundo hispanófono.
-La no aspiración de /s/ en posición final de sílaba ante pausa o vocal (que se da en la mayoría de la América costal y sur de España) salvo ante consonante.
-La emisión correcta de la vibrante múltiple y la vibrante simple /rr/ y /r/ sin el asibilamiento característico de la sierra y otras regiones de América.
-El yeísmo
-La pronunciación entre pospalatal y velar de “j” y “g” ante e –i (nunca aspirada ni glotal como en todas las costas al norte desde Ecuador).
-En ocasiones la elidida /d/ final de palabra se hace sorda /t/ por ultracorrección.
-La /n/ fiinal es velar, no alveolar.

En lo gramatical el habla limeña propia se ajusta mucho a la norma lingüística general (americana), debido a la falta de contacto que tuvo la ciudad con el mundo andino y las lenguas autóctonas por siglos.

El habla de la costa del Perú, sin embargo, tuvo hasta principios del siglo XX su variante norteña, en la que se percibían similitudes con el español ecuatorial. Lo más resaltable fue el voseo en el tratamiento familiar, hoy totalmente desaparecido. También tuvo esta parte del Perú fuerte influencia del idioma muchik o mochica, hoy extinguido.

Existen formas sintácticas propias que se registran aún allí y lo mismo en la costa sur.

La otra variedad principal del español de la costa del Perú viene a ser la aparecida luego de la penetración de los hábitos lingüísticos de la sierra y del ámbito rural a las ciudades de la costa y la propia Lima, tras el gran trasvase de población que ocurrió desde la década de 1940."

I've got a question.

Isn't the adjective of Argentina Argentine? Not Argentinian?

<<First of all, I must say that as a native Spanish speaker I cannot tell the difference between the Uruguayan accent and the Argentinian one.>>

Probably in very much the same way as I, an Uruguayan speaker, cannot tell the difference between Mexican and Guatemalan, but I can spot a "porteño" a mile away. Also, there's no such thing as a unique "Argentinian" accent. If you can find no difference between what you consider to be Argentinian and a Uruguayan accent, then you're probably thinking of River Plate Spanish.
Even in this case, Argentinian River Plate accents (mainly Buenos Aires and Rosario) differ markedly from Uruguayan accents in intonation.

<<Con vos -> Contigo (Notice this one carefully, because I'm not sure if Argentinians or Uruguayans use "contigo". Also, Brazilians say "con voce" I think, which is quite similar.)>>

While we generally use "vos" for "tu", we tend to use "contigo" much more often than "con vos".


<<Argentinians and Uruguayans may be aware that they have a very strong accent, or maybe think that we (the rest of South Americans) have strong accents.>>

I'm aware everyone has an accent.

<<¿Qué pensás vos? (Arg) -> ¿Qué piensas tu? (Rest)
Vení para acá (Arg) -> Ven para acá. (Rest) >>

Also, in Uruguay only (as far as I know):
¿Qué pensás tu?

<<To end this, I must also mention that Argentinians and Uruguayans pronounce the "y" and the "ll" as you would pronounce "sh" in English, on the other hand, the rest of us pronounce it as Anglophones would pronounce "j". >>

It is true, the sound in River Plate Spanish is [S] (a bit like the English 'sh' in 'show') but also frequently [Z] (as in English 'meaSure').

"but also frequently [Z] (as in English 'meaSure')."

This pronunciation also occurs in some dialects of Castellano Caribeno.

*Caribeño

I know the correct spelling but my computer doesn't let me make the correct ~n. That is the closest I can get to it but to me it looks awkward spelling Caribe~no. I can write papers in spanish using characters but only on microsoft word but not for writing on the internet.

*CarloS* : eres un chepo!!!

Actually, even though Peruvian (I mean Limeño) Spanish is quite neutral in Latin America, I would find Español Ecuatorial (i.e. Spanish spoken in Coastal Ecuador) more neutral because it combines elements from both Peruvian and Caribbean Spanish. Peruvian Spanish has a very recognizable accent or "dejo".

It is interesting that the (almost) only variety of the language used in dubbing is Mexican Spanish. I don't know if it is because they have all the dubbing technology (maybe except for Argentina) or if it is considered the "standard" accent in Latin American.

What does the term "Tamacun" mean?

Hi Larissa and everybody,

My point of view, as a Spanish speaker is that as for the grammar, the differences between Peninsular Spanish and general Latinamerican Spanish are completely subtle. The same is true for the syntax.

When we talk specifically about the vocabulary, then matter changes. Spanish in Latinamerica has quite a lot of regionalisms, as a natural consequences of plants, animals, culinary terms, etc, that there ONLY are in this places, no matter of political divisions. The list of such words is huge, and by the way this is also a phenomenon in Brazilian Portuguese.

The other noticeable difference, and again, not speaking of countries as a block, but fragmented even in numbers of regions within a country is the melody, the accent. Somewhat like in USA, where there are well distinguishable accents, without forcely speak of dialects.

Now, as for the level of the language you hear in different regions, regardless the land, we are talking about level of education of course, richer or poorer vocabulary, or speaking with a more neutral melody or not.

I have spoken with Latinamericans from almost every country, Caribbean countrys included, and the mutual intelligibility always varied according with the education level. But the grammar was always the same!!! In the same way, in Spain you will find also people which speak Spanish with just the same amount of regionalisms as in Latinamerica.

I would say, that one can not speak of dialects when speaking of American Spanish, but of varieties, which is not the same thing. this diversity was a cause of what I mentioned above, and isolation between regions. (There are more than 10,000 km between Tijuana and Tierra del Fuego, several mountains, rainforests and deserts inbetween, which is a very good start point for regionalisms to appear)

Even though, in Spain, at least until 100 years ago, the Spanish language was by far more fragmented than in the American Continent. And I am not talking about Galician, Catalan and Basque, but only about Spanish speaking regions of Spain.

To conclude, American Spanish is more conservative than Peninsular Spanish, and a lot of words that we use are totally obsolete in today's Spain, but that doesn't mean that they are not valid anymore, they brought them here!!

If you learn standard Spanish, you will always be able to comunicate everywhere in Latinamerica. Just perhaps your days will be full of little, sometimes colourful surprises!!!.. :-) but it will be always Spanish... no dialects.

p.s. I am from Mexico, and I would perceive the pronounciation in central Mexico and Colombia being the most clear and neutral, and the pace slower than the rest. I am afraid that I will be taken as a chauvinist by more than one here, please do not misunderstand my point.

Sergio:

It's interesting, I've also heard other Spanish speakers in Antimoon say the same thing: Mexican and Colombian Spanish are the clearest. I think the same thing.