Spanish Dialects

11 Different Spanish Dialects Spoken All Over The World

What do you call a sweetened, carbonated drink in English? Your answer will depend upon the English dialect that is spoken in your city or nearby area.

If you are living in the USA, you can name it in 4-5 different ways. The Northern American population calls it soda pop, while California, NY and all its neighboring states call it soda. On the other hand, Texas and its neighbors prefer calling it coke. All these different names are because of the different English dialects that the USA has.

Dialects are not limited to English alone. All languages can have multiple dialects. Spanish has 11 unique dialects.

You may have already heard about the Latin American and Castilian Spanish dialects. These are the most popular Spanish dialects. But there are many more Spanish dialects in the world.

Catalan – Special Mention

You might wonder why I have not included Catalan in the list of Spanish dialects. Catalan is treated as one of the most common Spanish dialects. But you will be surprised to know that Catalan is not a dialect. It is indeed a language itself, which is spoken in Spain and has very influence from Spanish, Italian and French.

Different Spanish Dialects from The World

The division of Spanish dialects is based on the area or country where they are spoken. There are three divisions – Spanish in Spain, Latin America and around the world.

Spanish Dialects in Spain

Castilian

Castilian Spanish is also called Peninsular Spanish. It is the primary form of Spanish spoken in the northern and central parts of Spain. Majority of the Spanish speaking population speaks Castilian dialect. There are many differences in Castilian and Latin American Spanish dialects. The sounds, phrases, expressions, can have different meanings, depending upon different sides of oceans.

Andalusian

Andalusian dialect of Spanish is very common in southern parts of Spain. This variation of Spanish speakers prefers using diminutive words. This dialect also neutralizes the sounds produced by the Spanish lisp. Andalusian dialect drops many alphabets like S, from the end of a word and D from nearly everywhere.

Murciana

Murciana dialect is mostly spoken in southern Spain. It is similar to the Andalusian dialect of Spanish but do have a few exceptions. This dialect tends to remove many final consonants. It emphasizes on regional vocabulary. Most of this vocabulary is taken from Aragonese, Catalan and Arabic words. It is a rare dialect to encounter. It seems to be slowly withering away like other dialects of the language.

Llanito

This Spanish dialect is a combination of Andalusian Spanish dialect and UK English. The dialect has a strong Spanish base, but it has borrowed words from English, Genoese, Maltese Portuguese and many other Mediterranean languages. It is commonly called as Europe’s oldest language. This dialect is being used in British territory of Gibraltar.

Latin American Spanish Dialects

Rioplatense

The name of this dialect comes from a river called the Rio de la Plata. The river is in parts of Uruguay and Argentina and hence the dialect is being used extensively by both these countries. One interesting feature of this dialect is that it includes many European words from German, English and French languages.

Mexican

This dialect of Spanish is common in Mexico, many parts of the US and Canada. Mexican dialect has a strong influence from many indigenous languages. The dialect is a combination of Spanish, from the Spanish settlers and indigenous languages from local inhabitants.  This dialect is also called as Spanglish, because of many English and hybrid words of English and Spanish.

Caribbean

As the name suggests, this dialect is spoken widely in Caribbean islands. It resembles closely to Canarian and a bit to Andalusian. Caribbean has seen many cultures over time and thus it has influenced the dialect as well. The dialect is a mixture of English, French, African and many other indigenous languages.

Andean

Andean dialect is spoken in Andes, in wester South America. Opposite to Castilian and Andalusian, the last letters of the word are pronounced clearly in this dialect of Spanish. Also, the sounds of a few letters like j and ll are different, which is not the case with most of the Spanish dialects.

Central America

Central American dialect is spoken in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. In this dialect, you will find a few sounds getting deformed into some other sounds. Some letters like ‘j’ and ‘m’ are not pronounced in some cases.

Other Spanish Dialects

Canarian

This dialect is only being spoken on the Canary Islands. Because of being on a different geographical location, this dialect has evolved and deformed a lot. The dialect is different from traditional Spanish. It is quite close to Caribbean and Andalusian Spanish dialects. It also doesn’t use Spanish lisp, as in most Latin American dialects. The vocabulary of this dialect has been evolved thanks to people living on these islands, as they have added their own words over time.

Equatoguinean

This Spanish dialect is used in central Africa’s Equatorial Guinea. This is the only country that has Spanish as their official language. It resembles peninsular Spanish and has been strongly affected by other African languages. You can also see the influences of German, French and Portuguese in this dialect.

So, what Spanish dialect will you learn? You can get help from Transcription Services US Translate to learn different dialects.

Also, if you are looking for Spanish translation services near New York, Transcription Services US, is a company to rely on. Transcription Services US is an ATA and ISO certified translation agency with native translators, offering high quality and outstanding accuracy at very affordable rates.

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