Spanish language as characteristically spoken by Puerto Ricans
Puerto Rican Spanish
is the
variety
of the
Spanish language
as characteristically spoken in
Puerto Rico
and by millions of people of
Puerto Rican descent
living in the
United States
and elsewhere.
[2]
It belongs to the group of
Caribbean Spanish
variants and, as such, is largely derived from
Canarian Spanish
and
Andalusian Spanish
. Outside of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican accent of Spanish is also commonly heard in the
U.S. Virgin Islands
and many U.S. mainland cities like
Orlando
,
New York City
,
Philadelphia
,
Miami
,
Tampa
,
Boston
,
Cleveland
, and
Chicago
, among others. However, not all stateside Puerto Ricans have knowledge of Spanish. Opposite to island-born Puerto Ricans who primarily speak Spanish, many stateside-born Puerto Ricans primarily speak English, although many stateside Puerto-Ricans are fluent in Spanish and English, and often alternate between the two languages.
[3]
Influences
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Andalusia and the Canary Islands
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]
Since most of the original farmers and commoners of
Puerto Rico
between the 15th and 18th centuries came from
Andalusia
(Andalucia), the basis for most of Puerto Rican Spanish is
Andalusian Spanish
(particularly that of
Seville
) (Sevilla). For example, the endings -ado, -ido, -edo often drop intervocalic
/d/
in both Seville and
San Juan
: hablado > hablao, vendido > vendio, dedo > deo (intervocalic
/d/
dropping is quite widespread in coastal American dialects).
Another Andalusian trait is the tendency to weaken postvocalic consonants, particularly /-s/: 'los dos > lo(h) do(h), 'buscar' > buhca(l) (aspiration or elimination of syllable-final /s/ is quite widespread in coastal American dialects).
Pronouncing "l" instead of "r" in syllable-final position is also a trait of Puerto Rican Spanish that has similarities in Spain - Andalusians sometimes do
the opposite
, replacing the letter "l" at the end of a syllable with "r" (e.g. saying "Huerva" instead of "
Huelva
".
People from working class areas of Seville can sometimes sound almost indistinguishable from Puerto Ricans (
Zatu
, the singer of the band
SFDK
from the
Pino Montano
district of
Seville
being an example). This distinction is the main way of distinguishing between the two accents when examples in the "transition zone" exist.
Nevertheless,
Canarian Spanish
(from
Spain
's
Canary Islands
) made the major contribution to Puerto Rican Spanish, and can be considered the basis of the dialect and accent. Many Canarians came in hopes of establishing a better life in
the Americas
. Most Puerto Rican immigration in the early 19th century included people from the Canary Islands, who, like Puerto Ricans, had inherited most of their linguistic traits from Andalusia.
Canarian influence is most present in the language of those Puerto Ricans who live in the central mountain region, who blended it with the remnant vocabulary of the Taino. Canarian and Caribbean dialects share a similar intonation which, in general terms, means that stressed vowels are usually quite long. Puerto Rican and Canarian Spanish accents are strikingly similar. When visiting
Tenerife
or
Las Palmas
, Puerto Ricans are usually taken at first hearing for fellow-Canarians from a distant part of the Canary archipelago.
Later in the 19th century other Spanish immigrants from
Catalonia
, the
Balearic Islands
,
Asturias
and
Galicia
plus other European settlers?mostly from
France
(including
Corsica
),
Italy
,
Ireland
,
Scotland
,
Germany
, and even some
overseas Chinese
?settled in Puerto Rico. Words from these regions and countries joined the linguistic stew.
Puerto Rican Word
|
Normal Spanish Word
|
English Translation
|
Origin
|
Pana
|
Amigo
|
Friend
|
American English
partner
|
Chacho
|
Muchacho
|
Guy
|
Canary Island
|
Acho
|
|
|
Murcia, Andalucia
|
Babilla/Cojones
|
Coraje
|
Courage
|
Andalucia
|
Boricua
|
Puertorriqueno
|
Puerto Rican
|
Taino
Borinquen
|
Taino influence
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When the
Spanish
settlers colonized Puerto Rico in the early 16th century, thousands of Taino people lived on the island, but almost immediately fell victim to diseases brought from Europe (chicken pox, measles, smallpox, influenza and the common cold) to which they had no natural immunity. This caused the rapid decline and almost complete destruction of the indigenous
Tainos
within the first fifty years of exposure to the European colonists.
A great number of Taino language words like hamaca (hammock), hurakan (hurricane), and
tabaco
(tobacco) came into general Spanish usage, similar to the employment of indigenous words on the North American mainland by the English-speaking colonists, i.e., maize (corn), moccasin (moccasin), moose (moose). Taino names and/or Hispanicized Taino names for geographic locations such as
Arecibo
, Bayamon,
Caguas
, Canovanas, Guaynabo,
Gurabo
,
Jayuya
,
Luquillo
,
Mayaguez
,
Moca
,
Naguabo
and Vieques are to be found throughout Puerto Rico.
African influence
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The first
African
slaves were brought to the island in the 16th century. Although several African tribes have been recorded in Puerto Rico, it is the
Kongo
from Central Africa that is considered to have had the most influence on Puerto Rican Spanish.
[4]
In the early colonial period many African slaves in Puerto Rico spoke
Bozal Spanish
. Words like
gandul
(pigeon pea),
fufu
(mashed plantains), and
malanga
(a root vegetable), are commonly used and are of African origin. There also is the Afro-Caribbean/West Indian influence, for example many words and expressions come from
patois
and creolized languages from the neighboring islands.
United States influence and Puerto Rican anglicisms
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]
In 1898, during the armed conflicts of the
Puerto Rican Campaign
, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States as part of a peace treaty that brought the
Spanish?American War
to a sudden conclusion. The
United States Army
and the early colonial administration tried to impose the
English
language on island residents. Between 1902 and 1948, the main language of instruction in public schools (used for all subjects except Spanish language courses) was English.
Consequently, many American English words are now found in the Puerto Rican vocabulary.
English
has had a fluctuating status as a second official language of the Island, depending on the political party in power at the moment. The majority of Puerto Ricans today do not speak English at home, and Spanish remains the mother tongue of Puerto Ricans.
Stateside Puerto Ricans
are known to borrow English words or phrases in mid-sentence in a phenomenon called
code-switching
, sometimes characterized as
Spanglish
. Puerto Rican writer
Giannina Braschi
published the first Spanglish novel,
Yo-Yo Boing!
, in 1998, a book that represents the code-switching linguistic style of some Latino immigrants in the United States. However, this mixture of Spanish and English is simply an informal blending of languages, not a separate language or dialect, and is not a fundamental characteristic of Spanish or Puerto Rican culture. It is merely an occasional convenience used by speakers who are very fluent in the two languages.
Puerto Rico has representation in the
Royal Spanish Academy
and has its
own national academy
along with the Spanish-speaking countries of
Hispanic America
.
Accent
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Puerto Rican accents, both in
Spanish
and
English
, could be described as a reflection of
Puerto Rico
's historical ethnic cultures.
Puerto Rican Spanish, like the language of every other Spanish-speaking area, has its distinctive phonological features ("accent"), which derive from the indigenous, African, and European languages that came into contact during the history of the region. The accents of
River Plate Spanish
(
Argentina
and
Uruguay
), for example, were heavily influenced by the presence of
Italians
in those countries.
In the case of Puerto Rico,
Spaniards
arrived from many regions within Spain and brought with them their own regional dialects/accents. A large number of Spaniards came in particular from a region of southern Spain,
Andalusia
, and many others arrived from Spain's islands off the coast of North Africa, known as the
Canary Islands
. When visiting
Tenerife
or Las Palmas (Islas Canarias, Spain), Puerto Ricans are usually taken at first hearing for fellow Canarians from a distant part of the Canary archipelago. It is the accents of those regions that were as the basis of the accent of Spanish that is spoken in Puerto Rico.
The indigenous population of Tainos left many words in the names of geographical areas of the Island (
Jayuya
,
Mayaguez
, etc.), and others are used to name everyday items such as
hamaca
('hammock') or to describe natural phenomena such as
huracan
('hurricane').
Africans in Puerto Rico
were brought in as slave labor, mostly to work on coastal or lowland sugar plantations. They contributed a large number of words to colloquialisms and island cuisine, introduced words, and influenced the speech rhythms. That can be noticed by visiting the parts of the island where they have historically been present (almost exclusively along the coasts). Also, the Afro-Caribbean/West Indian patois/Creole linguistic presence is very strong and has influenced Puerto Rican culture, as is reflected in music (such as reggae) and culinary dishes.
Chinese Puerto Ricans
and other
Asians
who have established themselves in Puerto Rico also adopt the accent, but with a tinge of an East Asian.
The Puerto Rican accent is somewhat similar to the accents of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean basin, including
Cuba
and the
Dominican Republic
, and those from the Caribbean/coastal regions of
Venezuela
,
Colombia
,
Panama
,
Honduras
, and
Nicaragua
(particularly to a non-Puerto Rican). However, any similarity will depend on the level of education of the Puerto Rican speaker and their immediate geographic location. It also continues to be extremely similar to the accent of the
Canary Islanders
and
Andalusians
in southern Spain. Overall, most Puerto Ricans make an emphatic distinction between their accent and other Caribbean Spanish accents.
Features
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- Seseo
- In parts of Spain, it is considered proper Spanish for the letter "z" and the combos "ci" and "ce" to be pronounced similarly to the English "th", with the exceptions of Galicia, Andalusia/Andalucia and the Canary Islands. In most of Spanish-speaking Spain, the pronunciation of surnames ending in the letter "z" sound similar to the English "th". Example: "Lopez" and "Hernandez" are pronounced as "Lopeth" and "Hernandeth", etc.. Seseo refers to the pronunciation of an
/s/
sound for the written solo letter
⟨z⟩
and the letter
⟨c⟩
when followed by an
⟨i⟩
or an
⟨e⟩
. Examples of seseo:
zapato
is
/sa?pato/
, not
/θa?pato/
; and
azul
is
/a?sul/
not
/a?θul/
. The seseo-influenced Spanish is common throughout all Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
- Aspiration
or elimination of the
/s/
- In syllable-final position, (i.e., before a consonant or at the end of a word),
/s/
is debuccalized to
[h]
or eliminated altogether. Examples include
[lah
?rosah]
instead of
[laz
?rosas]
(las rosas, 'the roses')
[loh
ðoh]
instead of
[loz
ðos]
(los dos, 'the two'). This is also common in other "lowland Spanish" areas (Caribbean basin, River Plate, Chile, etc.) and in the southern half of Spain. The most common phrase this affects is "¿Como estas tu?" and "Como esta Ud?". Respectively, these sound like
[?komwe(h)ta(h)?tu]
and
[?komwe(h)taw(h)?te]
(See "Elimination of the letter "d" between vowels and at the end of words".)
- Glottalization
of
/x/
- /x/
is usually realized as
[h]
:
[lah
mu?he?eh]
instead of
[laz
mu?xe?es]
(las mujeres, 'the women'), and
[ho?se]
instead of
[xo?se]
(Jose, 'Joseph').
- Elimination of
/d/
between vowels
- /d/ under?oes
lenition
to the point of complete deletion (
/d/
>
[ð]
>
[Ø]
):
[eh?tao]
instead of
[es?taðo]
(estado, 'state'), and
[?to.o]
instead of
[?toðo]
('all').
- Elimination of
/d/
at the end of a word
- In that case, a stress is usually placed on the final vowel. Examples include
[pa??e]
instead of
[pa??eð]
(pared, 'wall') and
[ma?ð?i]
instead of
[ma?ð?ið]
(
Madrid
).
- Fricativization
of
/r/
to
[χ]
- Many rural Puerto Ricans do not roll their tongues on the
double "r"
sound in words (ex.
"arroz"
or
"carro"
), making it sound like the Scottish
loch
,
arroz
and
carro
are pronounced
[a?χos]
and
[?kaχo]
respectively. However, it is mostly a free variant of
/r/
, making
[a?χos]
and
[?kaχo]
interchangeable to
[a?ros]
and
[?karo]
respectively.
- Lateralization of
/r/
to
[l]
- The
/r/
that is the end of a syllable (not followed by a vowel) is often changed to an
/l/
, so that words like
"perdon"
(forgiveness) and
"Puerto Rico"
become
"peldon"
and
"Puelto Rico"
respectively.
- Realization of syllable- and word-final
/r/
- Aside from
[r]
,
[?]
,
[χ]
, and
[l]
, syllable-final
/r/
can be realized as
[
?
]
, an influence of
American English
on the Puerto Rican dialect; "
verso
" (verse) becomes
[?be?so]
, aside from
[?be?so]
,
[?berso]
, or
[?belso]
, "
invierno
" (winter) becomes
[im?bje?no]
, aside from
[im?bje?no]
,
[im?bjerno]
, or
[im?bjelno]
, and "
parlamento
" (parliament) becomes
[pa?la?mento]
, aside from
[pa?la?mento]
,
[parla?mento]
, or
[pala?mento]
. In word-final position,
/r/
will usually be:
- either a trill, tap, approximant,
[l]
, or elided when followed by a consonant or a pause, as in
amo
[r
~
?
~
?
~
l
~
?]
paterno
('paternal love').
- a tap, approximant, or
[l]
when the followed by a vowel-initial word, as in
amo
[?
~
?
~
l]
eterno
('eternal love').
- Retraction of
/n/
to
[ŋ]
- Word-final
/n/
is pronounced as
velar
[ŋ]
(
[ŋ]
is an allophone of
/n/
before
velar consonants
and word-final position), words include
consideran
[konsi?ðe?aŋ]
('they consider') and
Teheran
[tee??aŋ]
('
Tehran
'). The best and most well-known example of this pattern can be heard in the Puerto Rican pronunciation for the wide-spread use of the English word
man
which sound like "meyng".
- Shortening of words
- Puerto Ricans also often shorten words by eliminating whole syllables. Examples are the words
para
,
madre
, and
padre
("for", "mother", and "father"): Puerto Ricans may pronounce
para
as
/pa/
,
madre
as
/mai/
, and
padre
as
/pai/
. You will also hear the words
comadre
and
compadre
(female and male friend, respectively) pronounced and spelled as
comay
and
compay
. Another extremely commonly spoken, sung and written expression is
pa' ti
for
para ti
, meaning "for you" in familiar or intimate speech.
Effects of Spanish?English contact and bilingualism
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During the
Spanish?American War
and the early colonial period, English was imposed on island residents.
[5]
English is currently an official governmental language on the island
, but rates of bilingualism in Puerto Rico (with varying degrees of proficiency in English) are modest.
Given the sustained contact between Spanish and English in Puerto Rico and on the mainland, bilingual Puerto Ricans may exhibit contact phenomena (code-switching, borrowing, etc.) in both their Spanish and English.
Puerto Ricans descended from the large number of migrants who left the island throughout the 20th century can be found in numerous communities along the Eastern coast of the United States. In addition to major metropolitan areas such as New York, many Puerto Ricans also went to areas such as Connecticut, Chicago, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaii. Because of their high-rates of military enlistment, Puerto Rican communities are also found in other areas across the U.S. near military installations.
The accent of Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans living in mainland U.S. may be influenced by their predominantly English-speaking surroundings. Speakers maintain features of Puerto Rican Spanish, and their accents can also show influences of the area of the United States where they grew up. As "native bilinguals", their Spanish may include phonological features of the variety of American English that they speak (see discussion of
/r/
above).
See also
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References
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Further reading
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]
General
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]
- Navarro Tomas, Tomas
(1948).
El espanol en Puerto Rico: Contribucion a la geografia linguistica de Hispanoamerica
. Rio Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Etymology
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Phonology and phonetics
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]
- Aleman, Iris (1977).
Desdoblamiento fonologico en el espanol de Puerto Rico
(MA thesis). Rio Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico.
- Figueroa, Neysa L. (2000). "An acoustic and perceptual study of vowels preceding deleted post-nuclear /s/ in Puerto Rican Spanish". In Campos, Hector; Herburger, Elena; Morales-Front, Alfonso; Walsh, Thomas J. (eds.).
Papers from the 3rd Hispanic Linguistics Symposium
. Hispanic Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium. Somerville: Cascadilla Press. pp. 66?79.
ISBN
978-1-57473-014-2
.
- Lopez Morales, Humberto (1983).
Estratificacion social del espanol de San Juan de Puerto Rico
. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
- Medina-Rivera, Antonio (1997).
Variacion Fonologica y Estilistica en el Espanol de Puerto Rico
(PhD dissertation). University of Southern California.
- Valentin-Marquez, Wilfredo (2007).
Doing being boricua: Perceptions of national identity and the sociolinguistic distribution of liquid variables in Puerto Rican Spanish
(PhD dissertation). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
- Luna, Kenneth Vladimir (2010).
The Spanish of Ponce, Puerto Rico: A Phonetic, Phonological, and Intonational Analysis
(PhD dissertation). Los Angeles: University of California.
External links
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]