Dominican Spanish

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Dominican Spanish is Castilian Spanish as spoken in the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola (Española in Spanish) and throughout the Dominican diaspora (mostly in New York and Miami). It is similar to Puerto Rican Spanish, Cuban Spanish and Venezuelan Spanish.

[edit] Phonology

Like many other dialects, Dominican Spanish features yeísmo: the sounds represented by ll (the palatal lateral /ʎ/) and y (historically the palatal approximant /j/) have fused into one. This merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a [j] or [dʒ] (these are the sounds in English York and John.) That is, in the Dominican Republic, se cayó "he fell down" is homophonous with se calló "he became silent".

The fricative /s/ have a tendency to become an indistinct aspiration or disappear or to become a voiceless glottal fricative, [h] at the end of syllables. This change may be realized only at the word level or it may also cross word boundaries. That is, las mesas son blancas "the tables are white" is pronounced [lah'mesah sɔn 'blankah], but in las águilas azules "the blue eagles", syllable-final /s/ in las and águilas might experience liaison with the initial vowels of the following words and remain [s] ([la'sagila sa'sulɛh]), or become [h] (the exact pronunciation is largely an individual choice).

In some areas, speakers tend to drop the final r sound in verb infinitives. This elision is considered a feature of uneducated speakers in some places, but it is widespread in others, at least in rapid speech.

The weak r, final or not, tends to be changed in many words by an i sound in the Northerly Cibao region and by Ls in the Eastern and capital city (Santo Domingo), i.e., the verb correr (to run) is pronounced correi and correl, respectively; perdón (forgiveness): peidón and peldón. This substitution for i is delicately (almost mutely) present in Andalusian Spanish, and the L use is prototypical, and more marked, in Puerto Rican Spanish, and is believed to be of African origin.

In the Southwestern region, the L sound is usually emphasized so much that it turns into an r, with the classical example being maldito (damned) turned into mardito.

The creation of diphtongs in everyday speech is common, like the phonetic contraction of "voy a" into "vuá" or "voá", or "¿para adónde vas?" into "¿p'ónde va'?". Another great example of strong contraction is the following phrase: "Taco 'tá 'co'ta'o", from "Taco está acostado" ("Taco is lying down").

Almost exclusively Dominican in use, is the placing of the second person singular pronoun tú before the verb in the question form: "¿Cómo tú estás?" instead of "¿Cómo estás tú?". Nevertheless, when using the more formal usted, instead of tú, the conventional word order is used.

Other differences with "standard" Castilian include subtleties like hypercorrection. Nevertheless, speakers of the Dominican variant of Castilian Spanish usually have no trouble understanding speakers of other Castilian dialects or visa versa.

Anglicisms (due to cultural and commercial influence from the United States) are extremely common in Dominican Spanish, more so than in any other Spanish variant, save for Puerto Rican and perhaps Northern Mexican Spanish.

The Dominican variant of Castilian may be related to that of Andalusian Spanish and Canary Island Spanish.

[edit] Dominican expressions that are different from Castilian Spanish

wild - Spanish: agresivo/-a, bravo/-a - Dominican: guapo/-a
pretty - Spanish: guapo/-a - Dominican: lindo/-a, bonito/-a

Una chica guapa: in Spain "a pretty girl", in the Dominican Republic "an angry girl"

the orange – Spanish: la naranja – Dominican also: la china
the tangerine – Spanish: la mandarina – Dominican: la italiana
the passion fruit – Spanish: la maracuyá – Dominican: la chinola
the papaya / pawpaw – Spanish: la papaya – Dominican: la lechoza
the money - Spanish: el dinero - Dominican: el dinero, also: el cuarto (i.e.: a quarter)

e.g., No tengo cuarto - I don't have money

a bit – Spanish: un poco – Dominican also: un chin
a little bit - Spanish: un poquito – Dominican also: un chin chin
small - Spanish: pequeño/-a - Dominican also: chiquito/-a
very small - Spanish: muy pequeño/-a - Dominican also: chiquitico/-a
a little baby - Spanish: el bebé, el pequeño - Dominican: el chichí
the boy - Spanish: el chico, el niño – Dominican: el varón, el muchacho, el muchachito, el tiguerito (i.e., the small tiger)
the girl - Spanish: la chica, la niña – Dominican also: la hembra, la muchacha, la muchachita)
the coach / bus - Spanish: el autobús - Dominican: la guagua
the motorbike taxi - does not exist in Spain - Dominican: el motoconcho
the scooter - Spanish: la moto - Dominican: la pasola
the jeep / SUV - Spanish: el (vehículo) todoterreno, el jeep - Dominican: la jeepeta
an old or rotten car - Spanish: un coche viejo / roto - Dominican: un carro viejo / roto, also: un tiesto (spoken: un tieto); (i.e. a cullet / shard / potsherd) and also: una chatarra.
the stranger - Spanish: el extranjero / la extranjera - Dominican also: el gringo / la gringa
the Haitian - Spanish and Dominican: el haitiano / la haitiana - Dominican also: el garzón (from the Frenchgarçon = "the boy" - sometimes used even for girls), el azulito / la azulita ("the blue one"), el moráo / el morado / la morada ("the violet one") - these may be used in a disparaging attitude towards Haitians.