Salvadoran Spanish

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Salvadoran Spanish
Español salvadoreño
Pronunciation [espaˈɲolsalβaðoˈɾeɲo]
Native to El Salvador
Region Central American Spanish
Native speakers
6.5 million in total (2019) [1]
L2: 19,200 (Instituto Cervantes 2019)
Early forms
DialectsCaliche
Lenca
Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Regulated by Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1 es
ISO 639-2 spa [2]
ISO 639-3
Glottolog None
IETF es-SV
Zonas dialectales del espanol de El Salvador, segun Azcunuga Lopez (2010).svg
Two varieties of Salvadoran Spanish by Azcúnuga López (2010).
   Caliche
   Lenca
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Salvadoran Spanish is geographically defined as the form of Spanish spoken in the country of El Salvador. The Spanish dialect in El Salvador shares many similarities to that of its neighbors in the region, but it has its stark differences in pronunciation and usage. El Salvador, like most of Central America, uses voseo Spanish as its written and spoken form, similar to that of Argentina. Vos is used, but many Salvadorans understand tuteo. Vos can be heard in television programs and can be seen in written form in publications. Usted is used as a show of respect, when someone is speaking to an elderly person.

Contents

Phonetics and phonology

Notable characteristics of Salvadoran phonology include the following:

Pronouns and verb conjugation

Voseo

In El Salvador, as in the other Central American nations, vos is the dominant second person singular pronoun used by many speakers in familiar or informal contexts. [10] Voseo is most commonly used among people in the same age group in addressing one another. It is common to hear young children address each other with "vos." The phenomenon also occurs among adults who address one another in familiar or informal contexts. "Vos" is also used by adults in addressing children or juveniles. However, the relationship does not reoccur when children address adults. Children address adults with usted regardless of age, status or context.

Ustedeo

"Usted" is the formal second person singular pronoun in Salvadoran Castilian. "Usted" is used in addressing foreigners formally, for acquaintances, and in business settings. Unlike nearby Costa Rica, "usted" is not the dominant second person pronoun for addressing a person.

Tuteo

is hardly used, though it is occasionally present between Salvadorans who aren't imitating foreign speech. [11] It occupies an intermediary position between vos and usted. It is used in addressing foreigners familiarly and when writing correspondence to foreigners (again in familiar contexts).

Postposed pronouns

In El Salvador, and neighboring areas of Honduras and Guatemala, vos, or more rarely usted, may be added to the end of a sentence to reiterate the listener's participation. This constitutes free use of the pronoun, unconnected to any of the arguments in the preceding sentence. Little is known about this phenomenon's origins. [12]

Syntax

In El Salvador and Guatemala it is common to place an indefinite article before a possessive pronoun, as in una mi tacita de cafélit.'a my cup of coffee'. Very rarely the possessive can be combined with a demonstrative pronoun, like aquella su idealit.'that his/her/their idea'. This construction was occasional in Old Spanish and still found in Judaeo-Spanish, but its frequency in El Salvador and Guatemala is due to similar constructions being found in various Mayan languages. [13]

Salvadoran Caliche/Caliche Salvadoreño

"Caliche" refers to an informal form of Salvadoran Spanish that incorporates colloquialisms and unique indigenous lexical words. It is a Nawat (Pipil)-influenced dialect of Spanish spoken in El Salvador. Many words have gone through a process of deletion, vowel assimilation, or epenthesis to make it easier for the speaker to be understood. Salvadoran Caliche is used across social classes, although professional individuals tend to avoid it because it is not considered "proper" Spanish.

This table presents examples of differences between Standard Salvadoran Spanish and Caliche:

Salvadoran SpanishSalvadoran CalicheEnglish gloss
Acá, así es la situaciónLa onda está asíThis is the situation
DineropistoMoney
Un Colón salvadoreñoUn Peso/ Un bolaOne Salvadoran Colon
Está difícilEstá yucaIt is difficult
Está muy ebrio/borrachoEstá muy bolo/ A verga/PedoHe/She is very drunk
Sabemos progresarSabemos socarla/ Le hacemos huevosWe know how to progress
Nos gusta salir a pasearNos gusta chotiar/VacilarWe like to go to outings

Words like this are not unique to El Salvador, and when heard by someone who is Salvadoran or from a neighbouring country they are generally understood. Nawat's influence appears in the word chiche, which means "breast". [14] But chiche in El Salvador also means "not easy”. Another word is guishte, [15] which means a piece of broken glass, which comes (from Witzti “thorn”). This word does not appear in any dictionary and its origin has not been traced; the only explanatory hypothesis that has been proposed is that of Pedro Geoffroy Rivas—an anthropologist, poet, and linguist—who believed that it came from the Pipil language, since El Salvador's Spanish has been heavily influenced by it.[ citation needed ]

Unfortunately, Caliche is not described in studies on Salvadoran Spanish. The philologist John M. Lipski points out that Centro American Spanish (including the Spanish spoken in El Salvador) lacks adequate sources for linguistic and literary research. Lipski suggests that this lack reflects a failure of Salvadoran dialectology to advance as rapidly as comparative work in other Latin American nations.

See also

References

  1. Spanish → El Salvador at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. "ISO 639-2 Language Code search". Library of Congress. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Canfield 1981 , pp. 65–66
  4. 1 2 3 4 Lipski 1994 , pp. 290–291
  5. Brogan & Bolyanatz 2018, p. 203.
  6. Lipski 1984.
  7. Brogan & Bolyanatz 2018 , p. 204, citing Canfield 1981, Hualde 2005 and Lipski 1994.
  8. Brogan & Bolyanatz 2018, p. 204.
  9. Navarro Tomás 2004 , Section 98
  10. Lipski 2000, p. 65.
  11. Lipski 2000, p. 66.
  12. Lipski 2000, pp. 67–68.
  13. Lipski 2000, p. 70.
  14. "chiche". Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish). Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  15. "Guishte". Diccionario Libre (in Spanish). Retrieved October 6, 2021.

Sources

Further reading