Cuban Spanish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Cuba, the Spanish language has some different features than in other dialects. Differences are most noted especially in the pronunciation of certain consonants, especially with relation to their syllabic position.
One of the most prominent features of Cuban Spanish is the aspiration of syllable-terminating S's, rendering the /s/ phoneme into [h].
Take for example, the following sentence:
- Esos perros no tienen dueños. ("Those dogs do not have owners".)
Phonologically in Cuban Spanish, it would sound like:
- [ˈesoh ˈperoh no ˈtjenen ˈdweɲoh]
Another instance of weak consonants in Cuban speech is the intervocalic (between two vowels) /d/. The pronunciation of several prominent Spanish dialects has an approximant allophone in this position, represented by [ð] (similar to English th in the).
In Cuban Spanish however, intervocalic /d/ is often deleted altogether (elision) if the resulting vowels can form a diphthong, as in many speakers of Andalusian Spanish and in fact much of the Spanish-speaking world. So the pronunciation of pescado and condado, but not, for example, nadar or madera.
- Standard: [pesˈka.ðo] [konˈda.ðo]
- Cuban: [pehˈka.o] [konˈda.o]
Another characteristic of Cuban Spanish is the use of the diminutive -ico and -ica instead of the standard -ito and -ita. But this use is restricted to words with -t in the last syllable; for example:
- plato (plate) becomes platico instead of platito
- cara (face) becomes carita however, just as in standard Spanish
This form is common to the Venezuelan, Cuban, Costa Rican and Colombian dialects. It is also common in Aragonese Spanish, from the region of Aragon in Spain.
[edit] Origins of Cuban Spanish
Of all the regional variations of the Spanish language, traditional Cuban Spanish is most similar to the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands in addition to Venezuelan Spanish. Cuba and the latter country owe much of their speech patterns to Canarian migration, which in the 19th and early 20th Century was heavy and continuous.
Much of the typical Cuban replacements for standard Spanish vocabulary stems 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 Claxon horn ("wah-wah!"). An example of Canarian usage for a Spanish word is the verb fajarse[1] ("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.
Lots of the vocabulary peculiar to Cuban Spanish come from the different historic influences in the island. A few words are of African origin, especially with respect to voodoo religious practices, and some Cuban music and food.
[edit] Evolution of speech
The Cuban Spanish spoken of in the United States usually has as its frame of reference the dialect brought by Cuban exiles between the period of 1960-1980. This Spanish is like an artifact preserved in time, though subjected to contact with English. Across the Straits of Florida, however, Spanish has continued to evolve, and probably more radically than it had in the half-century prior to Castro's Revolution.
Some of this change is natural, as occurs with all languages, demographic changes have had a great impact as well. From the period of 1960-1980 the majority of Cubans emigrating from the island were middle-class or upper-class, and white. The change in Cuban society was not only demographic, but also social and economic. All of these factors have historically had significant influences on language and speech. Still, while lexicon is more highly susceptible to social change, pronunciation is relatively more constant over time, and much of the phonological characteristics of Cuban Spanish have endured.
Cuban Spanish is also the variety learnt by students brought in from Lesser Developmen Nations by Cuba's international solidarity programs, such as Ethiopian doctors.
[edit] References
- ^ fajar at Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.
Another available reference is Post-Revolutionary Cuban Spanish: A Glossary of Social, Political, and Common Terms (Glosario de términos socio-políticos y autóctonos de actualidad (español-inglés)) by Jesus Núñez Romay. This book gives a good view of modern Cuban Spanish.
