Spanish as spoken in the Philippines contains a number of features that distinguishes it from other varieties of Spanish, combining features from both Peninsular and Latin American varieties of the language. Philippine Spanish also employs vocabulary unique to the dialect, reflecting influence from the native languages of the Philippines as well as broader sociolinguistic trends in Spanish, and is considered to be more linguistically conservative and uniform than Spanish spoken elsewhere.
Officially regulated by the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language (AFLE), up to a million people in the Philippines are claimed to be either proficient in or have knowledge of Spanish,[3] with around 4,000 people claiming Spanish as their native language,[1] although estimates vary widely.
Distribution and number of speakers
Philippine Spanish speakers may be found nationwide, mostly in urban areas but with the largest concentration of speakers in Metro Manila. Smaller communities are found particularly in regions where the economy is dominated by large agricultural plantations, such as the sugarcane-producing regions of Negros, particularly around Bacolod and Dumaguete, and in the fruit-producing regions of Mindanao, particularly around Cagayan de Oro and Davao City.[5] Other centers where Spanish-speaking populations can be found include the cities of Cebu, Iloilo and Zamboanga.[6] Most native Philippine Spanish speakers are part of the country's middle and upper classes.[5]
Estimates as to the number of Spanish speakers in the Philippines vary widely, with estimates ranging from the thousands to the millions.[7] In 2014, the Instituto Cervantes (IC) estimated that there were around one million Spanish speakers in the Philippines, regardless of level of proficiency,[3] while in 2023 Maria Luisa Young, professor of Spanish and head of the Department of Modern Languages at the Ateneo de Manila University, estimated without confidence that around 500,000 people in the Philippines either speak or at least know Spanish.[8] A 2023 report by the IC, meanwhile, estimated that there are around 465,000 Spanish speakers in the Philippines, though only counting Spanish citizens in the Philippines as having a native-level command of the language,[a] including speakers of the various dialects of Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole, as limited-competence speakers,[b] and excluding Filipinos who studied Spanish in universities before 1986.[11] When counting native speakers, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported in the 2020 Philippine census that only 167 households nationwide spoke Spanish at home,[13] and a 2020 estimate estimated that this group numbered around 4,000 people,[1] but the actual number of native Philippine Spanish speakers living today may be impossible to determine.[14]
Accurately counting Spanish speakers in the Philippines is complicated by the Philippine government not keeping updated official statistics, with the last supposedly reliable statistics on the number of speakers dating back to 2008. That estimate placed the number of native Spanish speakers at around 6,000, with an additional two million Filipinos who speak Spanish either as a second or third language and another 1.2 million Chavacano speakers, and that number possibly being larger due to increasing interest in learning Spanish among Filipinos for professional reasons.[15]
In addition to reported estimates of speakers, it is believed that there is an undetermined but significant number of Spanish semi-speakers, Filipinos whose knowledge of Spanish is below that of native speakers but is considered to be superior to that of foreign students.[5]
Compared to other Spanish varieties, Philippine Spanish is among the least studied, and many contemporary studies that claim to talk about the dialect were, in fact, either dealing with Spanish loanwords in the native languages of the Philippines or, more erroneously, to the various Chavacano dialects to which it was often mistakenly confused for.[16]
Philippine Spanish has been described as being endangered,[2] or even totally dead,[17] with most speakers also being fluent in English and the Philippine languages, and the language having few native speakers under the age of 50, with many of its speakers also having learned other Spanish dialects and are living outside the Philippines either in Spain or in other Spanish-speaking countries.[17] In part due to the American colonization of the Philippines, where English was imposed as the language of government and education, and the implementation of a Tagalog-based national language (which later became Filipino),[18] use of Spanish declined, particularly after World War II when English was entrenched as the language of social prestige.[19] Spanish-speaking Filipinos mostly use the language at home, with use of the language in public being limited by a lack of speakers and hostility from non-Spanish-speaking Filipinos toward the language,[5] although many Filipinos who previously studied Spanish while it was still mandatory are capable of sustaining a conversation that reasonably approximates the language.[20]
This, however, contrasts with recent trends concerning Spanish in the Philippines more broadly, on the one hand due to changing attitudes toward the language among non-Spanish-speaking Filipinos,[21] and on the other due to the growing prestige of the language worldwide.[22] Interest in the language started growing in the 1990s, only a few years after the language lost its official status,[23] and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system,[24] with over 7,000 students studying the language in the 2021–2022 school year alone.[25] The local business process outsourcing industry has also contributed to the growing popularity of Spanish as Spanish speakers have a larger earnings potential than English speakers in the industry.[26] A new generation of Spanish speakers has since emerged as a result,[27] most of whom are second-language speakers,[23] and with some using the language to show national pride,[28] though there exists within this group a smaller number of first-language Spanish speakers who are learning the language at home from their second-language parents.[27]
Phonology
External videos
Samples of contemporary Philippine Spanish speakers
Anna Balcells, founder of the Kalipay Negrense Foundation (2022)
Philippine Spanish phonology has been described as conservative and refined, reflecting the socioeconomic status of its speakers, and exhibiting features largely present in the standard dialects of Peninsular Spanish as spoken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,[29] with little influence from dialects such as Andalusian or Canarian nor from languages like Catalan or Galician despite significant immigration to the Philippines from those areas of Spain.[30] Nevertheless, a number of phonological traits still distinguish Philippine Spanish from Spanish spoken elsewhere as a result of earlier contact with Latin American Spanish varieties, contact with the Philippine languages and the development of Chavacano,[31] though unlike with Philippine English, Philippine Spanish phonology is generally uniform, with very little (if any) dialectical variation in terms of pronunciation between speakers of Spanish from different regions of the country.[5]
Distinction between y and ll
As in some dialects in northern Spain and some bilingual zones (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru) of Latin America,[32] Philippine Spanish has a phonological distinction between the sounds represented by ll (/ʎ/) and y (/ʝ/).[33][34] For example, calle ('street') is pronounced /ˈkaʎe/ (Tagalog kalye) as opposed to the pronunciation /ˈkaʝe/ found in most other present-day Spanish varieties.[35] The phoneme /ʎ/ may be realized closer to [lj] in the pronunciation of some younger Philippine Spanish speakers.[33] Sometimes /ʎ/ is depalatalized to [l] in word-initial positions: for example, lluvia ('rain'), normally pronounced /ˈʎubia/, is pronounced [ˈlubja].[36]
While yeísmo, which merges the two, is today considered extremely rare and idiosyncratic in Philippine Spanish,[33] it has been suggested that a more yeísta pronunciation was previously standard owing to the influence of both Andalusian and Mexican Spanish speakers in the 16th and 17th centuries,[37] as suggested by words such as caballo ('horse'), pronounced /kaˈbajo/ in many Philippine languages and spelled as such accordingly (e.g. Tagalog kabayo).[38] Speakers only shifted to a contrasting pronunciation, which was characteristic of the aristocratic Castilian pronunciation of the time, toward the end of the 19th century in the final years of Spanish colonization.[37]
Newer generations of Spanish speakers have begun adopting phonological features closer to standard Peninsular Spanish, including yeísmo, as a result of being educated in that dialect,[39] although the majority of those studying Spanish in the Philippines as a foreign language nonetheless continue to contrast both sounds.[40]
Seseo
Like Latin American Spanish, Philippine Spanish originally practiced seseo, where /θ/ is normally not distinguished from /s/. This is particularly evidenced by borrowings into the Philippine languages where, for example, circo ('circus'), pronounced /ˈθiɾko/ in Peninsular Spanish, became Tagalog sirko (pronounced /ˈsiɾko/).[38] Although seseo remains the dominant pronunciation today,[41] in a similar way to the introduction of a contrast between y and ll at the end of the 19th century, some native speakers have begun practicing distinción,[42] where /θ/ is distinguished from /s/, but do not always do so consistently.[43]
Newer generations of Spanish speakers have begun adopting distinción as a result of being educated in Peninsular Spanish, alongside a contemporary adoption of yeísmo.[39] Among those studying Spanish in the Philippines as a foreign language, most practice distinción although a large group of students nonetheless practice seseo, and among those who do practice distinción, most do so inconsistently.[44]
Pronunciation of plosive consonants
The consonants /b/, /d/ and /g/ are uniformly pronounced as plosive (hard) consonants in Philippine Spanish, contrasting with other Spanish dialects where these are usually softened to either approximants or fricatives.[43] While the softened pronunciations are also heard, this varies between speakers and even between individual phonemes.[45]
Of particular note is the pronunciation of intervocalic/d/, where it can even overlap with and is occasionally pronounced as [ɾ] as is the case in the Philippine languages.[45] This trait has also carried over to Chavacano and has influenced how the Philippine languages have treated Spanish loans as in the case, for example, of Spanish pared ('wall') becoming Tagalog pader.[43]
Intervocalic /d/ is also frequently elided, particularly with words ending in the suffix -ado.[43]
Palatalization and affrication
Before the close vowel/i/, /d/ and /t/ are often palatalized by Philippine Spanish speakers, becoming /dʲ/ and /tʲ/ respectively. Occasionally these may be affricated instead, becoming [dʒ] and [tʃ] respectively as in the case of Spanish loans to the Philippine languages. For example, Dios ('God'), normally pronounced /ˈdios/, may be pronounced [ˈd͡ʒos] (Tagalog Diyos), or tiangue ('open-air market'), normally pronounced /ˈtjanɡe/, may be pronounced [ˈt͡ʃaŋɡe] (Tagalog tiyangge).[46]
In a similar manner, speakers also occasionally palatalize /s/ to [ʃ] when placed before /i/. For example, negocio ('business'), normally pronounced /neˈɡosjo/, may be pronounced [neˈɡoʃo] (Tagalog negosyo),[47] and ciudad ('city'), normally pronounced /sjuˈdad/, may be pronounced [ʃuˈdad] (Tagalog siyudad).[48]
Retraction of /x/ to [h]
The velar jota sound (/x/) is present in Philippine Spanish, similar to standard Peninsular Spanish, though this is mostly retracted to glottal [h], which also occurs in Andalusian, Caribbean, Canarian, Central American, and Colombian Spanish.[49]
Merger of non-open vowels and bilabial consonants
Often interchanged in Philippine Spanish are the non-open vowels /e/ and /i/, /o/ and /u/,[50] and the bilabial consonants /p/ and /f/,[48] following a similar tendency in the Philippine languages.[47] For example, Filipinas ('Philippines') would be pronounced [piliˈpinas] (Tagalog Pilipinas), tenía ('I had') would be pronounced [tiˈnia], and comen ('they eat') would be pronounced [ˈkumen].[51]
No debuccalization of /s/
Unlike many Peninsular and Latin American dialects, syllable-final /s/ is not debuccalized, and is always pronounced as an alveolar sibilant ([s]) rather than as a glottal fricative ([h]).[52] For example, las moscas ('flies', as in the insect) is always pronounced [lasˈmoskas].[53] The retention of s is reflective of the influence of northern Peninsular Spanish dialects, although it is considered an unusual development in Philippine Spanish given the large number of Andalusian Spanish speakers among the last wave of Spanish migrants to the Philippines.[43]
In contrast, Chavacano speakers do practice syllable-final s-dropping, most notably among older speakers of the Zamboagueño dialect spoken in the Zamboanga Peninsula.[33]
Glottal stop
As a result of contact with the Philippine languages, the glottal stop[ʔ] regularly manifests in the speech of most (if not all) Philippine Spanish speakers, and is normally found in word-initial positions where the pronunciation begins with a vowel.[54] For example, alma ('spirit') would be pronounced [ˈʔalma].[55] This is also present when the word is preceded by a pause, which in other Spanish dialects would be subject to consonantal linking (similar to the liaison in French). For example, el hombre ('the man') would be pronounced as [elˈʔombɾe] in Philippine Spanish but [eˈlombɾe] in other Spanish dialects.[54]
The glottal stop also appears in some vowel sequences, serving to clearly delineate syllables from one another. For example, maíz ('corn') would be pronounced [maˈʔis], and baúl ('trunk', as in the luggage) would be pronounced [baˈʔul].[55]
[ɾ]–[l] shift
Philippine Spanish clearly distinguishes between the use of [ɾ] and [l], similar to standard Peninsular Spanish. However, earlier speakers may have interchanged both sounds, with /l/ becoming [ɾ] and /ɾ/ becoming [l] as in Caribbean and southern Peninsular Spanish dialects, and which was retained in the various Chavacano dialects.[49]
Despite this distinction certain words in the Philippine Spanish lexicon nevertheless reflect this earlier tendency to interchange both sounds, such as balasar, a variant of barajar ('to shuffle') which the dialect had preserved.[56]
Treatment of tl
Similar to Latin American, Canarian and certain Peninsular Spanish dialects,[57] Philippine Spanish pronounces the letter sequence tl in the same syllable. For example, the word atlas is pronounced [ˈa.tlas], not [ˈað.las] as in standard Peninsular Spanish.[58]
Philippine Spanish has been described as having no particularly unique morphological features,[59] although deviations from standard Spanish morphology and syntax have been reported as a result of Spanish's position as a minority language in the Philippines.[60]
Pronouns
Alongside Equatoguinean Spanish, Philippine Spanish is one of only two Spanish dialects outside of Spain to use the second-person plural pronoun vosotros,[61] although ustedes, standard in Latin America, has been reported as also being common in written texts.[62] The second-person familiar pronoun tú is also freely used, even in situations where the polite pronoun ustedwould be used instead,[61] and while the various Chavacano dialects developed the use of voseo, this development is absent in Philippine Spanish, which exclusively uses tú.[63]
Unlike other overseas Spanish dialects, Philippine Spanish is said to employ leísmo, where the pronoun le is used when referring to third-person masculine direct objects instead of lo as is the case elsewhere,[61] although others have said this only represents a minority of speakers and that Philippine Spanish speakers mostly use lo.[59] However, for indirect objects, the use of le is predominant, with a minority of speakers using la (laísmo).[59]
Possession and derivation
Indicating possession in Philippine Spanish is frequently expressed not through possessive adjectives, but rather by combining the object with the construction de ('of') and the possessor. For example, instead of nuestros parientes ('our relatives') as in standard Spanish, Philippine Spanish speakers would often say los parientes de nosotros (lit.'the relatives of us').[64] This also happens with the third-person possessive pronoun su, which parallels Latin American usage with speakers alternating between, for example, Este perro es suyo (lit.'This dog is theirs') and Este perro es de él (lit.'This dog is of him').[65] A similar phenomenon also defines the naming of certain flora, with fruit trees sometimes being called the tree of that fruit. For example, while Spanish has an actual word for an orange tree, naranjo, Philippine Spanish speakers would sometimes say árbol de naranja instead.[66]
In expressing derivation, the most commonly-used suffix for creating diminutives in Philippine Spanish is -ito, although -illo is also encountered but less commonly.[67] For augmentatives, the most commonly-used suffix is -ón, followed by -azo and -ote in order of frequency.[68] Meanwhile, for forming collective nouns, the most common suffix is -ada, followed by -aje when referring to people. For plants and produce, the most common suffix is -al, followed by -ero and -ar, but noun phrases formed by combining the name of the plant or produce, either with or without the standard suffixes depending on the plant or produce being discussed, with plantación (de) ('plantation [of]'), campo (de) ('field [of]') or sementera (de) ('land sown with') are also commonly employed.[66]
Negation
In certain cases, Philippine Spanish expresses negation in a manner broadly similar to other Spanish varieties. For example, the determiner más ('more' or 'else') is used to amplify nunca ('never'), nadie ('no one'), nada ('nothing') and ninguno ('nobody') and is normally found in a postnominal (after the word) position, but occasionally this is reversed by Philippine Spanish speakers with más appearing in the prenominal (before the word) position.[69]
Other cases exhibit deviations from standard Spanish usage. The negative adverbial phrase no más ("no more"), for example, is used in one of three ways in Philippine Spanish:[70]
To express exactness (Lo tiene al lado mismo no más; lit.'He/she has it exactly right next to him/her').
As an emphatic suffix (Estaba bromeando no más; lit.'I was only joking'). This use of no más is also found in Latin American Spanish, and is equivalent to the use of solo or solamente in standard Spanish.[71]
To express finiteness (No hay más carruajes; lit.'There aren't carriages any more'). This use of no más may have come about as a result of English influence, and is equivalent to the use of ya no in other Spanish varieties.
Adverbial no is also regularly paired with other adverbs to express negation, even if the pairing would be considered redundant in standard Spanish. For example, Philippine Spanish speakers often pair adverbial no with tan and tanto (or even tantito), both implying extent, as a substitute for no muy ('not very') and no mucho ('not much') respectively.[72] In a similar manner, Philippine Spanish speakers also often substitute tampoco ('neither') with también no (lit.'also no'),[73] which has been formally proscribed in standard Spanish,[74] and even tampoco itself is paired with no to create the redundant double negativetampoco no (lit.'neither no'),[73] which in standard Spanish is likewise normally considered incorrect.[75]
Over the centuries Philippine Spanish has developed a corpus of filipinismos (lit.'Philippinisms'), vocabulary and expressions that are unique to the dialect, of which some have even entered Spanish more broadly and others which have influenced the native languages of the Philippines. Philippinisms in Philippine Spanish are usually derived from a number of sources: words borrowed into Spanish from the Philippine or other foreign languages, Spanish words that have since fallen out of use in Spain or in Spanish more broadly, and Spanish expressions made by Philippine Spanish speakers or are otherwise unique to the country.[76] Since the mid-20th century, the Philippine Spanish lexicon has also been significantly influenced by English, similar to the situation with Spanish in Puerto Rico and the United States.[60]
Although there are efforts in documenting filipinismos, and people studying Spanish as a foreign language today still learn and use Philippine Spanish vocabulary,[77] many of them are in danger of disappearing due to the "foreignization" of Spanish language education in the Philippines (as Peninsular instead of Philippine Spanish is taught in schools), alongside poor documentation practices which lead to, among others, some expressions not being documented and some whose origin is obscured, and a lack of a stronger effort to compile a comprehensive dictionary of these expressions, or at least to include them in the Diccionario de la lengua española.[76]
From Latin American Spanish
Philippine Spanish incorporates a number of words and expressions from Latin American Spanish varieties, most notably from Mexican Spanish but also including influences from other dialects.[78] Words like metate,[79]tiangue and chongo reflect this influence, as well as the use of certain hypocorisms.[78]
Latin American influence in Philippine Spanish is also reflected in the use of Americanisms like maní to describe peanuts and hincarse to describe kneeling, instead of the Peninsular Spanish equivalents cacahuete (or even the Mexican variant cacahuate) and arrodillarse.[78]
From Peninsular Spanish
Much of the basic vocabulary of Philippine Spanish is also derived from Peninsular Spanish. For example, Philippine Spanish uses patata to describe a potato, the same as in Spain.[80] Some words do take on a different meaning in Philippine Spanish: for example, while speakers use the Latin American camarón to describe a shrimp (e.g. camarón rebozado),[81] the Peninsular equivalent gamba is also used but with a slightly more specialized meaning (in this case, a shrimp smaller than a camarón).[82]
In certain cases some words are used by speakers in a more-or-less equal proportion, such as with the Peninsular melocotón and the Latin American durazno to describe a peach.[83] In others, the Peninsular equivalent isn't used at all: for example, to describe an apartment the Latin American terms apartamento and departamento are used exclusively as opposed to the Peninsular piso.[84]
Anglicisms in Philippine Spanish can be classified into three types: those that are present in standard Spanish, those that are also found in Spanish as spoken in the United States, and a much smaller number of words that were borrowed into the language but still carry their original spelling and meaning from English. These include words like planta for 'plant' (instead of fábrica), sugestión for 'suggestion' (instead of sugerencia) and the direct importation of English words like avocado, jeepney and overol ('overalls').[85]
Because most Spanish-speaking Filipinos are also fluent in English,[5] English pronunciation also affects how Philippine Spanish speakers pronounce certain words. Some speakers, for example, would pronounce Europa ('Europe') as [juˈɾopa], as in English, instead of /euˈɾopa/.[86]
Unique words and expressions
Many words and expressions used by Spanish speakers in the Philippines are unique to Philippine Spanish, though a number of these have since entered the Diccionario de la lengua española and other publications of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). Some of the first filipinismos incorporated by the RAE into its publications include words like caracoa, barangay and parao, which entered the broader lexicon in the late 18th and early 19th century, and the number of filipinismos has ostensibly grown over time.[87]
Unique words and expressions in Philippine Spanish can be broadly placed into four categories:
Words and expressions borrowed into Philippine Spanish, or even Spanish more broadly, as a result of contact with the Philippine languages (such as bolo, which was borrowed from the Tagalog bolo,[88] or baguio to describe typhoons).[89] However, the extent of borrowing has varied: borrowing from the Philippine languages, or even from other languages like Chinese, into Philippine Spanish has been described as either being mainly limited to flora and fauna, contrasting with the significant influence played by Philippine languages in the development of Chavacano,[90] or as being more varied but with loans largely being limited to sociocultural domains like food.[91]
Words and expressions that have fallen out of use in other Spanish dialects, but were retained in Philippine Spanish (such as aparador to describe a wardrobe, whereas other Spanish dialects would use armario,[92] the use of aeroplano instead of avión to describe an airplane,[93] or the use of the dated phrase ¿Cuál es su gracia? [lit.'What is your grace?'] to ask for someone's name,[94] which has since died out in other countries)[95]
Words and expressions in Philippine Spanish that were developed in the Philippines by Spanish speakers and have no (or other) equivalents in other Spanish dialects (such as abrazador to describe a bolster pillow,[97]abogadillo to describe a paralegal,[98] or código to describe a cheat sheet)[99]
Many filipinismos that are commonly used in the Philippines, such as pan de sal and cundimán, by both Spanish and non-Spanish speakers alike have yet to be recognized by the RAE,[100] and calls have been made for their inclusion.[101]
↑ The Instituto Cervantes uses the term grupo de dominio nativo ('native fluency group'), counting monolingual Spanish speakers and bilingual speakers living in Spanish-speaking countries, but not monolingual speakers of other languages.[9] In the case of the Philippines, the report notes that the number of speakers belonging to this group (4,471)[10] is merely informative, and that this number is not included in the total number of speakers to avoid counting speakers twice.[11]
↑ The Instituto Cervantes uses the term grupo de competencia limitada ('limited competency group'), counting second- and third-generation Spanish speakers in bilingual communities, speakers of mixed language varieties, and foreigners living in Spanish-speaking countries whose native language is not Spanish.[9] In the case of the Philippines, Chavacano speakers are considered to have a limited competence in Spanish, a status also accorded to speakers of Papiamento and Chamorro.[12]
Related Research Articles
Spanish or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.
The Spanish language has two names: español and castellano. Spanish speakers from different countries or backgrounds can show a preference for one term or the other, or use them indiscriminately, but political issues or common usage might lead speakers to prefer one term over the other. This article identifies the differences between those terms, the countries or backgrounds that show a preference for one or the other, and the implications the choice of words might have for a native Spanish speaker.
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.
There are some 130 to 195 languages spoken in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages native to the archipelago. A number of Spanish-influenced creole varieties generally called Chavacano along with some local varieties of Chinese are also spoken in certain communities. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, as the national language and an official language along with English. Filipino is regulated by Commission on the Filipino Language and serves as a lingua franca used by Filipinos of various ethnolinguistic backgrounds.
Chavacano or Chabacano is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of speakers. Other currently existing varieties are found in Cavite City and Ternate, located in the Cavite province on the island of Luzon. Chavacano is the only Spanish-based creole in Asia. The 2020 Census of Population and Housing counted 106,000 households generally speaking Chavacano.
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.
Spanish was the sole official language of the Philippines throughout its more than three centuries of Spanish rule, from the late 16th century to 1898, then a co-official language under its American rule, a status it retained after independence in 1946. Its status was initially removed in 1973 by a constitutional change, but after a few months it was once again designated an official language by a presidential decree. However, with the adoption of the present Constitution, in 1987, Spanish became designated as an auxiliary or "optional and voluntary language".
In Spanish grammar, voseo is the use of vos as a second-person singular pronoun, along with its associated verbal forms, in certain regions where the language is spoken. In those regions it replaces tuteo, i.e. the use of the pronoun tú and its verbal forms. Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations for vos with tú as the subject pronoun.
Arroz a la cubana or arroz cubano is a rice dish popular in Spain, the Philippines, and parts of Latin America. Its defining ingredients are rice and a fried egg. A fried banana and tomato sauce (sofrito) are so frequently used that they are often considered defining ingredients too.
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.
Yeísmo is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme and its merger into the phoneme. It is an example of delateralization.
Chilean Spanish is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Standard Spanish, with various linguists identifying Chilean Spanish as one of the most divergent varieties of Spanish.
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.
The Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language is the language regulator for Philippine Spanish, the variant of the Spanish language spoken in the Philippines. It is one of two Spanish language regulators located in countries where the language does not have an official status nationwide, the other being the North American Academy of the Spanish Language in the United States.
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 and the Canary Islands.
Nicaraguan Spanish is geographically defined as the form of Spanish spoken in Nicaragua. Affectionately, Nicaraguan Spanish is often called Nicañol.
Andean Spanish is a dialect of Spanish spoken in the central Andes, from southern Colombia, with influence as far south as northern Chile and Northwestern Argentina, passing through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. While similar to other Spanish dialects, Andean Spanish shows influence from Quechua, Aymara, and other indigenous languages, due to prolonged and intense language contact. This influence is especially strong in rural areas.
References
1 2 3 Gómez Armas, Sara (May 19, 2021). "El español resiste en Filipinas"[Spanish resists in the Philippines]. COOLT (in Spanish). Archived from the original on April 6, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
↑ Gárate, Antonio (host) (February 9, 2023). "La hora Cervantes - 09/02/23". La hora Cervantes. Episode 170 (in Spanish). RTVE. 24 Horas. Archived from the original on April 10, 2023. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
↑ Abad Liñán, José Manuel (May 9, 2016). "Los últimos del español"[The last ones of Spanish]. El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on April 6, 2023. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
↑ "40.9 Adverbios de foco (V). Adverbios de exclusión, particularización y aproximación"[40.9 Focus adverbs (V). Adverbs used for exclusion, particularization and approximation]. Nueva gramática de la lengua española (in Spanish). Royal Spanish Academy. Archived from the original on September 24, 2024. Retrieved August 22, 2024. El adverbio no más (o nomás) es característico del español americano. Se usa con el sentido de solamente [...] pero también con un valor expletivo o puramente fático...[The adverb no más (or nomás) is characteristic of [Latin] American Spanish. It is used with the meaning of solamente [...] but also with a value that is expletive or purely emphatic...]
↑ Ramallo, Nené (February 5, 2022). "¿Cuál es su gracia?"[What is your grace ("name")?]. Los Andes (in Spanish). Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 13, 2023.
Lipski, John M. (2012). "Características lingüísticas del español filipino y del chabacano"[Linguistic Characteristics of Philippine Spanish and Chavacano](PDF). In Donoso Jiménez, Isaac (ed.). Historia cultural de la lengua española en Filipinas: ayer y hoy[Cultural History of the Spanish Language in the Philippines: Then and Now] (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial Verbum. pp.307–323. ISBN978-84-7962-812-3. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 20, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
Moreno de Alba, José G. (2011). "Sobre la eliminación del pronombre vosotros en el español americano"[On the Elimination of the Personal Pronoun Vosotros in the Spanish Language in the Americas](PDF). Cuadernos de la ALFAL (in Spanish) (2). Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina: 25–39. ISSN2218-0761. Archived(PDF) from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
Quilis, Antonio (1993). "La lengua española en Filipinas y en Guinea Ecuatorial"[The Spanish Language in the Philippines and in Equatorial Guinea]. Boletín Informativo de la Fundación Juan March (in Spanish) (Ensayo: La lengua española, hoy [Essay: The Spanish Language, Today], VIII). Fundación Juan March: 3–16. ISSN0210-4148. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
Quilis, Antonio; Casado-Fresnillo, Celia (2003). "Historia externa del español en Asia"[External history of Spanish in Asia]. In Ernst, Gerhard; Gleßgen, Martin-Dietrich; Schmitt, Christian; Schweickard, Wolfgang (eds.). Romanische Sprachgeschichte: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen / Histoire linguistique de la Romania: Manuel international d'histoire linguistique de la Romania[Romance Language History: International Handbook of the Linguistic History of the Romance Languages] (in Spanish). Vol.1. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp.1060–1069. doi:10.1515/9783110146943. ISBN978-3-11-014694-3. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
El Idioma Español en Filipinas (The Spanish Language in the Philippines), a documentary produced by the Asociación Cultural Galeón de Manila featuring several Spanish-speaking Filipinos (in Spanish)
Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
