| Puerto Rican Spanish | |
|---|---|
| Español puertorriqueño | |
| Pronunciation | [ehpaˈɲolpweltoχiˈkeɲo] |
Native speakers | 6 million (Puerto Rico & many stateside Puerto Ricans in U.S. mainland) (2011)[1] |
Early forms | |
| Latin (Spanish alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | puer1238 |
| IETF | es-PR |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Puerto Rican Spanish is thevariety of theSpanish language as characteristically spoken inPuerto Rico and by millions of people ofPuerto Rican descent living in theUnited States and elsewhere.[2] It belongs to the group ofCaribbean Spanish variants and, as such, is largely derived fromCanarian Spanish andAndalusian Spanish. Outside of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican accent of Spanish is also commonly heard in theU.S. Virgin Islands and many U.S. mainland cities likeOrlando,New York City,Philadelphia,Miami,Tampa,Boston,Cleveland, andChicago, 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]
Since most of the original farmers and commoners ofPuerto Rico between the 15th and 18th centuries came fromAndalusia (Andalucía), the basis for most of Puerto Rican Spanish isAndalusian Spanish (particularly that ofSeville) (Sevilla). For example, the endings -ado, -ido, -edo often drop intervocalic/d/ in both Seville andSan Juan: hablado > hablao, vendido > vendío, 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' > buhcá(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 dothe 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 bandSFDK from thePino Montano district ofSeville 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 (fromSpain'sCanary 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 inthe 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 Taíno. 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 visitingTenerife orLas 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 fromCatalonia, theBalearic Islands,Asturias andGalicia plus other European settlers—mostly fromFrance (includingCorsica),Italy,Ireland,Scotland,Germany, and even someoverseas Chinese—settled in Puerto Rico. Words from these regions and countries joined the linguistic stew. The suffix -ito, common in various Spanish dialects as a diminutive, is also found locally.[4]
| Puerto Rican Word | Normal Spanish Word | English Translation | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pana | Amigo | Friend | American Englishpartner |
| Chacho | Muchacho | Guy | Canary Island |
| Acho | Murcia, Andalucía | ||
| Babilla/Cojones | Coraje | Courage | Andalucía |
| Boricua | Puertorriqueño | Puerto Rican | TaínoBorinquén |
When theSpanish settlers colonized Puerto Rico in the early 16th century, thousands of Taíno 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 indigenousTaínos within the first fifty years of exposure to the European colonists.
A great number of Taíno language words likehamaca ('hammock'),huracán ('hurricane'), andtabaco ('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). Taíno names and/or Hispanicized Taíno names for geographic locations such asArecibo, Bayamón,Caguas, Canóvanas, Guaynabo,Gurabo,Jayuya,Luquillo,Mayagüez,Moca,Naguabo and Vieques are to be found throughout Puerto Rico.
The firstAfrican slaves were brought to the island in the 16th century. Although several African tribes have been recorded in Puerto Rico, it is theKongo from Central Africa that is considered to have had the most influence on Puerto Rican Spanish.[5] In the early colonial period many African slaves in Puerto Rico spokeBozal Spanish. Words likegandul (pigeon pea),fufú (mashed plantains), andmalanga (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 frompatois and creolized languages from the neighboring islands.
In 1898, during the armed conflicts of thePuerto Rican Campaign, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States as part of a peace treaty that brought theSpanish–American War to a sudden conclusion. TheUnited States Army and the early colonial administration tried to impose theEnglish 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.[6]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 calledcode-switching, sometimes characterized asSpanglish.[7][8][9] Puerto Rican writerGiannina 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 theRoyal Spanish Academy and has itsown national academy along with the Spanish-speaking countries ofHispanic America.
Puerto Rican accents, both inSpanish andEnglish, could be described as a reflection ofPuerto 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 ofRiver Plate Spanish (Argentina andUruguay), for example, were heavily influenced by the presence ofItalians 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 theCanary Islands. When visitingTenerife 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 Taínos left many words in the names of geographical areas of the Island (Jayuya,Mayagüez, etc.), and others are used to name everyday items such ashamaca ('hammock') or to describe natural phenomena such ashuracán ('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 otherAsians 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, includingCuba and theDominican Republic, and those from the Caribbean/coastal regions ofVenezuela,Colombia,Panama,Honduras, andNicaragua (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 theCanary Islanders andAndalusians in southern Spain. Overall, most Puerto Ricans make an emphatic distinction between their accent and other Caribbean Spanish accents.
During theSpanish–American War and the early colonial period, English was imposed on island residents.[14]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).
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