Equatorial Spanish

Dialectal map of Peru and Ecuador. Equatorial Spanish is in yellow.

Equatorial Spanish, also called Coastal Colombian-Ecuadorian dialect or Chocoano is a dialect of Spanish spoken mainly in the Coastal region of Ecuador, as well as coastal bordering areas of northern Peru and southern Colombia. It is considered to be transitional between the Caribbean dialects and the Peruvian Coast accents. The major influential linguistic center is the city of Guayaquil, Quito, Buenaventura, and Bogota. There is an important subvariety of this dialect spoken by the majority of African-descent communities dwelling on the border between coastal Colombia (Choco department) and Ecuador (Esmeraldas province) which give a touch of "African" style to the dialect on this area.

The particular intonation which identifies the speakers of these regions has been subject of study. American hispanicist Peter Boyd Bowman quoted in 1953 "a phonetic continuity between the coasts of northern Peru, Ecuador and southern Colombia(...) opposite to the dialects of their Andean provinces." He believed that "the current borders of Ecuador with its neighboring countries are not natural, since they do not match cultural nor linguistic criteria (Spanish is spoken the same way on both sides), neither match old political boundaries (either Inca or colonial)." In a recent study, American John Lipski also considered the dialect of northern coastal Peru as a distinct Spanish variety based on phonetic features.

Notable phonological characteristics

It presents markedly attenuated Caribbean features:

References