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Andalusian Accent - Help!
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Piwin
Posts: 3562
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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 RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to Gabewolf)
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Yeah it's not easy. The problem is that there's really not one kind of andaluz dialect.
For instance, you say:
quote:
I know in Spain the z and sometimes c sounds are replaced with a "th" sound, so that's not a problem
but the reverse exists also (look up ceceo and seseo. Depending on which area of Andalucia you're in, you'll be more likely to hear one of those forms more than the other).
What might help is just remembering that a lot of stuff just disappear and being able to identify a word despite part of it just going plain missing, i.e. consonants that just disappear (granada=granà, tapado=tapao, todo=to and a lot of times consonants at the end of words, nosotros= nosotro, mas=ma, sois= soi (which creates confusion as it sounds exactly like soy) etc.).
To be honest I would just keep on trying to listen to those flamenco documentaries. My guess is that if you feel comfortable in Spanish, you won't have too much trouble with a teacher in a one-on-one setting. He'll know you're a foreigner and will adapt. The real problem is when you're with a group of andaluces and the sheer speed of the conversation can leave the most of us at a loss. When everything is said and done, it's really just about easing into everyday life situations, having a more flexible approach to language than in a school setting and ultimately just enjoying the whole process of learning by trial and error (and the more ridiculous those errors, the better!  ).
Also, this doesn't have much to do with comprehension but as a general rule, you should feel free to cut the word gracias out of your vocabulary entirely or at least cut down the amount of times you use it per day by a LOT.
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Date Dec. 18 2016 9:20:38
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ViejoAmargo
Posts: 39
Joined: Jun. 29 2016
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RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to Escribano)
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These are my empirical observations (which, as has been pointed out, may apply to Spanish spoken in several Latin American countries as well):
- Final D, R, S and Z are dropped:
Verdad => Verdá
Merced => Mercé
Placer => Placé
Dormir => Dormí
Detrás => Detrá
Andaluz => Andalú
The final S or Z sound sometimes may have a subtle "J" (English "H") sound: "detráj", "andalúj", etc.
- D between two vowels at the end of a word is dropped:
Bailado => Bailao
Cuidado => Cuidao
Estudiado => Estudiao
Preñada => Preñáa / preñá
Salido => Salío
Encadenado => Encadenao (note that only the last D is droped)
Full sentences get interesting:
"Se fué detrás del suegro" would sound "Se jué 'etráj_el suegro"
"No quiero más nada" would sound "No quiero máj náa"
It looks weird but I think it's a matter of getting used to, in no time you'll be able to recognize the words.
Let me conclude with one joke I'm never able to share with anyone in North America:
Profesor: "Jaimito, dígame tres partes del cuerpo humano que empiezan con Z"
Jaimito: "Qué fácil, profesó: ¡Lo Zojo, La Zuña y La Zoreja!"
[Los ojos, las uñas y las orejas] LOL :D
Hope that helps! :-)
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Date Dec. 24 2016 0:32:31
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ViejoAmargo
Posts: 39
Joined: Jun. 29 2016
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RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to Leñador)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Leñador
What about people that make Y sound like J. I've tried to pin this to a specific place but I hear it randomly from people from random places. IE "Jo fue" or.....ummmm "Ja no voy a ir." Seem to be when Y starts the sentence maybe....Now that I think of it, I kinda do it too but not so hard, my "ya" or "yo" is slightly J sounding......
You mean English J sound (not Spanish J) right? Growing up in Venezuela, the Y / LL sound is always like a hard English "J": Yuca, Guayana, rayo, yeyo, Yaracuy [final Y is like "i", same as in English)... Actually, as I learned to speak English it took me a while to realize that the English "y" sound is much softer than the "j", I originally assumed they sounded the same (that's what English teachers would tell us at school: "la J en inglés suena como la Y"...)
I find that the Spanish spoken in Venezuela is much more similar to Andalusian Spanish than other variations of Spanish, such as those spoken in Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina or Spain (although it's less "thick" than the average Andalusian...)
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Date Dec. 24 2016 1:43:30
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granjuanillo
Posts: 32
Joined: Nov. 3 2009
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RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to Gabewolf)
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Dialectologist that work on Spanish classify two main dialect groups in Latin America: highland and lowland. The latter are spoken in various costal areas - the Caribe, Venezuela, parts of Central America, costal Columbia, Vera Cruz, Argentina, etc. The highland areas include highland Columbia (e.g Bogota), Central Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, etc.
While this is not a perfect division, essentially, lowland areas share features with Andalucian Spanish, particularly s-aspiration or s-loss in syllable-final position. Highland dialects do not have these features, and tend to retain these s-sounds, as well as other consonants.
Latin American Spanish, in genreral is based on Andalucian Spanish, which, by the middle of the colonial period, was largely seseista (no lisping). However, some Andalucian features never took hold in the highlands (e.g. s-aspiration even though most linguists believe s-aspiration was already happening in Andalucia during the colonial period). This is something of a mystery - why is all of Latin America seseista, but only parts drop/aspirate syllable-fianl s? The explanation that historical linguist Ralph Penny and others suggest is:
Andlalucian Spanish formed the basis of early colonial Spanish - 50% of the colonists came from Anadalucia and those from elsewhere had to spend a year or more in Sevilla getting their paperwork together before being able to emigrate (Spain has always loved its bureaucracy). This established the seseista norm in Latin America.
The highland areas included two important Viceroyalty seats - Mexico City and Lima. These attracted clergy and government officials from Madrid, who spoke a Castillian variety; the costal areas were on the shipping routes, where sailors - many from Andalucia - influenced the local speech. Interestingly, Lima Spanish is now losing/aspirating their s-sounds, but this is a recent phenomenon, and not found elsewhere in Peru.
While the Castillian speakers were not enough to reverse seseo in Latin America, they did influence the final consonants.
This accounts also for the lack of vosotros (as in Andalucia), and 'yeismo' - the merger of y and ll (residue of the distinction remains in some highland areas - e.g. Bolivia).
I'm not sure what I think of all of this, but it is an interesting mystery. Also, why is there no ceceo in Latin America, while we know there was in Andalucia in colonial times (Cervantes comments on someone 'lisping like a Gitano').
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Date Dec. 24 2016 17:08:46
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to granjuanillo)
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I found your comments very interesting, Granjuanilla. In a previous incarnation, I spent several years in South America, in Santiago, Chile and Bogota, Colombia. In both Santiago and Bogota, those that would be considered in the upper socio-economic class referred to Spanish as "Castellano," never as Espanol. With your interest in the historical development of the Spanish language, you probably are aware that Spanish linguistics experts generally agree that the purest form of old Castellano today is found in certain areas of highland Colombia, including Bogota. That is the case with most languages. Certain areas of old imperial and colonial possessions experience less language change than do the metropolitan areas such as Seville and Madrid in the case of Spanish.
Regarding your question of why there is no ceceo in Latin America, ("while we know there was in Andalucia in colonial times," to quote you.) My impression is that the ceceo was not widespread in Andalucia during the age of Spanish discovery and colonization. You alluded to it yourself above when you wrote, "Latin American Spanish, in general is based on Andalucian Spanish, which, by the middle of the colonial period, was largely seseista (no lisping)." At any rate, this is a very interesting discussion for anyone interested in linguistics and the historical development and evolution of language.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 24 2016 18:17:48
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Andalusian Accent - Help! (in reply to BarkellWH)
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This topic set me to reflecting on why Latin American Spanish differs from Castellano. Particularly with regard to the absent theta but in other aspects as well, Latin American Spanish is in some ways closer to Andalu than it is to the Spanish of the Real Academia Espanola and that of Madrid, Central, and Northern Spain. The reason is the Conquistadors such as the great captains Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro came, not from Andalucia but from the adjacent province of Extremadura, as did many of those who followed them and colonized Central and South America. The Spanish dialect spoken in Extremadura is close to that of Southwestern Andalucia. thus, from the beginning Latin American Spanish took on the complexion of that spoken by the Spaniards from Extremadura and Southwestern Andalucia.
It would be interesting to know how Castellano was spoken in Madrid in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, at the time the Spanish discovered and began colonizing Latin America. Linguists who study the evolution of languages know that language changes and evolves much more quickly in the metropolitan cities than it does in the rural areas and overseas colonies and former colonies. It is possible that at that time Spanish spoken in Madrid was closer to that spoken in Andalucia than it is today. Along that same theme of language changing much less in some of the far-flung colonies than it does in the metropole, as I mentioned above, there are linguists who say that the "purest" Spanish spoken today exists in parts of Colombia. I suppose by "purest" they mean it is closer to the Spanish spoken five hundred years ago, and it must have been that spoken in Estremadura and Southwestern Andalucia, as that is where most of the colonizers came from.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 25 2016 2:21:53
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