"El idioma, otra razón que nos distingue"
While browsing the web last week I came across this article in a Cuban newspaper from Camagüey. It was written two years ago and the author wrote a tribute to the Spanish language and specific features of Cuban Spanish. What was mentioned has been discussed before in a few threads but what I wanted to ensure was that I added the article to the most appropriate one and preferably one that I initiated.
The purpose of the thread was to compare lexical differences and similarities between Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish as discussed in the original article in my first post. Spanish spoken in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico have more similarities than differences from a linguistic point of view. They share many linguistic features due to their history, geographical proximity and most importantly linguistic drift plays an important role when comparing Spanish spoken in these Caribbean locations. However, anyone who is familiar with Spanish spoken in these regions will also note that there are more lexical (vocabulary) similarities between DR and
PR as compared to Cuba and
PR or Cuba and DR. Using the DR as the center point the linguistic drift is in this direction ---->.
The similarities that all three islands do share however, revolve around grammatical features and patterns of the language. As mentioned in several threads and posts in the past they all share similar sentence structure that is typical of Caribbean Spanish but differ from the norm of standard Spanish sentence structure. Other common features include dropping the [s] at the end of verb forms and pluralization, excessive usage of "tú" because the [s] is dropped and in the article the change of [r] to [l] which is very common in Puerto Rico is mentioned. This feature is not normally associated with Cuban Spanish which is what I found interesting about the article. I know some Cubans do have this linguistic trait in their speech but in broad terms it's associated with Puerto Rican Spanish, a certain region of the DR and in the article the author clearly mentions in the west of Cuba this features heard for example "palque" instead of "parque".
One other point about the article that really caught my attention was this statement:
Camagüey, tierra del Poeta Nacional Nicolás Guillén, es considerada por muchos entendidos la zona geográfica de la Mayor de las Antillas donde mejor se habla el español. I would love to get the opinion of Cubans from other areas of Cuba. How interesting that would be. No doubt the author is truthful but it would make for an interesting discussion about linguistic zones within a country.
Back to vocabulary the article does mention Cuban specific vocabulary and the origins of their words. The demographic makeup of Cuba reflects directly in Cuban specific vocabulary. Most notably are words of African origin that have heavily influenced Cuban vocabulary stemming African popular religions. In the article the author mentions a common word for good-bye "avur" used in Cuba. From a Dominican perspective we should all be able to relate to the equivalent used in the DR.
When it comes to language there's no end to learning and insight but what makes it valuable is if you have a strong understanding, foundation and historical background about that particular language. IMO Spanish is so unique and special because of its history in the Americas and how geographical location and people themselves have influenced the diversity of spoken language today.
If you have chance to read the article you will see how enlightening it is. Good examples are provided too.
Patrimonio. El idioma, otra razón que nos distingue.
-LDG.
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