Talk:Spanish language/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Spanish language. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Incorrection

In Phonology > Lexical stress it says:

"the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress"

This is not true, due to "tildes". And that's indeed well explained in Writing system:

"Written Spanish also marks unequivocally stress through a series of orthographic rules." "Spanish orthography is such that every speaker can guess the pronunciation (adapted for accent) from the written form."

Is there someone opposed to deleting this part of the paragraph? -- Euyyn

Loss of vosotros/vuestro in parts of South America?

There is some brief discussion on the use of 'vos' instead of 'tu'. (My understanding: Argentinian 'vos' takes the same verb conjugations as 'tu' in all tenses but the present, where it has new forms made from the forms from 'vosotros' with the 'i' deleted from the ending. This has the interesting effect of moving the stress to the last syllable and thereby not incurring the vowel change seen in 'tu' forms, so 'que quieres' becomes 'que querés', and 'puedes irte' becomes 'podés irte'. 'Vos' replaces 'tu': 'vos podés', 'ti': 'para vos', but not 'te': 'te quiero' or 'tu (pos.)': 'tu casa' or 'tuyo'.)

It seems that Argentines do not naturally use 'vosotros'. I asked an Argentinian friend how he would say 'me gusta vuestra casa' and I was quite surprised when he thought for a while and said that although he would say 'me gusta tu casa' for one person, for several house-owners he said he would use a different construction all together to avoid the use of 'vuestra', having no informal second person plural possessive! Has Argentinian Spanish really lost this part of its 'person spectrum'? Does anyone have any less anecdotal information on this? Thomas Munro 2004-12-06

Thomas, you can (and should) sign your posts automatically by writing ~~~~ (four tildes) in the edit window. They'll convert to your username plus date/time.

Argentinians do not use "vosotros" (naturally or otherwise) except (mostly) when quoting or mocking Spaniards. The usual second person plural possessive is a periphrasis: "de ustedes". That is, "me gusta la casa de ustedes". Or even "me gusta la casa que tienen ustedes" ("the house that you[plural] have"). As strange as this may seem, this "loss" of a pronoun is unnoticeable to us Argies. :)

We can also use "su" or "suyo", which are the third person possessives, both singular and plural. This is because "ustedes" is formally third person. "Me gusta la casa suya" or "Me gusta su casa" can be understood as "I like your house" or "I like his/her/their house". Now, if you're speaking of/to one person, "su" can conceivably mean "de usted", but since "usted" is formal, if you're speaking to friends "su" will probably mean "de ustedes", which is neutral formality-wise (you don't call a friend "usted"). I hope this makes sense...

-- Pablo D. Flores 14:58, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Pablo, very well explained.

Does anyone know whether all Latin American speakers avoid 'vosotros', or is it just those who use 'vos' instead of 'tu'? Are there any European speakers who also do this? Thomas Munro 03:39, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am spaniard, but I've lived many years in México. As far as I know, "vosotros" is only used in Spain, and only when speaking informally, to friends, "de tu". However, Nowadays nobody want to receive the "usted" treatment (if you are young, it sounds old fashioned, and if you're not, you feel younger when being called "tu" or "vosotros"), so in Spain "vosotros" is more used than ever. Nevertheless, some people in the South, in Andalucía, use "ustedes" when speaking informally, just like Latin Americans. It's very common there (but not a good usage, it sounds rather uncultivated) to use the same "vosotros" verbal forms with "ustedes": "ustedes sabéis", instead of "ustedes saben". It's a common joke, when "quoting or mocking" andalusian people, to use both words: "ustedes vosotros sabéis que...", for it's a common mistake for people not used to use "vosotros".--Vivero 00:09, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IPA and SAMPA usage and inconsistencies

In the phonology section, IPA is used, but the symbols are placed /between slashes/ , which is customarily used for SAMPA. IPA letters are placed [between brackets]. In that same section, it is said that "and then /ts/ evolved into the interdental /ɸ/, now written 'z,ce,ci'". This is completely wrong. The correct symbol should be IPA [θ] or SAMPA /T/. This section, as well as most of the page uses IPA, but in the "writing system" section, a lone /J/ is used. I plan to change this to it's IPA counterpart, [ɲ], so that it is uniform with the rest of the article. However, Phonology of the Spanish language uses SAMPA transcription. Should we change that to IPA or change this article to SAMPA? Personally, I favor IPA, because its symbols are much less likely to be confused with normal text, and each phoneme has one character, unlike in SAMPA. However, there are some people whose browsers are non-Unicode-compatible. What are your opinions on this topic? UED77 23:08, 2004 Aug 28 (UTC)

History

In the original text, it has been written "in Puerto Rico, where the population is of mixed descent between Spaniards, Native Americans, and Africans". Al-Andalus has modified the text to write: "In Puerto Rico, where they also became [and to this day remain] a possession of the US following the Spanish-American War, their population was by then almost entirely of Spanish or mixed Spanish-African (mulatto) descent". However, recent genetic research, however, contradicts that information. Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome analysis have shown that 62% of Puerto Ricans come from an Amerindian ancestry (said to be "from our mothers") and well over 70% have a white ancestry ("from our fathers"). In other words, the mestizo is the lineage that most permeates the society. Mulatos and blacks seem to only account for less than 20% (Y chromosome) and 26% (mtDNA) — therefore only about a quarter of the islands populace can really lay claim to an African ancestry. Europeans are also said to be highly mixed, again in varying degrees, with Amerindian bloodlines (See Puerto Rico).

Major changes in the 19th century?

The century referred in the sentence "By the 19th century the consonantal system of Castilian Spanish underwent the following important changes.." must be an error. I guess it refers to 14th or 15th century, and at most 16th century, because when Spanish was brought to America, all these changes had been done.

Semivowel or not?

Why is the "u" in the sequence "ui" a semivowel in words like "ruido", "agüita", but not in "destruido", "argüido", etc? Fibonacci

I'm not sure they are, actually. But many people pronounce them as if "u" and "i" were in different syllables (the name for that situation when two vowels usually forming a diphthong are in fact separated is "hiatus"). Both "destruido" and "argüido" should have an orthographic accent over the "i" to mark hiatus. Pablo-flores 01:22, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, they don't. They should, that's true, but they don't. Check the DRAE, and search the corresponding verbs. Fibonacci

In fact, AFAI learned at school, it's not correct to pronounce them as an hiatus: 'i' and 'u' are both "soft" vowels (against "hard" ones: a, e and o) and so, always form dipthongue when joined. The same happens with "jesuitas".--euyyn 14:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not always... they don't when they have an acute accent, so we have "reír", "oír", and many others. About "jesuita", I think it's just like "ruido" - I've always heard /je.swí.ta/, and never /je.su.í.ta/ or some other pronounciation. --Fibonacci 04:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Maybe in Spain it's not "correct", but I think that the reason why there is no accent in "destruido" is because some people pronounce it /des.trwí.do/ and others /des.tru.í.do/. Maybe even some people say /des.trúj.do/. I pronounce /des.tru.í.do/, as most Chileans, and here it's the correct way. Pablo.cl 15:50, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Do you have any reasons to believe that? I have never heard /des.trwí.do/. I've heard sometimes /des.trúj.do/, but only from VERY uneducated people which also do "beautiful" pronounciations like /den.trár/ (for "entrar"), /xe.rós/ (for "feroz"), /pwa.j\á/ (for "por allá"), and many others; so they are not a reliable source.

So I think there is a "right" pronounciation, which is /des.tru.í.do/ (and of course /des.tru.ír/, /cons.tru.ír/, /ar.gu.ír/, and so on). That's the way I pronounce it, as most Colombians do. --Fibonacci 04:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I haven't found a word which has an acute accent over i or u in the combinations "ui" or "iu". Aren't there any? --Fibonacci 04:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Both 'i' and 'u' letters are soft-vowels in contrast to 'a-e-o' being hard-vowels. A soft plus a hard vowel always form (except for poetry effects) a diphthong ("diptongo"), being then part of the same syllable and pronunciated together. But if the soft vowel gets the stress in this word, then it has an acute 'ú' or 'í', the diphthong breaks and an hiatus ("hiato") appears. Two hard-vowels never form a diphthong and are always in different syllables. But then, two soft-vowels always form a diphthong, whether any of them gets the stress or not, and so they never get an acute. So, words like "jesuita", "ruido", "destruido" NEVER get an acute. That is also the reason for "destruir" and "argüir" not having an acute. Someone could doubt because "jesuítico" HAS an acute, but this is because the stress in this word is after the second syllable from the end of the word, and in this case the stressed vowel always get an acute (this words are called in Spanish "esdrújulas", or "sobresdrújulas" if the stress is further than the third syllable from the end). By the way, do not forget that forms like "que", "qui" and usually "gue" and "gui" are a different case as the 'u' letter has no sound there. But in "güe" and "güi" it has. In the case of "pingüino", the 'i' vowel gets the stress, both of them have sound, but none gets an acute. I can explain more in depth this rules if someone needs, or verify again if someone feels they are wrong. The best source for this is in www.rae.es but at this moment they don't have the "doubts dictionary" online. They are going to publish online a new finished one... -- 146.103.254.11 20:26, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

¿siútico? Ejrrjs | What? 00:30, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

two soft-vowels always form a diphthong... again, argüir has three syllables, not two. --Fibonacci 22:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

También and compadre have /n/ (arch)phoneme

Some people think that también = /tam'bjen/. If this were true, then school children wouldn't spell *tanbien. There are 5500 occurences of *tanbien in Google, and also 355 of *tanvien. User:Pablo.cl 16:25, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Not true; they spell "tanbien" because they get confused with "tan bien". Fibonacci

And because a Spanish speaker usually can't manage to pronounce a phonetic /n/ before /b/, so children read "nb" as /mb/ automatically. Of course "nv" is also /mb/. "Tan" + "bien" = "también" is just plain phonetic assimilation, not the resurfacing of an arch-phoneme. As for "compadre" etc., it's generally considered that there's a "con-" morpheme with an allomorph "com-" motivated by phonetic reasons. Pablo-flores 01:37, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And then, it could be said that correlación and irreparable have /n/ archphoneme, and [r:] is an allophone of /n/. Why is that? The "con-" morpheme has also an allomorph "cor-", motivated by phonetic reasons (as in "correlación"). The same is true for the morpheme "in-" ("intocable", "infalible") and its allomorph "ir-" ("irrompible", "irreparable"). But the affirmation is clearly ridiculous, since "irreparable" has nothing remotely similar to a /n/ phoneme. Then, why is the other one an archphoneme? Because it's not. --Fibonacci 05:21, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I say that the sequence [mp] is /np/. To deny this there are two posibilities

A Spanish speaker can say [np] and [mp] giving rise to /np/ and /mp/. This is clearly false. San Pedro -> sampedro, en+pobre+ecer -> empobrecer.
[np] and /np/ simply don't exist in Spanish (just like /tg/ or /fk/). If this were true, why /un/ + /póko/ = /umpóko/? It's simpler [un] + [póko] = [umpóko] and /un/ + /poko/ = /unpóko/.

Pablo.cl 17:56, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then, the sequence [rr] is /nr/ too? Consider in+reparable -> irreparable, con+relación -> correlación, and copy your "proof" here. --Fibonacci 04:13, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The confusion comes from mixing phonology with morphology. There's a tacit rule (in place since Latin probably!) that all morphemes ending in /n/ (whatever you call it) have allomorphs without the nasal when prefixed to stems beginning in /r/ or /l/. It's perfectly legal, though rare, to have [nr] in Spanish, so /nr/ > [r:] is not regular assimilation (while /np/ > [mp] et al are). I think "irreparable" doesn't have the (arch-)phoneme /n/ anywhere, but the prefixed "i-" is indeed an allomorph of "in-". -- Pablo D. Flores 15:11, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just as you said before: an allomorph motivated by phonetic reasons; in this case, the allomorph would be "ir-" and not just "i-". And, as for the arch-phoneme, what you said before is still valid: "Tan" + "bien" = "también" is just plain phonetic assimilation, not the resurfacing of an arch-phoneme. --Fibonacci 01:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An example is enroque ("rooking"). But it is difficult to pronounce. The regular form *tenerás ("you will have") has become tendrás. --Error 02:49, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The proper English word would be castling. And yes, I do know about enroque; I'm a chess player (a very bad one, in case you're thinking to challenge me). --Fibonacci 01:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also, ronronear (to purr), which is also difficult to pronounce, especially for us native English speakers. Although, when pronounced correctly, it sounds just like what it is. The most accurate onomatopoeia I know of. Nohat 06:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I know this one too. I had a cat, twice. --Fibonacci 01:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other examples: enramada (a set of branches?), honrar ("to honor"). BTW one the lesser known orthography rules taught to elementary school pupils is that /nr/ is always written "nr" and not "nrr" (which I see often). On the issue of tendrás, that's almost a regular irregularity. The /b/ in "hombre" and "hembra" are also epenthetic (curiously, the /r/ comes, in those cases, from dissimilation of Latin /n/: homine(m), femina). -- Pablo D. Flores 12:13, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inverted question marks

¿Are there any other languages that use inverted question and exclamation marks? I know that not even Catalan does so. - montréalais

I don't know, but Spanish does the same with exclamation marks. Another notable point is that the paired question or exclamation marks enclose only the actual question and not the entire sentence, as in English. Esta muerto ¿Verdad? He's dead, right? Me preguntaron -- ¿De donde vienes? They asked me, "Where are you coming from?"

There's also the tricky business of yes/no questions, which I can't quite handle. Ortolan88

I knew this (having just come back from an advanced Spanish course in Valladolid), but thanks. - montréalais

But Catalan does use inverted (the preferred term is opening) question and exclamation marks. They just happen to be optional, unlike in Spanish -- Perique des Palottes

Oh really, that's very interesting. I didn't see them at all when I was in Catalonia (except for in Castilian text, of course) so I assumed they just weren't used. Could you tell me what kind of context they are used in? - montréalais

I guess they are optional, just that. That is to say: some people use them, some people don't (although some people may have some personal criteria regarding its use). User:Marco Neves P.S. Just out of curiosity, some Portuguese authors (mainly 19th century ones) use the inverted marks in very long sentences, but that's very rare and some Portuguese may live without seeing them. Actually, new editions of those works delete those marks, in spite of the fact that I've seen a contemporary writer use it in a very very long sentence (to clarify it).

Opening question or exclamation marks are generally never used in catalan. They're recommended only for very long sentences or when the beggining and end of the question might be unclear. xevi

Pablo.cl: I don't like the sentence "Spanish is a language with inverted question marks". Typography is not language. Pablo Neruda spoke and wrote in Spanish. However he didn't use "¿". Did he use non-standard Spanish? I think it was non-standard typography.

The proper use of punctuation is defined in grammars. If standard Spanish is the one defined by any of the Academies, Neruda certainly (I never heard so, though) didn't follow a fully standard usage. Had he used ! instead of ? and vice versa, it would be even less standard. For another prestijious author engajing in non-standard usaje, see Juan Ramón Jiménez's elimination of g with j pronunciation. -- Error

Pablo.cl: There is a simple way to know whether Neruda used "¿" or not: read any of his books in Spanish.

Well, I have just checked this, and his books in fact uses "¿". But then I checked a few facsimile letters and he doesn't. I think this was due to Neruda's laziness or something like that, and then the editor put them in. It's like in Internet, very few spanish e-mails or chats use the "¿". --Pinzo 22:32, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, note that Spanish relies in tones for indicating questions. Compare "No sé qué comiste" with "¿Qué comiste?". In English, grammar shows the difference: "I don't know what you ate" and "What did you eat?".

English as well may use just tone for marking questions. Right? -- Error

Pablo.cl: The problem is that the question tone in Spanish is not redundant. English can do with no question marks at all. When you say "Do you ...", you already know it's a question. On the other hand, in those few cases that grammar doesn't show it's a question, it would be nice to have a beginning question mark

A: I invited John.

B: ¿You invited John? Are you getting crazy? ¿Insane?

A: ¿Why the aggresiveness? Do you fear John?

B: ¿Fear? Why do you think I fear him? ¿Transference, perhaps?

Getting offtopic, I have always wondered why (in any language) the ? appeared before the ¿. I think the ¿ makes its sibling redundant.

And, about English, is there any dialect which removes (most) tone? Maybe Jamaican English? -- Error 02:07, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Pablo.cl 28 Aug 2003: I agree with the parent post. In fact, there was a language used by an ape tha only had "¿", but no "?"

Just wondering: what's the history of the inverted marks? Has Spanish always used them? Funnyhat 19:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Spanish syntax

SamIam: This entry is an excellent discussion of the phonology of Spanish. However, there is no discussion of Spanish's syntax.

I am thinking something along the lines of "Spanish verbs have eight simple tenses (this includes the imperative), and seven compound tenses (some compound tenses are very rare). Additionally, the verbs have a present progressive form, a participle form, and an infinitive form. The seven simple tenses are: The present tense, two past tenses, a future tense (which is falling out of favor, especially in the Americas), a conditional tense, and two subjunctive tenses.

About the "fall out of favor", is there a word or article about the fear of the future (fear of the irrealis?) that several languages have experienced? -- Error 00:27, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Pablo.cl: What about the form -aré, -eré meaning not future but expectation, hope, or something like that.

¿No me estarás leseando? = I think you might be teasing me

Tendremos que comer = Maybe we should eat

The present tense, like most non-English languages, describes both habitual events and events which the speaker is presently doing.

One past tense describes events which happened one or a finite number of times in the past; the other past tense is used to describe habitual events in the past.

The two subjunctive tenses are used to describe doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events which may or may not occur. [...]

Some linguists have theorized that Spanish verbs, when describing motion, emphasize the direction of motion. For example, subir means "to go up", bajar means "to go down". This contrasts with English verbs which are more likely to show the method of motion ("Sliding" vs. "Tumbling").

All Spanish nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives, all pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference [...]"

There are also some epicenes. Noun that can take both genders in some circunstances: el arte, las artes; el mar, la mar; el aceite, la aceite (dialectal); el Internet, la Internet. -- Error

Pablo.cl 28 Aug 2003: epicenes are: la jirafa macho, la jirafa hembra, el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra.

I think there are some major problems with the description of the Spanish verb.

Why are the indicative and subjunctive described as modes and not moods?
I studied Spanish grammar for several years and I've never heard of "imperfect future", "co-preterit" and "post-preterit" before. This terminology has been translated directly from Spanish. I think it's confusing for readers not fluent in Spanish.
The past perfect tense isn't used to express past habitual events, the imperfect tense is used to do that. The Spanish past perfect works in exactly the same way as the English version.
It might be useful to mention aspect, that is the progressive and perfective nature of the tenses.

I referred to this excellent website Usage of tenses to check I wasn't barking up the wrong tree. Dduck 20:28, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I just finished some amendments to Grammatical person, and a Spanish speaker may wish to check what I wrote there; I used Spanish as an example of a language that uses a third person word to politely refer to people in the second person. I am uncertain about the use and distribution of usted, ustedes, vos, vosotros, and that information might be profitably added to this article. -- Smerdis of Tlön 21:57, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Castilian or Spanish? The situation in Spain

a)I feel that it would be better to start the article with "the spanish or castilian language" as both are synonyms. Later, the writer can state (as usual)that for simplicity "spanish" will be used in the rest of the article.

b)In Spain the offical term is castilian, and there seems to be no division on how to call the language just by where people live. Castilian' is prefered, but people known that spanish is synonym of castilian.

How is it official? From memory, the RAE has used both forms in different moments of history. Some American constitutions weaselly talk about the "lengua nacional". -- Error 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

c)Schools teach castilian language, AFAIK.

What do you mean? The subject is Lengua española in Spanish school. -- Error 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, it isn't. In Spain, the subject is "lengua castellana". This is the mother tongue subjects in most regions and the second language subject in Catalonia (where "llengua catalana" is the mother language subject for almost every student, including those whose mother tongue is Spanish) and in some schools in some other regions. --Marco Neves 21:47, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Wikipedian, March 23rd, 18:54 (GMT+1)

You are right for ESO. However in Filología Hispánica it is Lengua Española. -- Error 02:58, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

When dealing with Spanish/ Castilian language, mind the different meanings of "Castilian" and the different uses among Spanish speakers. Also mind that the English usage and the Spanish one don't have to match. -- Error 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The name in Spanish may be disputed as to whether to use "castellano" or "español", but in English, the name of the language is "Spanish". In English, "Castilian" means the kind of Spanish spoken in "Castille". It might also be used to describe standard Spanish as spoken in Spain, but it's not used to describe Spanish as spoken outside of Spain. Nohat 04:05, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

Further, I think User:Thewikipedian is confounding the issue by using English translations of Spanish words to refer to Spanish usages. For example in this sentence

Castilian' is prefered, but people known that spanish is synonym of castilian.

I assume what is meant is castellano is preferred, but people know that español is a synonym of castellano, but this is unclear as English terms are used to describe Spanish usage. I don't think there's any valid evidence that the term "Castilian" is used to refer to the Spanish language, as a whole, in English.Nohat 04:11, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance ...but, isn't this issue also extendable to the english language itself?

I mean, how is it that the english variant spoken in the UK is called "british english" and not simply "british"?

Why is it possible to refer to the english language as a whole as "english" and not "british"?

For the time being, I will rename any references to the spanish language from "Castilian" to "spanish" in the Spain wiki, so that it does not lead to further confussion.

(I must say that I'm surprised that unlike in spanish, english does not consider synonyms "castilian" and "spanish". thewikipedian 16:41 GMT+2

For the record, I've got the Espasa 'diccionario de la lengua espanola' on my shelf... I think this issue can sometimes have political overtones - The constitution describes the language as Castilian, and as one of the official languages, this carries the implication that Catalan, Galician and Basque are also Spanish languages, being from regions that are part of Spain. The Franquista postion was more that the Spanish language was the only 'worthy' language of Spain, Separatists may also consider that Catalonia, The Basque country and Galicia are not part of Spain, thus these languages are not 'Spanish'. In reality I think it is of little importance, most Spanish people call the language 'Espanol', Latin Americans seem more likely to call it 'Castellano', but you here both terms in both contexts. PysProblem 31/10/2004 19:58GMT

Separate Grammar Page

Hello everyone. I'm pretty new to Wikipedia so I apologize for my ignorance in advance. I was looking around at language pages here and I found the one for Finnish language that redirects users to a separate Finnish grammar page that gives great detail about all the different grammatical forms and uses. It seems that much information is lacking on the grammar section of this page, and I was wondering if it would be worth creating a Spanish grammar page and moving the grammar section here to that page, allowing it to become a more complete discussion of Spanish grammar. I'd be happy to contribute to such a page, but I don't want to make such a large change as a new user without asking people's opinions, so let me know what you think. -- Jrdioko 02:07, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

I definitely encourage you to create a Spanish grammar page. There are grammar articles for so many languages . One for Spanish would be good.--Jondel 00:30, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would enjoying creating/contributing to such a page in the future, but I've just started college and have been pretty busy. If you or someone else wants to start working on a basic version, though, that would be great. – Jrdioko (Talk) 05:15, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is already existingGrammar of the Spanish language. Solo falta nuevo informacion. Keep up the college work! --Jondel 02:15, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

one of the oldest languages in the world

Any problem if I remove Basque - one of the oldest languages in the world -? Saying that Basque is old implies that today's and BC Basque are the same language, which is like saying that Spanish is Latin. It's all in the interpretation, but comparing the "age" of Basque with that of English or Spanish is different. -- Error 02:00, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You're right, but it was meant to emphasize that Basque is not Spanish, which seems to be the belief of some people, as strange as it may seem.

--Marco Neves 23:10, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sound bites

Possibly this has already occurred and nobody has time, or possibly the people who wrote it know their stuff so well they don't see the need for it, but: I would love to be able to listen to little recordings demonstrating the various pronunciation concepts discussed in this article. I find it all very interesting (well done!) but, not speaking Spanish and not having any education in languages in general, I find it difficult to follow without hearing exactly what is being talked about. Rkundalini 15:36, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Oh dear

I fear there are too many uneducated people contributing to this article. The way the language is described is not exactly methodical. I've just had to remove a comment that vosotros coming from vos + otros is a folk etymology. It is obviously not! — Chameleon 08:07, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Help with article

Necesito la ayuda de algunos latinoamericanos. ¿Soléis decir «castellano» o «español»? Id a poner el nombre de vuestro país en la lista que está en Names given to the Spanish language. — Chameleon

Bien, ya aporté. --Fibonacci 17:45, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

MadriD

Something could be said about the pronunciation of final d: "madrid", "madriz", "madrí", "madrit". But I don't see where to wedge it in.

The correct pronounciation is "madrid" (soledad, honestidad,etc). But of course you can hear ""madrit" and specially "madrí": there is common than some spanish speakers don't pronounce final consonants like d and s ( as example, chileans).

Baloo rch 17:54, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It is not a full d but a &edh;

Anyway, the pronunciations of final d should be mentioned.

-- Error 00:42, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Neither is it a ð, since ð is fricative and the "true" Spanish intervocalic 'd' is an approximant. Where you can really hear the ð is in the pronunciation of "juzgado" by some Spaniards. --Fibonacci 05:19, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Misspellings

Someone seems to be adding misspellings to the article.

Please note that it is castellano and Castilian, and not castellaño and Castillian. Thank you. — Chameleon My page/My talk 22:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Adjectives

An adjective describing a person or thing always comes after the noun in Spanish, not before the noun as in English.

Adjectives generally come after the noun, but not always. There are cases in which the same sentence means different things if you place the adjective before or after the noun. For example, "ese gran hombre" (that great man) and "ese hombre grande" (that big man), or "es un amigo viejo" (he's a friend who is very old) and "es un viejo amigo" (he's an old friend).

In poetry it's not uncommon to place adjectives before nouns (verdes praderas, negras tormentas...) , although it's true that it isn't common in Spanish. Sabbut 21:28, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Second person, third person, questions

I am just a student of Spanish, but this selection from the article strikes me as somewhat confused:

Spanish has three second person singular pronouns Tú, Usted and in Latin America Vos. Tú is informal (for example, used with friends) and Usted is formal (for example, used with older people).

As I understand it, Tú is pronoun used with the second person singular form of the verb (the familiar), the only one (Tú hables bien.), but it is often (usually) dropped (Hables bien). Usted is the pronoun used with the third-person singular form of the verb (Usted habla bien). Usted is a contraction meaning "your grace" and is thus the polite form. In practice, many people fall between familiar and formal (Habla bien). In other words, Usted is not a second person pronoun.

Since my teachers came from Madrid and Arizona, Vos didn't come up at all, but it strikes me that Vos therefore is not as widespread as the article suggests.

Furthermore, shouldn't there be some discussion of the second person plural verb forms, which, as I understand it, are used in Spain, but not in the Americas? Ortolan88 04:48, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The correct forms would be "tú hablas, usted habla, vos hablás", respectively.

Saying that the verb form is the third person form is not the same as saying that the pronoun is of the third person. "Usted" historically comes from a noun phrase ("vuestra merced", as you said, "your grace, your mercy"), so it uses a third person form of the verb, but "usted" is definitely a second person pronoun, because it refers to the hearer.

The matter of dropping the pronoun is entirely different. For all pronouns in Spanish, it's done on a pragmatic basis, i. e. when it's common sense to drop the pronoun, you drop it, because you guess the hearer will understand. Of course, verb agreement helps a lot. In the case of "usted", there's the possibility of ambiguity because e.g. "habla" could mean "you speak" or "s/he speaks"; but in practice that's not usually a problem.

There's no relation between the level of formality/politeness and the dropping of the pronoun.

"Vos" is indeed widespread. You won't find it in (most of?) Spain and also not in Mexico (and the US), but in the rest of Latin America "vos" is found scattered all over, and of course there are dozens of millions of "vos" speakers over a large area in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Pablo D. Flores 11:37, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Castellano and Español

The way my Spanish teachers explained it, in the Americas, Español means "person from Spain" and Castellano is used commonly as the name of the language to avoid confusion, while, in Spain, Castellano is used, as stated in the article, to distinguish it from other languages spoken in Spain. Ortolan88 04:48, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Spain many people use español and castellano depending on the context. For example:

Hablo inglés, francés, ruso y español. (I speak English, French, Russian and Spanish)

Hablo catalán, gallego y castellano. (I speak Catalan, Galician and Castilian)

In the first case, the name of each language is associated to a country, so many people would say "español", but in the second case we tend to use "castellano" to distinguish it from the other Spanish languages. Sabbut 12:19, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

digraphs as letters

Okay. I read here that "traditionally rr was considered a separate letter.". Is there any evidence for this? The RAE's comprehensive work on Spanish orthography doesn't mention it as anything other than a digraph. I haven't seen any Spanish-language work that sorts rr as a letter. (I have seen, and in fact own, an American English textbook for high-school level Spanish which considers rr a letter, and even sorts it as one between r and s, but I don't know how much of that is practice taken from Spanish or pedagogical simplification of the one-phoneme—one-letter rule often taught.) —Muke Tever 13:33, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another question: ch and ll are sorted as pairs of letters. What other contexts are there in which they would still be counted specifically as single letters and not either as a digraph or the representation of a phoneme? I saw it claimed that they are still considered single letters and I framed the wording of my addition to avoid touching the issue but now, given the claim they are kept "as distinct letters for other purposes" I'd really like to see how that's supposed to work. —Muke Tever 14:57, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They are separate letters in that their names are che and elle rather than ce hache and ele ele. Chameleon 00:29, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can check www.rae.es about 'rr', searching for "Abecedario" in the 'doubts dictionary' (currently not online due to maintenance). They specifically say: "En consecuencia, las palabras que comienzan por estas dos letras, o que las contienen, pasan a alfabetizarse en los lugares que les corresponden dentro de la c y dentro de la l, respectivamente. Esta reforma afecta únicamente al proceso de ordenación alfabética de las palabras, no a la composición del abecedario, del que los dígrafos ch y ll siguen formando parte." This means that they are now sorted inside the groups of 'c' and 'l' but they are still full letters for any other purpose. Then, for 'rr' they say in the next paragraph: "[...] el sonido que representa el dígrafo rr es el mismo que el representado por la r en posición inicial de palabra o precedida de las consonantes n, l o s. Este solapamiento explica que, a diferencia de la ch y la ll, la rr no se haya considerado NUNCA una de las letras del alfabeto". This in turn means more or less that 'rr' sounds like 'r' at the beginning of the word or right after 'n', 'l' or 's', so this is the reason that this was NEVER considered a letter on its own. 146.103.254.11 20:53, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maybe someone should update the article about this, as it is wrong. I don't do myself because I don't know if I should. 146.103.254.11 20:54, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Countries that say castellano

To User:Pablo.cl

Hi, do you know of very many countries outside Spain where castellano is the term used by speakers of the language? I think the previous wording in Spanish language was not only more accurate, but also better grammar. I was waiting to fix Names_given_to_the_Spanish_language until I had better sources. If you do then that is fine, but let me know on the Spanish language talk page. Thanks - Taxman 14:36, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Taxman. I agree with Names_given_to_the_Spanish_language#Countries_or_regions_where_castellano_.28.27Castilian.27.29_is_generally_preferred. That's my source. As for the grammar, English is my second language, and I think that contents is more important than grammar. The latter can be fixed by native speakers. Pablo.cl 15:39, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

POV addition by anon

An anon added:

Filipinos hate Spanish language and they do not want their children to learn Spanish because Spanish is a SATANIC language to most Filipinos. The Filipino people are anti-Spanish.

to the section discussing the Philippines. While that may be partly correct, it seemed so POV that it would be better to refactor here and then add in. I did not know if it was correct myself. - Taxman 13:17, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

Spanish is already declining drastically if not dead, in the Philippines. This rant is excessive.Like bombing to kill a fly.

Language is a bit of an issue. SeeList of countries where language is a political issue . English is preferred for practical reasons. Filipino which is really Tagalog is preferred for nationalistic purposes. Many historical documents even by Filipino patriots are in Spanish. There is a love-hate relationship. Many Cebuanos believe their language should be the national language. Just like Catalunians, Basques, etc. prefer their language instead of standard Spanish. Suggestion : Ignore or delete these type of rants. I doubt if there will be any fruitful dialogues from this. (Invite to a dialogue?). Knowledge of Spanish , French, Japanese , German, Chinese, etc. may be advantageous not only for filipinos but everyone.--Jondel 07:34, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well what you said above is valuable. Would you consider adding something factual and NPOV, preferrably with a reference added to back it up? Thanks - Taxman 13:25, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Give me sometime to dig the facts. There is a powerful need for Spanish though in the massive historical archives with relation to the Philippines, in the Philippines, Spain and the US. Did you know that Texas was once called Nueva Filapinas (New Philippines). When it was still Spanish territory, the Spaniards were planning to repopulate with many filipinos to stem the anti -Spaniard sentiments there. (Yes I will put up the article with the references in good time.)

Chris (a another Filipino wikipedian) and I are members of a hispano filipino group to promote spanish in the Philippines. Maybe I can get some factual and NPOV stuff there.--Jondel 00:59, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NPOV doesnt mean to change a view from one that hates to another that loves. Maybe the between. :from Spanish_in_the_Philippines Spanish has been in decline since the 20th century, though some families within the mestizo minority to this day continue to use Castillian as the language of the home.

this is similar to Portuguese in Goa. Can we talk on a governamental "task" to irradicate Spanish? 6 million speakers disapearing... it is a lot of people! So like in Goa many fleed? Why English is official in the Philipines, because of US rule? or because has I see (English is very popular in Asia, at least it appears to be). So if the Philipines is punishing spanish, why it is part of the Latin Union, where member are supposed to do the reverse? I dont think impaling nails in the hands in the Easter is Latin culture. Spanish being a fly, it isnt, with Portuguese is the European language that is strengthning in the world. (I'm not talking about learning languages but demography). Portuguese was also desapearing in East Timor, now 5 yrs after it is reviving, 1/4 of the population speak it. --Pedro 20:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Brazil

Don't they speak Spanish there too due to the surrounding nations? (Please, I already know Portugese is the official language there, don't repeat the obvious.)--Jondel 01:24, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

South america is divided (in terms of first language) about 49% Portuguese and 49% Spanish with one or two % speaking Quechua, french, dutch, english and other indian languages. Brasil is just so HUGE that it sees little reason to speak spanish, speaking english is far more common (at least amongst the young), and a portuguese speaking person, can understand basic spanish anyway, without having to actually learn the language. The bellman 23:06, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

In fact there are more Portuguese speakers than Spanish speakers in South America (figures vary, but Portuguese is said to have 182 million speakers in Brazil, while *global* figures for Spanish are at most 360 million, from which you must substract Spain, Central American and the US).

I'm pretty sure that a significant number of Brazilians speak Spanish in the southeastern states, around the borders of Argentina and Paraguay.

I can't say how many Brazileiros in the southern states, esp. Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, but I do know that the "Português" spoken there bears more resemblance to the Spanish (spef. Rioplatense) of Uruguay and la Argentina, phonologically, grammatically and syntactically than to Brazilian Portuguese. Tomer ^TALK 01:55, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Along the figures above, throw in a few % of Guaraní (probably third after Port., Sp. and Quechua). --Pablo D. Flores 11:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Spanish word list

Does anyone know of any word list of the 100 (200, 500, 10000 or whatever) most used spanish words? Im looking for this for a project at wikibooks, and couldnt find anything on google. Just hoping someone here might know where to find one. The bellman 23:06, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

I can create one for you easily enough. I have three corpora (corpuses) you can choose:

Mexican casual speech, about 300,000 words obtained from fotolog.net.

Chilean casual speech, a little under 300,000 words obtained from fotolog.net.

More formal Mexican writing, obtained from La Jornada. This one is based on research from three years ago, though, so I'll have to dig up the CD-ROM with this data.

I can also create a synthetic corpora which is derived from words used in casual speech by both Mexicans and Chileans. Samboy 23:33, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Languages of...

I was about to add Languages of Argentina as category and realized that if every country added it in here, the list of categories would be endless. Leaving it this way is unfair to the countries not listed. Any objections to remove such categories? --SpiceMan 22:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Northern Morocco

During the Reconquista, this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in northern Morocco.

This is misleading. Spanish in Northern Morocco comes from the establishment in Ceuta and Melilla and the 20th century conquest of Rif. There was immigration of Spanish-speaking Moriscoes, but I guess they lost full use of the language after some generations. So I guess that the Spanish-speaking minority was not caused by Reconquista. --Error 23:56, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)