Dominican Spanish

Dominican Spanish is Spanish as spoken in the Dominican Republic; and also among the Dominican diaspora, most of whom live in the United States, chiefly in New York City, Boston, and Miami.

Dominican Spanish is similar to other Caribbean Spanish or Coastal Caribbean Spanish language vernaculars, as well as Canarian Spanish (Canary Islands of Spain) and Andalusian Spanish (Andalucia, southern Spain).[1] Speakers of Dominican Spanish may also use several Spanish archaisms.[1]

Dominican Spanish is based on the Andalusian and Canarian Spanish dialects of southern Spain, and has borrowed vocabulary from the Taíno language. Cibaenian Spanish is a mixture between the dialect spoken by 16th and 17th century Portuguese colonists in the Cibao valley, with the dialect spoken by the 18th century Canarian settlers.[1][2]

History

Most of the Spanish-speaking settlers came from Andalusia (southern Spain) and the Canary Islands. When they first arrived in what is now the Dominican Republic, the first native people they had contact with were the Arawak-speaking Taino people. They found the flora and fauna of the island, as well as various cultural artifacts, very different from those of Spain, so they borrowed words of Arawak origin to name these things.

Phonology

Other differences with Standard Spanish include subtleties like hypercorrection, in particular, adding the s erroneously, thus overcompensating the habit of omitting it.

Example 1:

Example 2:

The hypercorrected form is more of a blatantly sarcastic mode of speech, commonly used for joking rather than everyday speech.

Vocabulary

As in every dialect, Dominican Spanish has numerous vocabulary differences from other forms of the language. The Dominican Academy of Letters (Academia Dominicana de la Lengua) published in November 2013 a dictionary of Dominican terms (Diccionario del español dominicano) containing close to 11,000 words and phrases peculiar to the Dominican dialect.[3] Here are some examples:

Dominican Spanish Standard Spanish English
aposento (a Spanish archaism also meaning "chamber") habitación room
Dominican slang: tató (shortened from "está todo (bien)") bien good, fine
guapo/-a agresivo/-a or enojado/-a(in Spain enfadado/-a ) brave, combative or angry, upset
chinola maracuyá passion fruit
lechosa papaya papaya / pawpaw
cuartos (this is an archaism seldom used in standard Spanish also; it literally means "quarters") dinero money
chin / chin chin (of Arawak origin)[4][5] un poco a bit
guagua (this term is also used in the Canary Islands (Spain), Cuba, Puerto Rico; it originated in the Canary Islands) autobús coach / bus
motoconcho mototaxi motorbike taxi
pasola (a generic term derived from a trademark) ciclomotor scooter
yipeta (a generic term derived from a trademark) (vehículo) todoterreno jeep / SUV
conuco (Arawak origin), finca (finca is also commonly used in Central America) granja farm/agricultural field
colmado (this is an archaism seldom used in Spanish also), and pulpería tienda de ultramarinos convenience store
zafacón (used also in Puerto Rico; possibly a corrupted anglicism of safety can) bote de basura trash can
mata árbol tree
conflé (possibly a corrupted anglicism of corn flakes) cereal cereal
Pamper (many Spanish-speaking countries use this term, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, and in Central America. It is also believed to be a genericized term deriving from a trademark.) pañal desechable disposable diaper (Pampers)
Vaporu (a generic term derived from a trademark) crema mentolada ointment (Vicks VapoRub)

A slightly pejorative slang expression also common around most of the Caribbean basin is vaina. The Castilian meanings are "sheath", "pod", "shell", "shell casing", and "hull" (of a plant). It is descended from the Latin word "vāgīna", which meant "sheath".[6] In the Dominican Republic "vaina" is mainly a thing, a matter, or simply "stuff". For example, ¿Qué vaina es esa? means ¿Qué cosa es esa?, "What is that thing/stuff?".

Anglicisms, due to cultural and commercial influence from the United States and the American occupations of the Dominican Republic during 1916–1924 and 1965–1966, are extremely common in Dominican Spanish, more so than in any other Spanish variant, save for Puerto Rican and perhaps Northern Mexican Spanish. A prime example of this is "vaguada", which is a corruption of the English "bad weather", though in Dominican Spanish the term has come to mean storm or torrential downpour, rather than a spot of unpleasant climate. Hence, a common Dominican expression: "Viene una vaguada", "here comes a vaguada", or "here comes a storm". Another excellent example of this is "boche", a corruption of the English "bull shit", though in Dominican Spanish the term has come to mean a reprimanding, fulmination, or harangue in general terms. Hence, a common Dominican expression: "Me echaron un boche", "they threw me a boche", or "they reprimanded me". The pronoun "they" in Dominican Spanish often refers to the third person singular, so that me dijeron, "they told me", is sometimes used instead of "a man told me", or "a woman told me", or "the young boy by the lemon tree told me". Furthermore, is the Dominican Spanish word for SUV, "yipeta", "jeepeta", or rarely "gipeta". This term is a corruption of the American "Jeep", which was the primary mode of transport for the GI's throughout the country during the occupation in the 1960s. Dominican license plates for SUVs are marked with a "G" for "gipeta", a variant of, and pronounced like, "yipeta", before their serial number. The word "tichel", from "T-shirt", also refers to a rugby shirt, association football jersey, or undershirt, and similarly, "corn flakes" and its variant "con fléi" can refer to any breakfast cereal, in Dominican Spanish, be it puffed corn, bran flakes, or puffed wheat. The borrowing "polo shirt" is frequently pronounced polo ché.

Another phenomenon related to Anglicisms is the usage of brand names as common names for certain objects. For example, "Gillette" and its derivative yilé refer to any razor, and while the machete is known as machete, this being originally a Spanish word, it is sometimes referred to as a "colín", derived from "Collins & Co.", name of a former Connecticut toolmaker.

Some words and names borrowed from Arawakan

Arawak Translation
ají chili/hot pepper
Anacaona Golden Flower
arepa corn cake
bara whip
barbacoa barbecue (barbacoa and "barbecue" are cognates). It was a four-legged stand made of sticks, used by the Taínos for roasting meat.
batata sweet potato
bohío small square house (typical countryside homes)
cacata tarantula
cana any of several kinds of palmetto trees (as for example those that line the Malecón of Santo Domingo)
ceiba Silkcotton tree
canoa small boat, canoe (canoe is a cognate of canoa)
Cibao Stoned Mountains
cocuyo or cucuyo small lightning bug with a blueish light
cohiba tobacco/tobacco leaves
guayo grater
jaiba river crab or freshwater crayfish
hicotea turtle
maraca gourd rattle, musical instrument made of higuera gourd
maco toad; in sports it can also mean someone who doesn't throw a ball accurately
mime little insect, typically a fruit fly
nana or nena little girl
sabana or zabana savanna (a cognate of sabana); a flat grassland of tropical or subtropical regions
tabacu or tabaco tobacco
yagua a small palm native to Hispaniola

References

Footnotes
  1. 1 2 3 Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (1940). El Español en Santo Domingo (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires.
  2. Del Caribe, Números 28-33 (in Spanish). Casa del Caribe. 1998. p. 84.
  3. Editan «Diccionario del español dominicano» que recoge más de 22 000 acepciones | Fundéu BBVA
  4. María Rosa Vélez (2005). "Los nuevos taínos". Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Mayagüez (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 June 2014. One only has to think “un chin” (the Taino word for a little) about many words and phrases used here; (...)
  5. Grisel R. Núñez (24 August 2012). "La herencia taína". El Post Antillano (in Spanish). San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sin embargo, no sólo heredamos palabras, sino también frases, como la muy conocida ‘un chin-chin’ para hacer referencia a una cantidad pequeña.
  6. Online Etymological Dictionary, with reference link to Dictionary.com "Based on the Random House Dictionary"
Sources

Other links

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