Spanish language

In one recent thread it was discussed that Portugese language spoken in Brazil is very different from European Portugese. They are mutually unintelligible, it was claimed. My question is it the same situation with Spanish: European Spanish and Latin American Spanish? Or do the Spanish speakers have no such problems as the Portugese speakers do?

They are the same....

I live in Spain and South American movies are passed on Spanish TV quite often and there is no problem at all, apart from some regional usages (it also happens within Spain).

No, they are all the same, but each country has its typical accent.

My understanding is that the most divergent forms of Spanish are those of Mexico and the Canary Islands. The most conservative forms are those of the Andean countries which have been well-insulated against influences from English.

Otherwise, what Jordi and Ed have said is true. I think that you have to go to something as different as Gallician (Gallego) or Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) before some problems with mutual comprehension begin to arise. For example, Ladino speakers use the older Spanish Kanteka (Canteca) for "song" but some Mexicans I talked to once were unfamiliar with the word and one of them misunderstood me a little bit and said "No, it's canción. We say canción."

Yes, European Spanish and Latin American Spanish are intelligible.

Andean accent has a strong influence of Quechua. It generally changes 'o' to 'u' and 'e' to 'i'. Also, they use Quechuan words like "guagua" (baby).

In Ecuador, there are two different accents, not only one. The accent from the Coast is totally different from the one of the Andes (but they're obviously the same language). Guayaquil's accent is more related to the Lima's accent (1100 km away) than to the Quito's accent (only 300 km away). Both Lima and Guayaquil are on the Pacific coast, while Quito is in the Andes.

What about Spanish - Portugese mutual intelligibility in South America? Do they need interpteters when talking to each other?

What about Spanish - Portugese mutual intelligibility in South America? Do they need interpteters when talking to each other?

They do. The Spanish speaking ( both in Europe and South America )have a hard time understanding Portuguese.

It is quite easy to understand written Portuguese for an educated Spanish-speaking person (you would understand most of what is written) but it is very hard to understand spoken Portuguese.

<<Andean accent has a strong influence of Quechua. It generally changes 'o' to 'u' and 'e' to 'i'.>>

That's interesting. These changes also occur in Philippine Spanish (in both Castilian Spanish spoken by the elite and Chabacano, a Spanish creole spoken in the southern islands).

Philippine Spanish
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/philippi.htm

Chabacano
http://www.rogersantos.org/chabacano.html

On a personal note, I just discovered that my mother's family name, Legaspi, is of Basque origin. There are many towns and streets named "Legaspi" in the Philippines, named after the Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legaspi.

http://www.babylon-idiomas.com/eng/htm/resources-spanish-dialects.htm

A dialect is defined in linguistic terms as a language variety which is spoken in a specific territory. In the Spanish peninsula, for example, there are different dialects of Spanish. One should not, however, mix up the different dialects in Spain with the different languages spoken in the Peninsula: Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician.

The existence of dialects is a natural consequence of the dynamism of languages. For example, throughout its evolution, Spanish has adopted unique characteristics in the different places where it is spoken. Some of the dialects of Spanish in Spain are canario (from the Canary Islands), andaluz (from Andalusia), and madrileño (from Madrid). The different Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America also present national and regional variations. Thus, we can speak of an Argentinean, a porteño (from Buenos Aires city), a Chilean, or a Colombian dialect, among others.

The differences between dialects are usually limited to intonation, pronunciation and isolated words and expressions. An example of word variation within the Spanish peninsula is “candle”. Candle is referred to as “vela” in the northern and center parts of Spain, but as “candela” in the South. As for pronunciation, the word “Madrid” is pronounced in the capital of Spain as “Madrith”, whereas in the bilingual areas of the East coast, and because of the contact between Spanish and Catalan, it becomes “Madrit”. In the South, however, people tend to eliminate the final consonant and say “Madrí”.

One of the main differences between the dialects of Spain and those of Latin America is the use of pronouns. Thus, in Spain, the informal pronoun that has remained for the second person singular (in English “you”) is “tú”. However, some Latin American countries, (Argentina, Uruguay or Paraguay, for example) have retained the pre-modern “vos”. This leads to unique verb forms such as “¿entendés?” for “do you understand?” instead of the peninsular “¿entiendes?” or mixtures such as “¿Vos te marchás ya?” Instead of “¿Tú te marchas ya?” (In English, “are you leaving now?”).

The plural “you” also varies, and thus in Spain people differentiate between an informal “vosotros” and a formal “ustedes”, whereas this difference does not exist in Latin America at all. As for pronunciation differences, the only country where we can find speakers who pronounce the letter “c” before “e” and “i” as the English “th” is Spain. In the rest of the countries, (and also in the South of Spain) this “c” is pronounced as an “s”. Try to pronounce the word “cenicero” (ashtray) in both ways and you´ll hear the difference!


Even though dialects are socially valued differently (Andalusian, for example, is perceived as less educated than Castilian), linguistically speaking all dialects are equally valid. What we need to remember is that everyone speaks a dialect, and therefore dialects are NOT incorrect or less valid versions of a language. If you study Spanish in Buenos Aires and interact -as you should- with locals, you will learn the particularities of that area.

At your Babylon language school, however, you will always be taught the normative version of the language that will allow you to communicate with the totality of the Spanish-speaking world.

http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1998.4/msg01195.html


Well, actually, I'm not surprised too much by your experience,
although I have always though of Bolivian Spanish as pretty close to
'levelled' Spanish (in a sense I'll clarify in a minute, but the most
normal of which varieties I have always considered to be Mexican Spanish).
I dont of course mean anything derogatory by 'levelled', but simply that,
compared to other varieties of the language, it uses fewer 'rules'. In
this sense, Midwestern American English, a variety of which I speak, would
be the 'leveled' form of English (most other varieties of English can be
described as this variety plus some additional pronunciation rules, or
changes, plus some vocabulary differences). Once, when I was a sophomore
in college, I found myself alone with a junior from New Hampshire and a
freshman from South Carolina. I could understand both easily, having
grown up in Toledo, Ohio, and lived several years in Nashville, Tennessee,
and one year in Boston. However, neither could understand the other,
although they could understand me. So I acted as an instantaneous
translator, simply repeating what each one said. The good news is that
the freshman wound up living with us, and after a short time, everybody
could understand everybody else, so if you keep in contact with South
Americans (you'll find Argentines perhaps the hardest to understand),
you'll pick up on the variety in question. So it's not just you; even
native Spanish speakers sometimes have trouble at first with speakers of
other varieties.
Jim

James L. Fidelholtz e-mail: jfidel@cen.buap.mx
Maestri'a en Ciencias del Lenguaje
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
Beneme'rita Universidad Auto'noma de Puebla, ME'XICO

Yes, there is no difference between "ustedes" and "vosotros" in Latin America, but the actual reason is not that they've merged, but that the "vosotros" form is no longer used in Latin American Spanish. I'm not even sure how to conjugate a verb in "vosotros". I just wasn't taught this in school because it wasn't applicable. I suppose it would be close to Italian "-ate, -ete, -ite"

<<I'm not even sure how to conjugate a verb in "vosotros". I just wasn't taught this in school because it wasn't applicable. I suppose it would be close to Italian "-ate, -ete, -ite">>

vosotros: -áis, -éis, -ís

Referring to what Tomás said about Rioplatense use of "vos"...in my time in Buenos Aires I almost never heard the "tú" form used..."vos' is so universal there that now it seems unnatural for me to use "tú" or its verb forms when I speak Spanish. Many Argentines commented to me that "tú" sounds like an archaic or poetic form (I suppose kinda like "thou" in English) but of course they all understand it.