Cuban Spanish is most similar to, and originates largely from, the Spanish that is spoken in the Canary Islands and Andalusia. Cuba owes much of its speech patterns to the heavy Canarian migrations of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The accent of La Palma is the closest of the Canary Island accents to the Cuban accent. Many Cubans and returning Canarians settled in the Canary Islands after the revolution of 1959. Migration of other Spanish settlers (Asturians, Catalans, Castilians), and especially Galicians[2] also occurred, but left less influence on the accent.
Much of the typical Cuban vocabulary stems from Canarian lexicon. For example, guagua ('bus') differs from standard Spanish autobús. An example of Canarian usage for a Spanish word is the verb fajarse ('to fight').[3] In Spain, the verb would be pelearse, and fajar exists as a non-reflexive verb related to the hemming of a skirt.
Much of the vocabulary that is peculiar to Cuban Spanish comes from the different historic influences on the island. Many words come from the Canary Islands, but some words are of West African, French, or indigenous Taino origin, as well as peninsular Spanish influence from outside the Canary Islands, such as Andalusian or Galician.
The West African influence is due to the large Afro-Cuban population, most of whom are descended from African slaves imported in the 19th century. Some Cuban words of African origin include chévere 'wonderful', asere 'friend', and orishá 'Yoruba deity'. In addition, different Afro-Cuban religions and secret societies also different African languages in their practices and liturgies.[4]
Many Afro-Cubans in the 19th century also spoke Bozal Spanish, derived from the term bozales, which originally referred to muzzles for wild dogs and horses, and came to be used to refer to enslaved Africans who spoke little Spanish. Some elements of Bozal Spanish can still be found in the speech of elderly Afro-Cubans in remote rural areas, in Palo Mayombe chants, and in trance states during possession rituals in Santería.[4]
Due to historical commercial ties between the US and Cuba, American English has lent several words, including some for clothing, such as pulóver (which is used to mean "T-shirt") and chor ("shorts", with the typical Spanish change from English sh to ch, like mentioned above, ⟨ch⟩ may be pronounced [ʃ], the pronunciation of English "sh"). Anglicisms related to baseball, such as strike and foul, are frequently employed, with Spanish pronunciation.[5]
Phonology
Cuban Spanish is marked by a variety of phonological features that make it similar to, and distinct from, many other dialects of Spanish. Like other Latin American Spanish varieties, this dialect is seseante, meaning there is no distinction between ⟨s⟩, ⟨z⟩, and soft ⟨c⟩ sounds, differing from a Peninsular Spanish dialect. Cuban Spanish is also similar to most other Latin American dialects by using yeísmo; the letters ⟨y⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ are both pronounced [ʝ].[6]
Similar to speakers of other Caribbean dialects, Cuban Spanish speakers exhibit the weak pronunciation of consonants, especially at the end of a syllable. A syllable-final /s/ may either be aspirated and be pronounced as [h] or may even be deleted, in a process known as elision. Where some speakers would pronounce a word like estar ('to be') as [esˈtaɾ], pronouncing /s/ as alveolar, many Caribbean Spanish speakers aspirate the /s/ and produce [ehˈtaɾ],[7] or elide it altogether, pronouncing [eˈtaɾ].[6][7] This trait is shared with most American varieties of Spanish spoken in coastal and low areas (Lowland Spanish), as well as with Canarian Spanish and the Spanish spoken in the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula.
Take for example, the following sentence:
Esos perros no tienen dueños (Eso' perro' no tienen dueño')
[ˈesoh ˈperoh no ˈtjeneŋ ˈdweɲoh]
('Those dogs do not have owners')
Also, because this feature has variable realizations, any or all instances of [h] in the above example may be dropped, potentially rendering [ˈeso ˈpero no ˈtjeneŋ ˈdweɲo]. Other examples: disfrutar ("to enjoy") is pronounced [dihfɾuˈtaɾ], and fresco ("fresh") becomes [ˈfɾehko]. In Havana, después ("after[ward]") is typically pronounced [dehˈpwe] (de'pué'/despué').
Another instance of consonant weakening in Cuban Spanish (as in many other dialects) is the deletion of intervocalic /d/ in the participle ending -ado (-ao/-a'o), as in cansado (cansao/cansa'o) [kanˈsao] ("tired"). More typical of Cuba and the Caribbean is the elision of final /r/ in some verb infinitives, or merger with -/l/; e.g. parar, 'to stop', can be realized as [paˈɾal] or [paˈɾa] (paral/pará).
The voiceless velar fricative [x] (spelled ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩) is usually aspirated or pronounced [ h], which is also common in Andalusian and Canarian dialects and some Latin American dialects.
Another common characteristic of Caribbean Spanish is the tendency for other processes to affect consonants in the final position such as /n/ velarization and neutralization of liquid consonants.[8] Word-final /n/ becomes [ŋ], such as in the word hablan (“they talk”), pronounced [a βlaŋ #].[9][10] Syllable-final /r/ may become [l] or [j], or even become entirely silent. Final /r/ more frequently becomes /l/ in the eastern and central regions of Cuba.[11] For example, in words such as carne (“meat”) or amor (“love”) many speakers of this dialect will produce the words as [kalne] or [amol].[12] Postvocalic [ð] tends to disappear entirely. All of these characteristics occur to one degree or another in other Caribbean varieties, as well as in many dialects in Andalusia (in southern Spain)—the place of historical origin of these characteristics.
In some areas of Cuba, the voiceless affricate [tʃ] (spelled ch) is deaffricated to [ʃ].
There also exists a phonological feature unique to Cuba called the toque or golpe (“tap” or “hit”). This phonological process occurs within a consonant cluster that is composed of a liquid consonant, i.e., [ɾ] or [l], and an occlusive or nasal consonant, i.e., [p][t][g][b][t][k][n][m]. Instead of producing the liquid, a Cuban speaker may produce the glottal stop consonant [ʔ].[14] For example, a word like algodón ('cotton') will have the [l] phoneme substituted for the [ʔ] sound, producing [aʔ-go-ˈðon].
In western Cuba /l/ and /ɾ/ in a syllable coda can be merged with each other and assimilated to the following consonant, resulting in geminates. At the same time, the non-assimilated and unmerged pronunciations are more common. Example pronunciations, according to the analysis of Arias (2019) which transcribes the merged, underlying phoneme as /d/:[15]
/l/ or /r/ + /f/
>
/d/ + /f/:
[ff]
a[ff]iler, hue[ff]ano
(Sp. 'alfiler', 'huérfano')
/l/ or /r/ + /s/
>
/d/ + /s/:
[ds]
fa[ds]a, du[ds]e
(Sp. 'falsa or farsa', 'dulce')
/l/ or /r/ + /h/
>
/d/ + /h/:
[ɦh]
ana[ɦh]ésico, vi[ɦh]en
(Sp. 'analgésico', 'virgen')
/l/ or /r/ + /b/
>
/d/ + /b/:
[b˺b]
si[b˺b]a, cu[b˺b]a
(Sp. 'silba or sirva', 'curva')
/l/ or /r/ + /d/
>
/d/ + /d/:
[d˺d]
ce[d˺d]a, acue[d˺d]o
(Sp. 'celda or cerda', 'acuerdo')
/l/ or /r/ + /g/
>
/d/ + /g/:
[g˺g]
pu[g˺g]a, la[g˺g]a
(Sp. 'pulga or purga', 'larga')
/l/ or /r/ + /p/
>
/d/ + /p/:
[b˺p]
cu[b˺p]a, cue[b˺p]o
(Sp. 'culpa', 'cuerpo')
/l/ or /r/ + /t/
>
/d/ + /t/:
[d˺t]
sue[d˺t]e, co[d˺t]a
(Sp. 'suelte o suerte', 'corta')
/l/ or /r/ + /ʧ/
>
/d/ + /ʧ/:
[d˺ʧ]
co[d˺ʧ]a, ma[d˺ʧ]arse
(Sp. 'colcha o corcha', 'marcharse')
/l/ or /r/ + /k/
>
/d/ + /k/:
[g˺k]
vo[g˺k]ar, ba[g˺k]o
(Sp. 'volcar', 'barco')
/l/ or /r/ + /m/
>
/d/ + /m/:
[mm]
ca[mm]a, a[mm]a
(Sp. 'calma', 'alma o arma')
/l/ or /r/ + /n/
>
/d/ + /n/:
[nn]
pie[nn]a, ba[nn]eario
(Sp. 'pierna', 'balneario')
/l/ or /r/ + /l/
>
/d/ + /l/:
[ll]
bu[ll]a, cha[ll]a
(Sp. 'burla', 'charla')
/l/ or /r/ + /r/
>
/d/ + /r/:
[r]
a[r]ededor
(Sp. 'alrededor')
Morphology and syntax
Cuban Spanish typically uses the diminutive endings -ico and -ica (instead of the standard -ito and -ita) with stems that end in /t/. For example, plato ("plate") > platico (instead of platito), and momentico instead of momentito; but cara ("face") becomes carita.[16] This form is common to the Venezuelan, Cuban, Costa Rican, Dominican, and Colombian dialects.
Wh-questions, when the subject is a pronoun, are usually not inverted. Where speakers of most other varieties of Spanish would ask "¿Qué quieres?" or "¿Qué quieres tú?", Cuban speakers would more often ask "¿Qué tú quieres?"[18] (This form is also characteristic of Dominican, Isleño, and Puerto Rican Spanish.[19][20])
Cuban Spanish also frequently uses expressions with personal infinitives, a combined preposition, noun or pronoun, and verbal infinitive where speakers in other dialects would typically use a conjugated subjunctive form. For example, eso sucedió antes de yo llegar aquí, instead of …antes de que yo llegara… 'that happened before I arrived here'. This type of construction is found elsewhere in the Caribbean and occurs in all speech styles.[11]
Cuban Spanish uses the familiar second-person pronoun tú in many contexts where other varieties of Spanish would use the formal usted. While Cuban Spanish has always preferred tú to usted, the use of usted has become increasingly rare after the Revolution.[11]Voseo is practically non-existent in Cuba.[21] It was historically present in the countryside of eastern Cuba. Pedro Henríquez Ureña alleged that it often used the object and possessive pronouns os and vuestro instead of te and tuyo. Its present-tense conjugations ending in -áis, -éis, and -ís, and future-tense conjugations in -éis.[22][23]
In keeping with the socialist polity of the country, the term compañero/compañera ("comrade" or "friend") is often used instead of the traditional señor/señora.[24][25] However, Corbett (2007:137) states that the term compañero has failed to enter the popular language, and is rejected by many Cubans opposed to the current regime, citing a misunderstanding with a Cuban who refused to be addressed as compañera.
Many words in traditional Cuban Spanish can be traced to those of the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands.[26] Many Canary Islanders emigrated to Cuba and had one of the largest parts in the formation of the Cuban dialect and accent. There are also many elements from other areas of Spain such as Andalusian, Galician, Asturian, Catalan, as well as some African influence. Cuban Spanish is very close to Canarian Spanish. Canarian emigration has been going on for centuries to Cuba, and were also very numerous in emigration of the 19th, and 20th centuries.
Through cross emigration of Canarians and Cubans, many of the customs of Canarians have become Cuban traditions and vice versa.
The music of Cuba has become part of the Canarian culture as well, such as mambo, salsa, son, and punto Cubano. Because of Cuban emigration to the Canary Islands, the dish "moros y cristianos" (black beans and rice mixed together with traditional spices, different from "frijoles negros", which is a thick black bean soup served over white rice), also known as simply "moros", can be found as one of the foods of the Canary Islands; especially the island of La Palma. Canary Islanders were the driving force in the cigar industry in Cuba, and were called "Vegueros". Many of the big cigar factories in Cuba were owned by Canary Islanders. After the Castro revolution, many Cubans and returning Canarians settled in the Canary islands, among whom were many cigar factory owners such as the Garcia family. The cigar business made its way to the Canary Islands from Cuba, and now the Canary Islands are one of the places that are known for cigars alongside Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Honduras. The island of La Palma has the greatest Cuban influence out of all seven islands. Also, La Palma has the closest Canarian accent to the Cuban accent, due to the most Cuban emigration to that island.
Many of the typical Cuban replacements for standard Spanish vocabulary stem from Canarian lexicon. For example, guagua (bus) differs from standard Spanish autobús the former originated in the Canaries and is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn (wah-wah!). The term of endearment "socio" is from the Canary Islands. An example of Canarian usage for a Spanish word is the verb fajarse[27] ("to fight"). In standard Spanish the verb would be pelearse, while fajar exists as a non-reflexive verb related to the hemming of a skirt. Cuban Spanish shows strong heritage to the Spanish of the Canary Islands.
Many names for food items come from the Canary Islands as well. The Cuban sauce mojo, is based on the mojos of the Canary Islands where the mojo was invented. Also, Canarian ropa vieja is the father to Cuban ropa vieja through Canarian emigration. Gofio is a Canarian food also known by Cubans, along with many other kinds.
Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States. Over 43.4 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home (13.7%). Spanish is also the most learned language other than English, with about 8 million students. Estimates count up to 58.9 million native speakers, heritage language speakers, and second-language speakers. There is an Academy of the Spanish Language located in the United States as well.
The different varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from each other as well as from those varieties spoken in the Iberian peninsula, collectively known as Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in Africa and Asia. There is great diversity among the various Latin American vernaculars, and there are no traits shared by all of them which are not also in existence in one or more of the variants of Spanish used in Spain. A Latin American "standard" does, however, vary from the Castilian "standard" register used in television and notably the dubbing industry. Of the more than 498 million people who speak Spanish as their native language, more than 455 million are in Latin America, the United States and Canada in 2022. The total amount of native and non-native speakers of Spanish as of October 2022 exceeds 595 million.
The Andalusian dialects of Spanish are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varieties in a number of phonological, morphological and lexical features. Many of these are innovations which, spreading from Andalusia, failed to reach the higher strata of Toledo and Madrid speech and become part of the Peninsular norm of standard Spanish. Andalusian Spanish has historically been stigmatized at a national level, though this appears to have changed in recent decades, and there is evidence that the speech of Seville or the norma sevillana enjoys high prestige within Western Andalusia.
Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar.
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system, see History of Spanish. For details of geographical variation, see Spanish dialects and varieties.
Rioplatense Spanish, also known as Rioplatense Castilian, or River Plate Spanish, is a variety of Spanish originating in and around the Río de la Plata Basin, and now spoken throughout most of Argentina and Uruguay. It is the most prominent dialect to employ voseo in both speech and writing. Many features of Rioplatense are also shared with the varieties spoken in south and eastern Bolivia, and Paraguay. This dialect is influenced by Italian languages, due to the historically significant Italian immigration in the area, and therefore has several Italian loanwords and is often spoken with an intonation resembling that of the Neapolitan language of Southern Italy.
Mexican Spanish is the variety of dialects and sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in the United Mexican States. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, more than double any other country in the world. Spanish is spoken by over 99% of the population, being the mother tongue of 93.8%, and the second language of 5.4%.
Puerto Rican Spanish is the variety of the Spanish language as characteristically spoken in Puerto Rico and by millions of people of Puerto Rican descent living in the United States and elsewhere. It belongs to the group of Caribbean Spanish variants and, as such, is largely derived from Canarian Spanish and Andalusian Spanish. Outside of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican accent of Spanish is also commonly heard in the U.S. Virgin Islands and many U.S. mainland cities like Orlando, New York City, Philadelphia, Miami, Tampa, Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago, among others. However, not all stateside Puerto Ricans have knowledge of Spanish. Opposite to island-born Puerto Ricans who primarily speak Spanish, many stateside-born Puerto Ricans primarily speak English, although many stateside Puerto-Ricans are fluent in Spanish and English, and often alternate between the two languages.
Caribbean Spanish is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. The Spanish language was introduced to the Caribbean in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. It resembles the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands, and, more distantly, the Spanish of western Andalusia. With more than 25 million speakers, Spanish is the most widely spoken language in the Caribbean Islands.
Isleños are the descendants of Canarian settlers and immigrants to present-day Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Texas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and other parts of the Americas. In these places, the name isleño was applied to the Canary Islanders to distinguish them from Spanish mainlanders known as "peninsulars". Formerly used for the general category of people, it now refers to the specific cultural identity of Canary Islanders or their descendants throughout Latin America and in Louisiana, where they are still called isleños. Another name for Canary Islander in English is "Canarian." In Spanish, an alternative is canario or isleño canario.
Central American Spanish is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in Central America. More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Panamanian Spanish is considered a variety of Caribbean Spanish, it is transitional between Central American and Caribbean dialects.
Dominican Spanish is Spanish as spoken in the Dominican Republic; and also among the Dominican diaspora, most of whom live in the United States, chiefly in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Canarian Spanish or Canary Island Spanish is a variant of standard Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands by the Canary Islanders.
Colombian Spanish is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of Colombia are quite diverse. The speech of the northern coastal area tends to exhibit phonological innovations typical of Caribbean Spanish, while highland varieties have been historically more conservative. The Caro and Cuervo Institute in Bogotá is the main institution in Colombia to promote the scholarly study of the language and literature of both Colombia and the rest of Spanish America. The educated speech of Bogotá, a generally conservative variety of Spanish, has high popular prestige among Spanish-speakers throughout the Americas.
Panamanian Spanish is the Spanish language as spoken in the country of Panama. Despite Panama's location in Central America, Panamanian Spanish is considered a Caribbean variety.
Peninsular Spanish, also known as the Spanish of Spain, European Spanish, or Iberian Spanish, is the set of varieties of the Spanish language spoken in Peninsular Spain. This construct is often framed in opposition to varieties from the Americas.
Philippine Spanish is the variety of standard Spanish spoken in the Philippines, used primarily by Spanish Filipinos.
Nicaraguan Spanish is geographically defined as the form of Spanish spoken in Nicaragua. Affectionately, Nicaraguan Spanish is often called Nicañol.
Spanish is the most-widely spoken language in Ecuador, though great variations are present depending on several factors, the most important one being the geographical region where it is spoken. The three main regional variants are:
Isleño Spanish is a dialect of Canarian Spanish spoken by the descendants of immigrant Canary Islanders who settled in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States, during the late 18th century. It has been greatly influenced by adjacent language communities as well as immigration from peninsular Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Moreover, the dialect spoken by the Isleños who settled along Bayou Lafourche is differentiated as Brule Spanish.
1 2 Schwegler, Armin (2010). Fonética y fonolgía españolas[Spanish phonetics and phonology] (in Spanish). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp.408–410.
↑ Schwegler, Armin (2010). Fonética y fonolgía españolas[Spanish phonetics and phonology] (in Spanish). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp.408–410.
↑ Schwegler, Armin (2010). Fonética y fonolgía españolas[Spanish phonetics and phonology] (in Spanish). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp.408–410.
↑ Schwegler, Armin (2010). Fonética y fonolgía españolas[Spanish phonetics and phonology] (in Spanish). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp.408–410.
↑ Brumfield, Brittany; Carpenter, Lisa; Sloan, Loren. "Social Life in Cuba". Archived from the original on 12 February 2019. In a social setting, the use of compañero/compañera has almost entirely replaced the more formal senor/senora. This does not apply when speaking to elderly or strangers, where Cubans use formal speech as a sign of respect.
↑ Sánchez-Boudy, José (1978). Diccionario de cubanismos más usuales (Cómo habla el cubano) (in Spanish). Miami: Ediciones Universal. En Cuba, hoy en día, se llama a todo el mundo «compañero».
Guitart, Jorge M. (1997), "Variability, Multilectalism, and the Organization of Phonology in Caribbean Spanish Dialects", in Martínez-Gil, Fernando; Morales-Front, Alfonso (eds.), Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, Georgetown University Press, pp.515–536
Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (1940). El Español en Santo Domingo (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires.
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Cuba 
