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Spanish question

I have a question and hope one of you can help me...
I speak a few languages, and it was my understanding a dialect of a language- is completly different than the country language...

For example..ITALIAN dialects...very different from actual Italian..

A co-worker is from El Salvador and she is telling everyone that all the Spanish speaking countries speak differnet dialects..grammar, vocabulary...

I was under he impression that we all speak Spanish with different accents and slangs/patois/jargon?

Can someone help,
only reason is that I have literally ran into someone from every Spanish speaking country and have never had a hard time understanding them, but my Salvadorian co-worker says that we are all different dialects...

what do you guys think??

By MaFe on Jan 25, 2008, 10:48 in Friendly Talkzone. AddThis Social Bookmark Button


Albatross says on Jan 25, 2008, 11:10:

I'm no expert (I suck at Spanish), but I think you're correct.
I think the only true grammatical difference is that Spain uses the Vosotros verb forms and Latin America doesn't.
As you said, the other differences are all accent, slang, jargon, ect.
(I've also been learning lately that there are quite a few verb tenses that are seldom used in actual conversation.)

“Democracy - a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H.L. Mencken

esanch36 says on Jan 25, 2008, 11:37:

differents dialects noo...different accents yes...aside from that some words for objects are different.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries

MaFe says on Jan 25, 2008, 11:39:

THANK YOU!! That is what I was telling my coworker but she insists that it is different dialects...I love languages so I thought I ask others before I insist on my bias opinion...

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

esanch36 says on Jan 25, 2008, 11:41:

maybe she means to say different 'accents'???

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:10:

The difference is not as enunciated as it is in Italian dialects. Sicilian is different from Calabrese, just to name two close areas. In Spanish the difference is more in jargon & accent than grammar, which is probably 95% the same except for some caribbean countries that invert the noun - verb in the question form, i.e. ¿Que tu piensas? in Pto Rico v/s, ¿Que piensas tu? in other areas. The difference may be as the difference between an Alabaman and a Bostonian.
The vosotros person is not widely used in Latin America as it is in Spain, the bible or old written Castillian. Same here, the differences may be compared to Brithish English and American English or Portugal Portugese and Brazilian Portugese.
Your coworker is wrong ... Is she marera?

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

Mononoke28 says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:23:

Oh my gosh, I cannot even count how many times I've had to clarify people on this. There is no such thing as a Spanish dialect, there is only one language which is Spanish, period. Now depending on the county and even region, people will call things differently. Ex.: In Mexico a jacket is called a chamarra, in Colombia we call it chaqueta. A strawberry in Argentina and Ecuador is a frutilla, in Colombia we call it fresa. But we all speak one language.

Same thing in English. Some people in the US call one thing with one name and the people in England will call it something else but it's still English.

Diana

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:32:

Any certified linguists here to confirm this?
I have always called local variaities of a language, any language, dialects. I believe they are also called vernacular. There are lots and lots of dialects within the English language, the same within Spanish. A dialect is NOT another language, it's a variation of the same language, only that is spoken locally.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:36:

"dialecto - Manera de hablar una lengua un grupo de personas, una comunidad o los habitantes de una región. Así, por ejemplo, el habla de la ciudad de México, el habla del Bajío y el habla de Castilla son dialectos del español. (Diccionario del Español Usual de México)"
http://www.sil.org/capacitar/sociolx/lenguadialecto.htm

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

MaFe says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:43:

So I would like to know because my coworker still insists that I am wrong, and another coworker is looking up stuff on the internet and they insist they are dialects...

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:49:

I tend to think that they are indeed dialects.


[hide]v • d • eDialects of English
Europe British · English · Received Pronunciation · Estuary · Cockney (East London) · East Anglian · East Midlands · West Midlands · West Country · Northern · Lancashire · Llanito · Yorkshire · Scouse (Liverpool) · Cumbria · Mackem (Sunderland) · Geordie (Tyneside) · Scottish (Glaswegian · Highland) · Welsh · Manx · Mid Ulster · Hiberno-English (Ireland) · Guernsey English
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Africa Cameroon English · Liberian · Malawian · South African
Miscellaneous Basic · International · Globish · Mid-Atlantic · Plain · Simplified · Special · Standard · British/American differences · E Prime



List of dialects and varieties

[edit] Spain
Andalusian Spanish
Canarian Spanish
Extremaduran
Murcian Spanish

[edit] The Americas
Caribbean Spanish
Cuban Spanish
Dominican Spanish
Puerto Rican Spanish
Venezuelan Spanish
Central American Spanish
Chilean Spanish
Chilote Spanish
Colombian Spanish
Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish
Peruvian Coast Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Spanish in the Philippines
Spanish in the United States
Spanish of El Salvador

[edit] Other dialects
The Ladino language of the Sephardic Jews

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

webmanco says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:51:

I do believe Spanish language has many dialects, but each spanish speaking country migth have unique dialects that idenfify them.

http://lele.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/dialecto-vs-lenguaje/

La palabra dialecto es una palabra ideológicamente cargada que ha sido usada erróneamente para clasificar idiomas que por alguna razón u otra se desvían de lo que se considera la lengua “estándar��?.
Sin embargo, lo que hace que una lengua sea estándar no es algo intrínseco al lenguaje, sino que corresponde a variables extralingüísticas como la historia de un país y sus procesos políticos. Por ejemplo, cuando Inglaterra y España eran grandes imperios con colonias en América, se decía que los nacidos en el nuevo continente hablaban dialectos del inglés y el español. También los diccionarios, las gramáticas y los materiales didácticos suelen influir sobre el valor que se les asigna a ciertas variedades de un idioma por sobre otras. El hecho de que alguna variedad particular del idioma sea la que se plasma en uno de estos recursos impresos hace que esta se valorice sobre las otras. Muchos deciden entonces llamarle “dialecto��? a toda desviación de lo que recoge el diccionario

But, I'm going to start making some assumptions here.... Which means I might actually end up making an ass out of myself ..........Thu 04 17, 2008 11:34 am

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:52:

I`m neither certified nor a linguist. What I wrote was a clarification from a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford friend of mine (who speaks to the native level 4 languages).
He knows Italian and its dialects, he knows Spanish and some variations (Mexican, Costeño, Pto Rican). That`s his opinion.
I`m just the messenga dude...

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:54:

A dialect has to have differences that may prevent same langage speaking people from understanding each other.
If that were the case with the variations of Spanish, teenagers would speak a different dialect.

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

webmanco says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:57:

is spanglish a dialect? I think it should not be widely accepted

But, I'm going to start making some assumptions here.... Which means I might actually end up making an ass out of myself ..........Thu 04 17, 2008 11:34 am

msaucey says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:58:

Okay.... I'm going to be devil's advocate.... Yes, there are dialects spoken in some central american countries... I'm going to use Honduras as my example, because the first time I ever heard a dialect was from some close Honduran friends.... They spoke a Spanish dialect known as Garifuna, it was a combination of spanish, english and french... It's also somewhat spoken in Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua...

There are variations of dialects like the one mentioned above, technically Spanish is a Dialect of the Roman Family of language, along with French... That's why we share quite a few words that are similar in spelling, pronounciation and meaning...

Maybe, your co-worker has an issue with the fact that Salvadorean uses, "Vos" when speaking and for the most part, nobody else does....

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:58:

Can people from Campeche do not understand people from Sonora?
Can costeños y pastusos talk?
How about Porteños and Mendocinos?
America`s regions haven`t had enough isolating conditions to produce significant differences between regions. (anybody dare to ask what America is...? )

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 12:59:

"The different dialects and accents do not severely block cross-understanding among the educated. The basilects have diverged more. As an example, early sound films were dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. Currently, non-Spanish (usually Hollywood) productions are dubbed separately into each of the major accents, but productions from another Spanish-language country are never dubbed. The popularity of telenovelas and Latin American music familiarize the speakers with other varieties of Spanish."

(Wiki)

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:06:

... does Snoopy Dog speak a dialectshizz my nizzle?

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:11:

Yes, that's a dialect, a sociodialect.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:13:

A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class
A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect. Other speech varieties include: standard languages, which are standardized for public performance (for example, a written standard); jargons, which are characterized by differences in lexicon (vocabulary); slang; patois; pidgins or argots. The particular speech patterns used by an individual are termed an idiolect.

(Wiki)

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:15:

No, diealect by definition is just a variable of the same language. It does not mean that mutual understanding should be difficult or barred.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:25:

MAFE, clear as water now?
Anymore doubts, we`re here at your service...
wait, if you`re playing for the $1M in Millionarie... don`t call us ...

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

webmanco says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:28:

Es que no me entiende? estoy hablando en algún dialecto o que?

A commun expresion when someone is not paying attention to you or do not obey.

But, I'm going to start making some assumptions here.... Which means I might actually end up making an ass out of myself ..........Thu 04 17, 2008 11:34 am

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:37:

Probably, but it shoudn't be an impediment for understanding. In Colombia there are several dialects of Castilian spoken by millions of Colombians, el Rolo being one of them:)

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Man Tequila says on Jan 25, 2008, 13:39:

A dialect is not completely different from some theoretical neutral mother tongue. As you say, slang, some expressions, intonation and the meaning of a few words differ.

As for if your co-worker is right, I think she is. Even though they all speak Spanish. Which differs substantially between Costa Rica and Argentina.

pues se me antoja que sus cantares son de una tierra desconocida, y yo le dije si a usted le inspira, saber la tierra de donde soy... con mucho gusto y a mucho honor...

sloopskipper says on Jan 25, 2008, 15:06:

I am for sure, also no expert. In Puerto Rico, even the conjugations of verbs is different. Second and third person plural are the same. No vosotros. Or is that also true in Colombia?

Boriqueños is a dialect?

sloopskipper says on Jan 25, 2008, 15:16:

Linguist?

bostonmickey says on Jan 25, 2008, 16:48:

Check out Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and let the debate continue...;-)

Let's be CAREFUL out there!!Sgt. Phil Esteraus, Hill Street Blues

MaFe says on Jan 25, 2008, 18:48:

I still don't think they are dialects..
Dialects are a whole different language like the Italian language..
Again I speak various languages and I know that Spanish is NOT like other languages that have dialects..
When I can travel to any Spanish speaking nation and understand the people...It is SPANISH...
when they are different dialects...I understand like the example given of Honduras..
but a Jargon is different from a dialect..
just because someone says abichuelas over beans doesn't mean they have a different dialect...

WhenI go to Puerto Rico and hear their accent and saying "quiero arroz con abichuelas" obviously I didn't know what abichuelas was but I learned it was beans for them, that isn't a dialect it's a different word/ Jargon...
I have been to Puerto Rico and understand their Spanish...it's not a dialect...I have been to many regions in Colombia and understand their Spanish, same with peru, Ecuador, and have friends from all countries that agree with me...
My coworkers feels that we all have different languages ONLY because of the accents and some different words...
So any linguist around?

Thanks everyone!

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

jack_jason says on Jan 26, 2008, 01:31:

The differences between the spanish spoken in different countries does not make it a dilect. This is like to say that people from the USA do not speak english but a dialect coming from it, and to think that the only people who speak english are the royal families in Britain and the upper class in Britain. Just because People from the United States say "I wanna" instead of "I want to" do not make them english dialect speakers. Italian do speak dialects, I speak Italian but when I go to Sicily, and an old man talks to me in Siclian dialect, I do not understand anything, I can guess because the Sicilian dialect has got spanish roots. And dialects in Italy are completely different from each other, and that why they have as a national language the Italian to communicate between them, how ever, the Italian language has some variation when you travel across Italy, it does not mean that it is a second dialect they speak, this is just that every city has got its own slangs, jargon and accents.
There is the Real Academia de la lengua Española that is in charge to keep the right way to write, analyse and speak spanish, so there is an standard way (rules) to speak and write spanish, any one who does not follow the right grammatical and vocalizations rules, becomes just a bad spanish speaker and not a dialect speaker.

This is just spanglish, please do not correct me

MaFe says on Jan 26, 2008, 19:38:

Jack...thank you very much! That is mostly what I was arguing!

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 27, 2008, 01:12:

MaFe, I posted two pages from Wikipedia with the right answers for you. Not the answer you wanted to hear.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

jack_jason says on Jan 27, 2008, 01:40:

Desi, do you mean that it is a dialect what people from the states speak?

This is just spanglish, please do not correct me

jack_jason says on Jan 27, 2008, 02:03:

I like the following statement. I got it from wikipedia; it'll make Desi and Mafe so happy:

No existen criterios científicos universalmente aceptados para distinguir las lenguas de los dialectos, aunque existen varios criterios que presentan en ocasiones resultados contradictorios. La diferencia exacta es por tanto subjetiva y extralingüística, dependiendo del marco contextual del usuario. En el uso informal se habla de dialectos y de lenguas de acuerdo a contextos socio-políticos.

In accord to the above statement, both of you are quite right!.

(Making women happy)

This is just spanglish, please do not correct me

MaFe says on Jan 27, 2008, 07:17:

Desi...gracias but if you look up the dictionary meaning of dialect and a jargon...there is a difference, and again, I speak Italian which I know has many different dialects...and I don't agree that the Spanish has different dialects...
pero con todo corazon gracias a todos...
Thanks Jack...you are right and so is Desi..

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 27, 2008, 08:23:

As I said before, Italian is probably the best example to understand what a dialect is.

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

Lisa Zee says on Jan 27, 2008, 11:18:

I would only say that when I watch a movie, and they speak `young` Mexican and Spanish from Spain, I understand much more the one from Spain. (ejemplo como la pelicula "Y tu Mama tambien") I could not understand the Mexican Spanish much, even though I live in California!?
I agree 100% with Desi.

Cerealkiller says on Jan 27, 2008, 11:20:

I think your co worker doesn't know the difference between dialect and accent.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

Lisa Zee says on Jan 27, 2008, 11:22:

Ditto

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 27, 2008, 11:42:

Do you?

Note that there is a difference between an accent and a dialect:

"Dialect
Varieties of phonology and vocabulary and/or grammar.

Accent
When variety is only a matter of phonology (i.e. speech sounds).

Phonology
The study of the organisation of speech sounds.

An English accent, says J.C. Wells in Accents of English (1982), is:

"...a pattern of pronunciation used by a speaker for whom English is the native language or, more generally, by the community or social grouping to which he or she belongs."

To test your knowledge:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/speech/speech_intro/accvsdia.htm
it's a quiz

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

MaFe says on Jan 27, 2008, 12:42:

From the dictionary:
JARGON

I don't see how one country saying abichuelas as opposed to frijoles is a dialect...
We are still all speaking Spanish and I understand the Spanish from Colombia, Spain, central America and South America...so how is that a dialect?I don't think it's a dialect but thank you all who answered..
=)

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 27, 2008, 13:18:

According to the definition, yes, subsitution of vocabulary as well as in phonology happens in a dialect. I speak four languages myself, and in all of those four, there are several dialects and I can understand basically all the dialects within these languages, even if I do have a little problem understanding a southern Swedish dialect called skånska; I have to ask my Skånean workmate to repeat quite often what she said, but she is used to that, other people have difficulty understanding it too. Most Swedish dialects are fairly easy to understand...the same with the Finnish dialects, evenif I can imagine that for a foreigner they'd be a major pain.

Some dilaects in English are hard to understand, some easy. Spanish is pretty easy, because the phonetic variation from one area to another is so slight. Yet there are major vocabulary subsitutions and also the intonation varies widely from one area to another. Take, for example, the clipped, slow pace of an Andean peasant and compare it to a Puerto Rican from New York, A Mexican from a Uruguayan, ASpaniard from an Argentinian. Different dialects, clearly.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

rocinante says on Jan 27, 2008, 14:57:

Wikipedia is sometimes not worth the paper it's printed on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Colombia

"Most Colombians speak Spanish. There are several dialects of Spanish language spoken: the Rolo dialect of Bogotá, also called cachaco ("educated" or "refined"); the related Cundiboyacense dialect, known for its archaic second person pronoun sumercé; the Paisa dialect, which is the only dialect outside Spain that preserves the voiceless apicoalveolar fricative or hissing "S� sound; and the coastal dialect, which is a form of Caribbean Spanish."

So according to this author if you pronounce your Ys like a soft J you may have just created a new dialect!

Yeah, right.

The word dialect in the way some are using it here means that if one twin sibling stays home from school sick and the other one comes home with a synonym for glue (adhesive) he is speaking a different dialect.

I think the differences should be much greater than jargon or accent. But who am I to argue?

Spanish itself can be and was once considered a dailect of Latin. Either way a real dialect of Spanish would be very difficult for a textbook spanish speaker to decipher. Dialects are a lot deeper than slang, vocabulary word/jargon exceptions (lapicero/esfero/bolígrafo) and accent.

Real dialects have alterations in their gramatical structure of the language including verb use and conjugations.

I don´t consider a Rolo and a Paisa as speaking two different dialects. Just because of a few words, idiomatic expressions and an accent.

"World economic indicators point to a democrat winning 2008. It will surely be Obama. Peso 1400 by November" Feb 5, 2008

rocinante says on Jan 27, 2008, 15:00:

"Maybe, your co-worker has an issue with the fact that Salvadorean uses, "Vos" when speaking and for the most part, nobody else does...." Mr Saucey

Nobody else does?

Whoah Saucey.....

Unless you are talking to your father or uncle in Medellín men address men as Ud or VOS - Never Tú (http://poorbuthappy.com/learn_spanish/post/how-common-is-vosotros-in-c...).
Vos is used exclusively in place of Tú in Argentina (pop 38 Million), although they know how to conjugate and use Tú - Tú is not even used there at all as it is all Vos.

Vos is also used in the entire countries of Paraguay and Uruguay

The south of Mexico, All of Bleize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and in the north of Panama.

Getting back to South America, Colombia: Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Caldas, Risaralda y Quindío.

The North and Center of Ecuador, North West of Bolivia, The West of Venezuela and Central Chile.

I guess I should have just posted where Vos is not used: Spain, Perú, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

Also note that in some places especially Ecuador and Perú Vosear is considered substandard.

There's a lot of vos out there, roughly over 50% of the Spanish speaking population of Latin America and Spain.

If you want to speak fluently in Medellín VOS is 100% necessary. Good thing you only need to alter your tutear by changing 1 prepositional pronoun(that's it) and as far as conjugations, present tense and commands change in order to vosear. Es pan comida.

"World economic indicators point to a democrat winning 2008. It will surely be Obama. Peso 1400 by November" Feb 5, 2008

msaucey says on Jan 27, 2008, 19:09:

Thanks for the spanish lesson.... Actually, I was probably going to some childhood flashback as to the way that Salvadoreans say VOS... It's normally on a cruder sense of the word... VOS come mierda.... is a common thing I heard them say... but, you are correct it is used throughout latin america....

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

juli says on Jan 27, 2008, 19:18:

Extensively used in Latin America. But it is not used in Cuba either and that was not mentioned in the big post.

Mr Saucey, what's with the dots? Are you turning into RAAAAY?

CEO Fajardo´s Fan Club, Medellín, Colombia

msaucey says on Jan 27, 2008, 19:21:

Juli.... It's Ms... Msaucey.... I don't know... I think my ring fingers gets stuck on the periods... I do this on my work e-mails, and depending on who it's addressed to, I have to remove my additional..... =>

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

juli says on Jan 27, 2008, 19:25:

Well besides the Vos thing at least you make sense. RAAAAY probably has a few shots before logging in here and passes out for a few seconds in between sentences while is hand is on the period.

Just a guess.

CEO Fajardo´s Fan Club, Medellín, Colombia

msaucey says on Jan 27, 2008, 19:28:

Bueno, I try... no guarantees what comes from my thoughts...

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

jack_jason says on Jan 27, 2008, 23:17:

The last one to leave a comment on this threat is the one who is right.

This is just spanglish, please do not correct me

Robert Jorge says on Jan 28, 2008, 01:26:

I thought they spoke English in Belize?

jorgegdiaz says on Jan 28, 2008, 08:58:

So I thought of Alabama RJ...

Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

Desideria (Moderator) says on Jan 28, 2008, 09:23:

The Spaniards that populated the New World spoke different dialects ...depending on the concentration of the immigrants in different geographical locations and the influence of the native American tongues in them the dialects of Spanish were born.

Thus, in the lowlands where the main body of settlers came from Andalucia the Spanish spoken was modelled upon the Andaluz dialect of Spain, in the areas where people from Extremadura settled (especially Chile) you can still trace the accent to the local dialect of Extremadura. In highlands of Colombia (Bogotá, Boyacá, Cundinamarca) most of the settlers were of Castilian origin and that's one of the reasons why Colombian Spanish still preserves some of its classical beauty. Some countries, like Argentina, received a lot of Italian immigrants that influenced the dialect with intonation, vocabulary etc.

It's a matter of interpretation; not even the linguist agree on this issue. I still think that strictly speaking, the Rolo, the Costeño, the Valluno and the Pastuso are dialects and the Argentinian, Puerto Rican, Chilean, Mexican and Cuban Spanish are definitely dialects of Spanish

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

MaFe says on Jan 28, 2008, 13:08:

They also speak spanish in Belize, but the official language is English but over 46% of the population speaks Spanish.
I agree that there are different dialects like in Spain...but I don't believe that the Spanish that we alls hare in common are dialects. (Central & South America)

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

CatGirl says on Jan 28, 2008, 13:11:

Mafe: I like this question/post. I have a friend that has a PhD in linguistics. Tell you what. I am gonna run the question by her and see if she can contribute anything to this question. Purrr

ooops! ....Did I say that?

MaFe says on Jan 28, 2008, 16:12:

Catgirl...thanks

"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again." -Winston Churchill

el torcido says on Jan 30, 2008, 00:30:

There are alot of colombians that need to improve their english (most of them.) So, for them, I offer this:
http://englishtown.latino.msn.com/sp/portal.aspx

don't know much about 'conomy

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No Mas FARC...anyone in N.Y.? 9

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Whatchoo talking about Willis? (c) 1998 - 2008 Peter Van Dijck

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