Los BorinCubanos

[Chirimoya]

Cajuil (or marañon) is cashew nut.
Castaño is chestnut, could also be water chestnut (leren)?

[juancarlos]

Originally Posted by Chirimoya

Cajuil (or marañon) is cashew nut.
Castaño is chestnut, could also be water chestnut (leren)?

El marañón I do know. Castañas are chestnuts which we used to eat during Xmas, but I think they came from Spain. I have the feeling that this castaño must be something else. I mean, I never saw a chesnut tree in Cuba.

[Lesley D]

I'm glad to know that you enjoyed the articles and also that you contributed to the thread. Hopefully I'll see some more posts from you in the future.

I agree fruits and vegetables vary from country to country or region to region. There are some generic names but the more exotic the fruit the more variations you will find. That has been my observation. Specific to your examples most of the PR equivalents are new to me. As well, to say passion fruit I use "chinola" only with people who know what it means otherwise I use the most generic name, which is maracuyá. Also, I tend to use "calabaza" more than "auyama" for pumpkin once again for clarity. I know more people will understand "calabaza". "Castaño" may throw people off because it's the name of the tree that produces "castaña".

My suggestion is if you go to a Spanish-speaking country and you want to get a feel for the local vocabulary go to the grocery store and browse through the isles especially the fruit and vegetable sections. You will learn the local names quickly. Write them down if you have to. It’s interesting and a lot easier when describing a fruit or vegetable because there are so many variations. Believe it or not I have friends who never heard of "guineo" and I had to explain to them that it’s from the plátano or banana family of vegetables etc.

We recently had a discussion on gandul and the DR variation was revealed there. In most Spanish-speaking countries you will hear gandul but in the DR it’s guandul to refer to pigeon peas.

The references in both articles are all examples that show the diversity of the Spanish language from a lexical standpoint and regarding the spoken language.

PD. Juan Carlos- thanks for the support.

-LDG.

[Mephs]

Here's a link with some pictures of the items I described before. The chestnut could be "buenpan", but they only show pictures of the spiny pod. Inside it has seed that to me look like chestnuts, but again I never called them that way before.

Here's a "castaño", since the picture didn't show on the prior link.

Here's a better picture of a "buenpan" showing the pod and seeds.

The kind of discussion that my post generated is what I go through every time I visit the Dominican Republic. It can be fun learning how many different ways you can say the same thing in the same language.

Carlos

[Lesley D]

Thanks for the links especially the first one since it lists the DR names of several fruits and vegetables. I do believe that what's considered an "exotic" or "foreign" vegetable or fruit chances are there will be more variations of words in Spanish. The ones that have been discussed in the thread are representative of some of the exceptions I am referring to. Many fruit names are tied to the name of the tree for example el manzano (apple tree), la manzana (apple = the fruit), el naranjo (orange tree), la naranja (orange = the fruit), el cerezo (cherry tree), la cereza (cherry= the fruit). Some of the more exotic names for fruit in Spanish don't have a direct link to the name of the tree.

Also naming a fruit incorrectly can be embarrassing. As you know lechosa vs. papaya (not to be said in error in Cuba). As well molondrón (okra) tends to differ quite a bit in the Spanish-speaking world and the local word definitely prevails over the generic one. In the dictionary you will find quingombó which I never heard of although in English the word gombo is used for okra for example "gombo soup" is soup with okra as the main vegetable. In Panama okra is ñapu and no one says okra. That was one of my grocery store discoveries. Therefore, back to my suggestion in my post above. A walk through the isles of the grocery store of a Spanish-speaking country has been my solution to finding the correct name for certain fruits and vegetables. You can't go wrong with la manzana, la cereza, la uva, la fresa, etc. It's the exotic fruits that have word variations.

As part of the second discussion in the thread what are thoughts about Puerto Rican Spanish as compared to Spanish spoken in Cuba or the DR? In linguistic and ethonlinguistic studies the Caribbean is examined as a whole. There's always a special focus on the phonetic features such as the [r] to [l] change in PR Spanish. This change is at the end of words in PR and a certain area of the DR (amor = amol) whereas in Cuba it's in the middle of the word (parque =palque). In your opinion do Puerto Ricans (the majority) have this linguistic trait in their speech or is it a question of education and the socioeconomic level of the speaker?


-LDG.

[Norma Rosa]

The replacement of the L for the R only occurs in the Santo Domingo area.
In the east, the L is completely dropped in certain cases. For instance, the word falda would be pronounced fada in eastern areas of DR. In the Cibao it would be faida where as Santo Domingo you will hear falda, with a slight emphasis on the L.



Would you like to hear from someone who was born in El Cibao (north), raised in San Pedro de Macoris (east) and studied in Santo Domingo (south)?

The "trueque" between the L sound and the R sound can be heard throughout the island, however, the L sound predominates in the eastern part, while the R sound is more a thing of the south (Santo Domingo is in the south).

In El Cibao the tendency is towards the sound of letter I.

Norma (Nolma: eastern part) Noima (Cibao) Nolma or Norma (the south)
Sorry, but the L or R is never dropped, anywhere.

[Norma Rosa]

Originally Posted by Mephs

Here's a link with some pictures of the items I described before. The chestnut could be "buenpan", but they only show pictures of the spiny pod. Inside it has seed that to me look like chestnuts, but again I never called them that way before.

Here's a "castaño", since the picture didn't show on the prior link.

Here's a better picture of a "buenpan" showing the pod and seeds.

The kind of discussion that my post generated is what I go through every time I visit the Dominican Republic. It can be fun learning how many different ways you can say the same thing in the same language.

Carlos

BUENPAN in the eastern part of the DR is PAN DE FRUTA.

[Lesley D]

Just to clarify this quote was taken from post # 7 by Nals. In a well-documented thread like this it's important to reference who the quote was from or the post #.

http://www.dr1.com/forums/351069-post7.html

Juan Carlos here is one more article for you. No need to respond in the thread. Just thought you would like the perspective of a "holguinero".

¿El holguinero habla diferente en Cuba? - Aldia.cu - El Sitio de la Tv en Holguín


-LDG.

Originally Posted by Norma Rosa

The replacement of the L for the R only occurs in the Santo Domingo area.
In the east, the L is completely dropped in certain cases. For instance, the word falda would be pronounced fada in eastern areas of DR. In the Cibao it would be faida where as Santo Domingo you will hear falda, with a slight emphasis on the L.



Would you like to hear from someone who was born in El Cibao (north), raised in San Pedro de Macoris (east) and studied in Santo Domingo (south)?

The "trueque" between the L sound and the R sound can be heard throughout the island, however, the L sound predominates in the eastern part, while the R sound is more a thing of the south (Santo Domingo is in the south).

In El Cibao the tendency is towards the sound of letter I.

Norma (Nolma: eastern part) Noima (Cibao) Nolma or Norma (the south)
Sorry, but the L or R is never dropped, anywhere.

[Mephs]

Originally Posted by Lesley D

As part of the second discussion in the thread what are thoughts about Puerto Rican Spanish as compared to Spanish spoken in Cuba or the DR? In linguistic and ethonlinguistic studies the Caribbean is examined as a whole. There's always a special focus on the phonetic features such as the [r] to [l] change in PR Spanish. This change is at the end of words in PR and a certain area of the DR (amor = amol) whereas in Cuba it's in the middle of the word (parque =palque). In your opinion do Puerto Ricans (the majority) have this linguistic trait in their speech or is it a question of education and the socioeconomic level of the speaker?

I'm not sure what the answer to your question is, but my guess would be that it is tied to socioeconomic levels. The 'r' to 'l' switch and the pronunciation of the 'rr' like the 'j' from Spain is more noticeable outside of the metro area and in street talk. People do realize that this is not the proper way to pronounce words in Spanish and do make efforts to avoid these quicks in formal conversations.

I was not aware (until very recently) that some Dominicans also do the 'r' to 'l' switch in some words. A few years ago I met a man from Santo Domingo that spoke that way and I thought that he was making fun of my accent!

[Lesley D]

I am familiar with the reasons behind the prevalence of the [r] to [l] change as it relates to language and sociolinguistics in Caribbean Spanish, which is most prevalent in Puerto Rico. However, I thought it would be interesting to get your point of view. The field in language known as sociolinguistics focuses on the relationship between language and society and examines historical aspects of language in a region from a grammatical, lexical, and semantic point of view. In the world of sociolinguistics in Spanish, well-researched studies have been done on PR and the Caribbean as a whole (which includes Panama, coastal Colombia and coastal Venezuela) and this phonetic trait is always discussed.

I won't go into details here due to the depth of the topic however; you did mention a key aspect. You stated it's heard outside of the metro area, which is usually the case with certain speech patterns and phonetic traits in a language. Some linguists call certain speech patterns or phonetic traits such as these a "ruralismo" meaning they can be predominantly heard in the outskirts and rural areas. As well, studies further analyze the education and socioeconomic level of the speaker, which is very relevant when analyzing speech patterns of any community. Education is very influential in the speech of an individual or society and usually it becomes a marker or icon of a community or social group that makes them identifiable via the way they speak. The most recent article that I attached in the thread "el holguinero..." is a perfect example of this which discusses the differences in speech patterns in Cuba from east to west and those from Holguín are identifiable via their speech patterns from other Cubans from another linguistic zone. The same holds true in any country where speech patterns vary among its speakers.


All for now

-LDG.