Dominican Spanish

[NALs]

What is your opinion about Spanish spoken in the DR as compared to other countries in the Spanish-speaking world?

(before responding consider grammar, clarity of speech, spelling, speed, usage of regionalisms and slang and your over all perception of the quality of Spanish of the average Dominican based on your personal experiences)

a) Excellent - easy to understand, clear speech by most speakers, good grammar with few exceptions, very close to what is considered the standard.

b) Very good- easy to understand, clear speech by most speakers, good grammar with few exceptions, very close to what is considered the standard, limited usage of regionalisms, colloquialisms etc.

c) Good- not always easy to understand but certainly a noticeable difference between educated and non-educated speakers. Noticeable usage of colloquialisms, regionalisms, slang etc.

d) Fair- not easy to understand. Noticeable usage of colloquialisms, regionalisms, slang, grammatical errors on the part of the speaker, poor spelling, speakers speak using the typical icons of the Dominican vernacular all the time.

e) Poor- uneducated speech, poor grammar, poor spelling, speakers use typical Dominican speech patterns, adds /s/ where they do not belong etc.

Poll prepared and requested by Marianopolita.

-NALs

[Chip]

Typically as in most countries the less educated the person is the less refined/correct they speak the language. The DR is not different. Imo as a gringo, the spanish among the better educated is no different than found in other countries, albeit with it's regional variations and idisyncracies. If I have to grade anything it would be the government lack of investment in the education of it's people, and not the people themselves.

[Chirimoya]

What Chip said.

[TOOBER_SDQ]

Based on the definitions NALs provided, I will vote "good". However, many times I have heard people from other Spanish speaking nations describe Dominican Spanish as "poor".

This may have to do with national pride, sort of like how the Brits whine about American English.

[Hillbilly]

Even educated Dominicans can make it difficult at times. However, in a general way, I have to say "good" is the best I can rate it. My father, may he rest in peace, would give them an "F" for sure....same as the Cubans or Puerto Ricans.

Seems that educated Central Americans and those from South American, just cannot hear the speech of these Antillean folks....perhaps it is the steady diet of "s" and "-ado" and "-ido" endings that are eaten or clipped....

Whatever, "Paco no 'ta 'ca, Paco 'ta acotao" just won't cut it for most educated Spanish speakers.

Peace,

HB

[bachata]

Spanish spoken in my country is broken compared with some of the South Americans countries, for ex. Chile, Argentina and Colombia. It is sad to listen how most the Dominican people speaks even some professionals, especially those whom went to the public high school in the evening.



JJ

[Marianopolita]

Just to clarify, I created the poll with the categories and descriptions. All NALs did was post it at my request.



Yes, there are educated speakers in all languages etc. but the question is in your opinion if you had to rate DR Spanish based on the criteria I outlined what would you choose. I thought it would be beneficial to clarify this for posters voting and posting their comments going forward.

IMO, a simple answer is not possible but a simplified answer can certainly shed some light on what makes Spanish in the DR and the Antillean region meaning Puerto Rico and Cuba drastically different from Mexico, Central America and the varieties of Spanish spoken in South America. It's also important to note when comparing Spanish spoken in Cuba, DR and Puerto Rico, the strongest similarities are between the DR and Puerto Rico. In a linguistic comparison it can be represented as Cuba /DR and PR.

The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico share strong linguistic similarities this includes vocabulary, phonetics and syntax. As well, in some cases the accent is strikingly similar and this is really an incredible phenomenon from a linguistic point of view. Cuba on the other hand is what I call a linguistic first cousin. Another example would be some Colombians and Venezuelans especially along the northern boarder of both countries. Have any of you heard people from these regions speak? Remember my post if and when you do. You can not ask for a more striking accent comparison between two countries. A close second may be Uruguay and Argentina depending on what part of each country the speakers hail.

Regarding the DR the linguistic characteristics are so deeply rooted that IMO, no matter how much education a speaker has these characteristic of the Dominican vernacular will not change. If they have not changed since the late 19thC early 20thC it won't change anytime soon. Through education the norm is the next generation should be more knowledgeable than the previous (in general terms) but given the educational poverty and complexity of the DR, the high drop out rate, the number of young kids who don't attend school, rural vs. urban speech, regional dialects within the DR, all these factors plague the vernacular and impede the speech patterns from changing or at least correcting the ones that are severely incorrect.

Many aspects about the Dominican vernacular bother me however, some more grave than others. Although some people defend dropping the /s/, this speech pattern for non-educated speakers gives them a close to zero opportunity to write in the plural correctly. I see the effects of tú dice, lo dominicano, tú piensa on a regular basis all which require an /s/, specific to the verb form or the marker of the plural but on the other hand I see destrá instead detrás, a classic example of putting the /s/ where it does not belong and dropping it at the end as a colloquial pattern. With speech patterns like these it is very difficult to formally educate the masses to speak their own language, Spanish properly. There are also specifics about grammar that would surprise a well spoken Spanish speaker from another country. I have heard comments, I have been asked questions and agree with what other Spanish speakers critique about some of grammatical patterns of the DR. The beauty is I understand what they are critiquing whereas many people get defensive or are clueless as to what is incorrect about their own speech.

When comparing Spanish of the Antilles- Cuba, DR and PR, Cuba is definitely the stand alone and it is imperative to segregate Spanish spoken in Havana from the rest of Cuba especially the orient (the east). The eastern part of Cuba has the most similarities when comparing Spanish spoken in DR and PR including some the /l/ and /r/ changes in words. Havana definitely has educated speakers and proof positive is listening to the way they speak and this goes beyond the small percentage of educated Dominican Spanish speakers. In Latin American, Havana is and was a center of education. Certainly the standard has deteriorated for obvious reasons but compare how people from Havana speak vs. the eastern part of the island.

I would encourage people to read Como hablamos los dominicanos. It's very heavy on the linguistic side, sociolinguistics specifically but it sheds light on many of the speech patterns and regional grammar of the Dominican vernacular that I have mentioned over the years. There's a sticky of the PDF version of the book in this forum.

I created the poll and at best if it I had to rate the DR Spanish as compared Spanish spoken in other countries I would say Fair to Good. I can't go any higher than that. Education would make a difference but many of the speech patterns are too deeply rooted. It would take a miracle to eradicate some of the incorrect speech. I definitely have to visit the Canary Islands and compare if the vernacular overrides good educational Spanish.


/mplta

[VirginiaGomes]

c) Good- not always easy to understand but certainly a noticeable difference between educated and non-educated speakers. Noticeable usage of colloquialisms, regionalisms, slang etc.

[À bientôt]

Originally Posted by Marianopolita

I would say Fair to Good. I can't go any higher than that. Education would make a difference but many of the speech patterns are too deeply rooted. It would take a miracle to eradicate some of the incorrect speech. I definitely have to visit the Canary Islands and compare if the vernacular overrides good educational Spanish.
/mplta

How 'bout fair to middlin' or as Texans say, fair to Midland?

As a wordsmith extraordinaire and proud possessor of cunning linguist connoiseurship, and founding member of the Dominican Slang Preservation Society, DSPS, I would have to say I love it.
And while I may enjoy the spoken word, it's the written form I dislike. Here's a poorly written and overly-compensated text message from a woman in el Ciabo, asking when will I join Hi5: "Joce, cuando tu ba a entrai a harfar?"

[Ezequiel]

Originally Posted by NALs

What is your opinion about Spanish spoken in the DR as compared to other countries in the Spanish-speaking world?

(before responding consider grammar, clarity of speech, spelling, speed, usage of regionalisms and slang and your over all perception of the quality of Spanish of the average Dominican based on your personal experiences)

a) Excellent - easy to understand, clear speech by most speakers, good grammar with few exceptions, very close to what is considered the standard.

b) Very good- easy to understand, clear speech by most speakers, good grammar with few exceptions, very close to what is considered the standard, limited usage of regionalisms, colloquialisms etc.

c) Good- not always easy to understand but certainly a noticeable difference between educated and non-educated speakers. Noticeable usage of colloquialisms, regionalisms, slang etc.

d) Fair- not easy to understand. Noticeable usage of colloquialisms, regionalisms, slang, grammatical errors on the part of the speaker, poor spelling, speakers speak using the typical icons of the Dominican vernacular all the time.

e) Poor- uneducated speech, poor grammar, poor spelling, speakers use typical Dominican speech patterns, adds /s/ where they do not belong etc.

Poll prepared and requested by Marianopolita.

-NALs

Dominican Spanish is good compare to other countries in Latin American or Spain, I have a lot of experience with other Spanish speakers here in the U.S. as i work for the insurance company and as a bilingual Agent i have to deal with Latinos everyday here in Atlanta. Most of the Latinos here come from poor regions of their respective countries so their spanish is poor plus you throw in they slang you will have to get used to it to be able to understand it, at first i had problem understanding Mexican when they spoke (of course i do understand the Mexican Telenovelas perfectly) but when i encounted the really Mexican (the great majority) their Spanish was very different and hard to understand (i'm a full flesh Mexican now ), but my biggest problem understanding another spanish speaker was with a couple from Uruguay, i had to ask them three time to repeat what they said, i even ask them if they speak another languangue other than Spanish, i gave up after a few minutes.

In some region of Panama and Hunduras you will have to take some classes to be able to understand them, i have friends from both countries the one from the major cities speak good Spanish the one from the countryside they speak spanish with a foreign accent.

Dominican Spanish is good and different from other Spanish speaking country. In Chile they don't pronounce the "S" either and it hard for everybody to understand their Spanish and keep in mind that Chile is one of the most richest country in Latin American.

Chilean Spanish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia