The Cuban dialect of the Spanish language ( Spanish Español cubano ) is a dialect , or rather the national version of the Spanish language , distributed in Cuba , where about 12 million people use it. As a result of mass Cuban migrations to the USA , about 2 million people use this option with varying degrees of frequency, mainly in the state of Florida , especially in the city of Miami . In addition, as a result of the fact that several generations of Cubans were educated in the USSR , it was Cuban Spanish for a long time that was actually the only kind of Spanish language that Soviet linguists encountered in practice. Cuban Spanish is a sub-dialect of Caribbean Spanish with slight differences between the dialect in the west and east of the island, mainly in intonation and vocabulary.
Content
History
As in other parts of the West Indies , the formation of the local dialect was influenced by the languages of the Indians - inhabitants of Cuba of the pre-Columbian period. Some words used in Cuba at present are of Indian origin, especially in colloquial speech or to refer to specific Cuban realities - ajiaco, anón, arique, aura, bajareque, batey, bejuco, bija, bohío, caimán, caney, casabe, cimarrón, comején, cobo, conuco, curiel, cutarra, fotuto, guagua, guajiro, guanábana, guanajo, guararey, guasasa, guayaba, guayo, güije / jigüe, güira, jíbaro, jicotea, jimagua, jutía man, majá, majamb manigua, totí, yagua, yarey, yuca .
Of all the regional dialects of the Spanish language, the Cuban dialect is most similar to the Canary dialect , this is due to the active migration of the population of the Canary Islands to Cuba in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Spanish speakers also emigrated to Cuba from the provinces of continental Spain - Galicia , Catalonia , Basque Country , Asturias , but their number and influence were insignificant.
Spoken and written Spanish in Cuba contains a certain number of words characteristic of the Cuban dialect - Cubanism [1] . Most Kubanisms are associated with vocabulary of the Canary dialect. For example, Guagua ("Bus") instead of the standard Spanish Autobús . The word Guagua originated in the Canary Islands and is onomatopoeic to the sound of a horn . Another example is the verb fajarse (“fight”) used in Cuba [2] , while the standard Spanish verb has the form pelearse .
Also, the Cuban dialect contains borrowings from English, French and Russian [3] . Thanks to American influence, the words Cuban dialect included Pulover (meaning "T-shirt") and chor ("shorts", with the typical transition of English "sh" to Spanish "Ch"). The unique political situation in Cuba led to the emergence of the words compañero / compañera (“comrade”) used instead of the usual señor / señora (sir / mistress).
The Cuban dialect of the eastern part of the island is closer to the dialect of the Spanish Dominican Republic .
Morphology and Syntax
The Cuban dialect is characterized by many features typical of Caribbean Spanish, among which are:
- The prevalence of the appeal to " you ", although in the east of the island there is also " you " ( vos );
- The vosotros pronoun in Cuba lasted longer than in other Latin American countries (until 1898 the island controlled Spain ), but now it is replaced almost everywhere with the standard Latin American ustedes ;
- like the Spanish dialects in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico , the Cuban dialect is characterized by the insertion of an excess pronoun in the sentence: Susana dice que mañana ella no va a venir (“Susanna said she would not come tomorrow”);
- Syntax features include word order inversion in an interrogative sentence (SVO instead of SOV)
- ¿Cómo tú tá (estás)? instead of ¿cómo estás (tú)?
- ¿Qué tú cree (crees)? instead of ¿qué crees (tú)?
- ¿Cómo tú te llama (llamas)? instead of ¿cómo te llamas (tú)?
- ¿Qué tú cree (crees)? instead of ¿qué crees (tú)?
- ¿Cómo tú tá (estás)? instead of ¿cómo estás (tú)?
Phonetics
One of the most characteristic features of the phonetics of the Cuban dialect is the de-buccalization / s / at the end of the syllable, which is typical for most Latin American dialects of Spanish, as well as Canarian Spanish and some dialects of the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula .
In addition, the sound / S / in some words may be omitted altogether, for example, “disfrutar” (“enjoy”) is pronounced as “difrutar”, “fresco” (“fresh”) as “freco”. In Havana, “Despues” is usually pronounced “Depue.”
In Cuban Spanish, the final [4] interval sound / d / may also be omitted, as, for example, in the word “cansado” (“tired”, pronounced “kansao”). Another typical phenomenon is the omission of the final / r / in some verbs (for example, “parar” can be truncated to “paral”).
Another characteristic feature of the Cuban dialect is the use of the diminutive suffixes -ico and -ica instead of the standard -ito and -ita . For example, plato ( plate ) - platico instead of platito , and momentico instead of momentito ; but cara ( face ) is carita . This form is common to Venezuelan, Cuban, Costa Rican and Colombian dialects.
Notes
- ↑ Cubanismos ( knol ) (link not available)
- ↑ fajar at Diccionario de la Real Academia Española .
- ↑ Rusismos ( knol ) (inaccessible link)
- ↑ Guitart (1997 : 515)
Literature
- Guitart, Jorge M. (1997), "Variability, multilectalism, and the organization of phonology in Caribbean Spanish dialects", in Martínez-Gil, Fernando, Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages , Georgetown University Press, p. 515-536