Castilian and Spanish American Varieties
Castilian
Origin and Evolution
Derived from Vulgar Latin, Castilian arose in Northern Iberia. With the establishment of the independent Kingdom of Castile, its linguistic influence expanded throughout the central and southern peninsula. Alfonso X’s cultivation of romance poetry contributed to language standardization, fixing spelling and developing Castilian prose. The Catholic Monarchs further unified the language, culminating in the publication of Antonio de Nebrija’s Grammar of the Spanish Language (1492). This period saw Castilian’s literary splendor during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The Royal Spanish Academy, focused on linguistic correctness and purity, edited authoritative spelling guides, grammars, and dictionaries, establishing the current rules.
Northern Varieties
These varieties, from Castilian’s origin, are the most conservative.
Features:
- Differentiation between “s” and “z”.
- Laísmo and leísmo.
- Interdental pronunciation of final “d”.
- Distinction between present perfect simple and compound.
- Pronunciation of “s” as /x/.
- Relaxation and loss of intervocalic “d”.
- Aspiration of “s”.
- Extension of yeísmo.
- Implosive and duplication of prepositions.
- Confusion in verbal periphrasis with “duty” and “obligation” + infinitive.
- Noun gender confusion.
Southern Varieties
These varieties correspond to Castile’s expansion area and show greater development in their phonetic features.
Andaluz
Phonetic Features:
- Hissing or lisping.
- Aspiration or deletion of “s” at the end of a syllable or word.
- Aspiration of the phoneme /x/ (graphemes “ge”, “gi”, “j”).
- Confusion of “l” and “r” (implosive).
- Relaxation and loss of intervocalic “d”.
- Yeísmo and fricative pronunciation of “c”.
Morphosyntactic Features:
- Use of the personal pronoun “vos” for “tú”.
- Etymological use of pronouns “le”, “la”, and “lo”.
- Diminutives with “-illo” and “-illa”.
Canario
Phonetic and Morphosyntactic Features:
- Lisp.
- Aspiration of “s” and the phoneme /x/.
- Extension of yeísmo.
Lexical Features:
- Andalusian and Portuguese influences.
- Americanisms.
- Guanchismos.
Extremeño
- Aspiration of “s” and the phoneme /x/.
- Confusion of “l” and “r”.
- Loss of intervocalic “d”.
- Yeísmo.
- Diminutive suffixes “-ino” and “-ina”.
- Use of “it” as a pronoun.
- Leonese and archaic influences.
Murciano
- Aspiration and loss of “s” and the phoneme /x/.
- Confusion of “r” and “l”.
- Lisp.
- Diminutives with “-ico”, “-ica”, “-iquio”, and “-iquia”.
- Aragonese and Catalan influences.
Spanish American
Formation and Evolution
The evolution of Spanish in the Americas was shaped by the settlers’ origins, the influence of indigenous and African languages, and migration patterns. Settlement originated largely from Andalusia, initially concentrating in coastal areas. Southern varieties evolved independently from peninsular Spanish, while viceregal centers favored Northern varieties. The pre-Columbian indigenous languages, extraordinarily diverse, primarily influenced lexicon and place names. Spanish and Italian immigration also played a role. Recent decades have seen an influx of Anglicisms.
Linguistic Features
Phonetic Level:
- Lisp.
- Yeísmo.
- Aspiration of “s” in final syllables or words.
- Confusion of final “l” and “r” syllables.
- Aspiration of the phoneme /x/.
Morphosyntactic Level:
- Replacement of “tú” with “vos”.
- Absence of leísmo, laísmo, and loísmo.
- Use of the present perfect simple.
- Use of “recién” and “bien”.
- Adverbial use of adjectives.
- Tendency towards diminutives.
Lexical Level:
- Neologisms.
- Foreign words.
- Indigenous terms.
- Afro-Americanisms.
- Specialized applications.
Characteristics of Present-Day Spanish
Key factors shaping modern Spanish include political, social, and cultural changes, particularly the spread of education, media, and new technologies. This has led to the wider adoption of traits from different Spanish varieties and the influence of American English. Variations within the language manifest as dialects (diatopic), social levels (diastratic), and registers (diafasic).
Phonetic Level:
- Tendency towards syneresis.
- Loss of intervocalic “d”.
- Expansion of yeísmo.
- Expressive and emphatic stress on unstressed syllables.
Morphosyntactic Level:
- Gender variations.
- Preference for plural “s”.
- Preference for the periphrasis “ir” + infinitive.
- Disuse of the future and past subjunctive tenses.
- Adverbial use of adjectives.
- Transformation of intransitive verbs into transitive.
- Confusion of “deber” + infinitive and “deber de” + infinitive.
- Use of adjectives as nouns in compound words and apposition.
- Increased familiarity.
- Decreased use of relative pronouns “quien”, “que”, and “cual” in spoken language.
- Use of second person as subject.
- Queísmo.
Semantic Level:
The most notable phenomenon is the incorporation of neologisms, primarily through derivation and composition. Acronyms and initialisms are also common.
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