Salvadoran Spanish
Español salvadoreño
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲolsalβaðoˈɾeɲo]
Native to	El Salvador
Region	Central American Spanish
Native speakers	6.5 million in total (2019)[1] L2: 19,200 (Instituto Cervantes 2019)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Western Ibero-Romance West Iberian Castilian Spanish North American Spanish Central American Spanish Salvadoran Spanish
Early forms	Old Latin Classical Latin Vulgar Latin Old Spanish Early Modern Spanish
Dialects	Caliche Lenca
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Regulated by	Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa[2]
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
IETF	es-SV
Two varieties of Salvadoran Spanish by Azcúnuga López (2010).   Caliche   Lenca
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Salvadoran Spanish is geographically defined as the form of Spanish spoken in the country ofEl 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, usesvoseo Spanish as its written and spoken form, similar tothat 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.

• 
  Message from PresidentFidel Sánchez Hernández of July 18, 1969 in the framework of the100 Hour War
• 
  The originalAct of Independence of Central America that remains in the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador
• 
  Museum of the Revolution (El Salvador)
• 
  First book printed in El Salvador
• 
  TheCoat of Arms of El Salvador with its phraseology (República de El Salvador en la América Central)
• 
  The CivilFlag of El Salvador with the country's national motto (Dios Unión Libertad)

Notable characteristics of Salvadoran phonology include the following:

• The presence ofseseo wherein/θ/ and/s/ are not distinguished. Seseo is common toAndalusian,Canarian, and allLatin American Spanish varieties.
• Syllable-final/s/ is realized as glottal[h]^[3][4] (mainly on the Eastern departments as Usulután and San Miguel). In the casual speech of some speakers, this may also occur syllable-initially.^[5] This is most common word-medially, in an unstressed position, as incasa[ˈkaha] 'house', and is much less common in a word-initial stressed position, as insiglo[ˈsiɣlo] 'century'.^[6] Syllable-final [s] is always or mostly pronounced in the formal speech, like TV broadcasts.
  • A voiceless fricative which sounds similar to[θ] is also used in the speech of some Salvadorans.^[7] According toBrogan 2018, this is the result of a gestural undershoot. It is on an acoustic continuum between[s] and[h], representing an intermediate degree of lenition.^[8]
• /x/ is realized as glottal[h].^[3][4]
• Intervocalic/d/ often disappears; the ending-ado is often[ao].^[3][4]
• There is no confusion between final/l/ and/r/, unlike in the Caribbean.^{[citation needed]}
• Word-final/n/ is pronounced velar[ŋ].^[3][4]
• As El Salvador was part of theFirst Mexican Empire, the Salvadoran dialect adopted thevoiceless alveolar affricate[t͡s] and the cluster[tl] (originally[tɬ]) represented by the respective digraphs⟨tz⟩ and⟨tl⟩ in loanwords of Nahuatl origin,quetzal andtlapalería[t͡ɬapaleˈɾia] ('hardware store'). Even words of Greek and Latin origin with⟨tl⟩, such asAtlántico andatleta, are pronounced with/tl/:[aˈtlantiko],[aˈtleta] (compare[aðˈlantiko],[aðˈleta] in Spain and other dialects in Hispanic America).^[9]

In El Salvador, as in the other Central American nations,vos is the dominant second person singular pronoun used by many speakers in familiar or informal contexts.^[10]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 withusted regardless of age, status or context.

"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 nearbyCosta Rica, "usted" is not the dominant second person pronoun for addressing a person.

Tú is hardly used, though it is occasionally present between Salvadorans who aren't imitating foreign speech.^[11] It occupies an intermediary position betweenvos andusted. It is used in addressing foreigners familiarly and when writing correspondence to foreigners (again in familiar contexts).

In El Salvador, and neighboring areas of Honduras and Guatemala,vos, or more rarelyusted, may be added to the end of a sentence to reiterate the listener's participation. This constitutes free use of the pronoun, unconnected to any of the arguments in the preceding sentence. Little is known about this phenomenon's origins.^[12]

In El Salvador andGuatemala it is common to place an indefinite article before a possessive pronoun, as inuna mi tacita de cafélit. 'a my cup of coffee'. Very rarely the possessive can be combined with a demonstrative pronoun, likeaquella su idealit. 'that his/her/their idea'. This construction was occasional inOld Spanish and still found inJudaeo-Spanish, but its frequency in El Salvador and Guatemala is due to similar constructions being found in variousMayan languages.^[13]

"Caliche" refers to an informal form of Salvadoran Spanish that incorporates colloquialisms and unique indigenous lexical words. It is a Nawat (Pipil)-influenced dialect of Spanish spoken in El Salvador. Many words have gone through a process of deletion, vowelassimilation, orepenthesis to make it easier for the speaker to be understood. Salvadoran Caliche is used across social classes, although professional individuals tend to avoid it because it is not considered "proper" Spanish.

This table presents examples of differences between Standard Salvadoran Spanish and Caliche:

Words like this are not unique to El Salvador, and when heard by someone who is Salvadoran or from a neighbouring country they are generally understood.Nawat's influence appears in the wordchiche, which means "breast".^[14] But chiche in El Salvador also means "not easy”. Another word isguishte,^[15] which means a piece of broken glass, which comes (from Witzti “thorn”). This word does not appear in any dictionary and its origin has not been traced; the only explanatory hypothesis that has been proposed is that of Pedro Geoffroy Rivas—an anthropologist, poet, and linguist—who believed that it came from thePipil language, since El Salvador's Spanish has been heavily influenced by it.^{[citation needed]}

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 suggests that this lack reflects a failure of Salvadoran dialectology to advance as rapidly as comparative work in other Latin American nations.

Look upCategory:Salvadorian Spanish in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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