Salvadoran Spanish

Linguistic variations of Central American Spanish.

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.

Phonetics and phonology

Notable characteristics of Salvadoran phonology include the following:

• The presence of Seseo wherein /s/ and /θ/ are pronounced as [s]. Seseo is common to Andalusian and Canarian Spanish varieties.
• Syllable-final /s/ is realized as glottal [h] (except in the southern departments of Rio San Juan and Rivas).
• /x/ is realized as glottal [h].
• The pronunciation of intervocalic /j/ (orthographic y or ll) is "weak", without friction.
• Intervocalic /d/ often disappears; the ending -ado is often [ao].
• There is no confusion between /l/ and /r/, as in the Caribbean.
• Word-final /n/ is pronounced velar [ŋ].
• As El Salvador was part of First Mexican Empire, Salvadoran dialect adopted the voiceless alveolar affricate [t͡s] and the cluster [tl] (originally /tɬ/) represented by the respective digraphs <tz> and <tl> in loanwords of Nahuatl origin, quetzal and tlapalería [t͡ɬapaleˈɾia] ('hardware store'). Even words of Greek and Latin origin with <tl>, such as Atlántico and atleta, are pronounced with the affricate: [aˈtlãn̪t̪iko̞], [aˈtle̞t̪a] (compare [aðˈlãn̪t̪iko̞], [aðˈle̞t̪a] in Spain and other dialects in Hispanic America).

Pronouns and verb conjugation

Voseo

Main article: Voseo

"Vos" is the dominant second person singular pronoun used by many speakers in familiar or informal contexts. Salvadoran vos comes from Gothic Spain and was brought to El Salvador by militaristic Spaniards who owned the land. Its counterparts are French vous, Portuguese vós. 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. The preservation of voseo in Salvadoran Spanish was thanks to El Salvador's ties to the United States and Great Britain. When El Salvador became independent, it discontinued to have trade links with Spain, unlike other tuteo countries. El Salvador's main trading partners were the United States and Great Britain, thus Spain did not influence El Salvador's language anymore, and Spain changed to tuteo. In turn, English words influenced Salvadoran Spanish and voseo was conserved.

Ustedeo

Main article: Usted

"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

Main article: Tuteo

"Tú" is hardly used; the use of tú is limited strictly to foreigners. It is used in addressing foreigners familiarly and when writing correspondence to foreigners (again in familiar contexts).

Salvadoran Caliche / Caliche Salvadoreño

The definition for Caliche is an informal term for Salvadoran Spanish due to colloquialisms and unique indigenous lexical words that are different from Salvadoran Spanish. Caliche refers to the Nahuatl influenced dialect of Spanish spoken in El Salvador. Many words have gone through the process of deletion, vowel assimilation, or epenthesis to make it easier for the speaker to understand. Salvadorian Caliche is used across social classes, although professional individuals tend to avoid it because it is not considered "proper" Spanish.

For example, this table shows the difference between Standard Salvadoran Spanish and Caliche:

Español Salvadoreño	Caliche	English
Acá, así es la situación	Así es la onda	This is the situation
Está difícil	Está yuca	It is difficult
Sabemos progresar	Sabemos socarla	We know how to progress
Nos gusta salir a pasear	Nos gusta chotiar	We like to walk
Está fácil	Está chiche	It is easy

Words like this are unique to El Salvador, when heard by someone that is not Salvadoran they are not understood. Nahuatl's influence appears in the word ‘chiche’, which means "parte del seno de la mujer" (DRAE (breast area) from nahuatl chichi ‘mama,teta’). But chiche in El Salvador means ‘facil' (que no requiere gran esfuerzo/easy - it does not require much effort). Another word influenced by Nahuatl is the word guishte that means a piece of broken glass. This word does not appear in any dictionary so its origin cannot be traced, but the only hypothesis behind this word was proposed by 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.

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 further elaborates that such linguistic shortage indicates a possible generalization that in recent decades Salvadoran dialectology has failed to advance as rapidly as the comparative work in other Latin American nations.

Lipski, John M. "El español que se habla en El Salvador y su importancia para la dialectología hispanoamericana." The Pennsylvania State University, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

Further reading

• Aaron, Jessi Elana (University of Florida) and José Esteban Hernández (University of Texas, Pan-American). "Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation: Shifts in /s/ reduction patterns in Salvadoran Spanish in Houston." In: Potowski, Kim and Richard Cameron (editors). Spanish in Contact: Policy, Social and Linguistic Inquiries (Volume 22 of Impact, studies in language and society, ISSN 1385-7908). John Benjamins Publishing, 2007. Start page 329. ISBN 9027218617, 9789027218612.