I think the Mexican-impersonating-Cuban aspect is a lot more difficult than just the mimicry and facts. Anyone can mimic an accent, and with practice and exposure, do it quite well. Also, immigration agents are just police officers; they’re not necessarily linguistics experts able to identify all of the regional variations (or dialects, if you will) of the Spanish language. Id est, they’d not be unreasonably difficult to fool. Sin embargo, the official policy is to keep Cubans out. They’ve got to touch U.S. soil first. Clearly, immigration at the border crossings is “U.S. soil,” but, does that count? In any case, until they hit U.S. soil, it doesn’t matter if they’re Cuban.
But let’s get past all of that. Juan Pérez is a Mexican who successfully imitates a Cuban to gain access to U.S. soil. Chances are ol’ Juan wants to get with some family or amigos; he doesn’t want to go to a refugee camp and forcibly located to Miami, Florida. If you do make it over, you’re going to have to wait to be classified as a refugee, and wait for final disposition from the U.S. government. It’s at this point where you’ll talk to real Cuba experts, and you’ll get caught. You can’t learn Cuban life from a book, you’ll have to have been there considerable time. And if you can go to Cuba for considerable time, you’re middle-class* (or better) Mexican and probably don’t want to enter the United States in the first place, or are able to do it legally (it’s not hard, even if you’re Mexican, as long as you’re not poor).
Is it conceivable that there’s one Mexican who’s ever done this? Well, sure, but c’mon, is this practical on any level?
*Consider that Mexican middle class is about the same as our middle-class. I don’t mean “middle class for Mexico” – I mean middle-class lifestyle in every modern sense of the word. It’s 30% of the population there.
One thing that wiki article doesn’t mention is that Central Americans often switch forms of address. I’ve heard parents from El Salvador change from Ud. to vos when talking to their children.
In some parts of Colombia older people use “vuestra merced,” or “su merced.”
Just for the sake of argument (this is the SDMB after all), there is no good reason why the ‘linguistics definition’ of dialect should be considered to be the definitive definition, or even the ‘scientific’ definition.
Both the phenomenon(a) of dialect and the word itself largely pre-date the definition you’re using. While linguistics is certainly a valid and fascinating area of research and theory, the field(s) of academic linguistics has no mandate in defining common use of vocabulary or linguistic practices at large.
As you point out yourself, ‘Scots is now officially recognized by the various governments of the UK as its own language’, is clearly a political decision on how to define ‘language’, and not a decision made by linguists.
Well, that’s the thing. He won’t make it for long. It’s not like you just show up, talk a few minutes, and get your choice to go where you want to go. There’s a process, and in that process, a non-authentic Cuban would almost certainly be detected. The article you mentioned only discusses what I said above: yeah, you’ll probably get past the cop on the border with your accent and basic knowledge, but that’s only step 1.
No you didn’t, or I missed it. The closing paragraph in the article you mentioned says, “Some Mexicans are even getting ideas from the Cubans. A trade is developing in Cuban identity documents, and some savvy Mexican immigrants are now practicing Cuban accents and rehearsing dramatic stories they intend to tell U.S. Border Patrol agents about the horrors they have suffered in Havana.” That indicates that they’re going to try, but not that it’s ever successfully been done. Heck, I’ve even conceded that it’s possible that it’s been done, but it won’t and can’t be done too often, for the reasons I previously stated.
Arabic does in fact have many different dialects. I learned to speak the Palestinian dialect, and there are some distinct differences from say Egyptian dialect.
For example, if you want to say “How are you?”:
Palestinian: “kayf Haalak”
Egyptian: “izzaay-ak”
There are other differences besides this one of course.
Parents (almost?) always speak to their children with the informal pronoun (tu or vos). Nothing unusual about that.
Why not? The psychological definition of “cognition” is the one considered definitive, and scientific. Psychology is the science of the mind, linguistics is the science of language. What’s the difference, other than the fact that for some reason every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he’s a world-class linguist?
The phenomenon of cognition and the word itself largely predate the definition of same currently accepted in the field of psychology, yet we respect psychology as a science and accept its definition of the word. What’s different?
What does that have to do with this discussion? Have I claimed anything different, or have I been saying all along that the concept of “language or dialect” has more meaning in politics and society than in linguistics?
My question is, what if the entire point is to get past the cop on the border? “Yes officer, I’m going to go live in Galveston. Whoops, now I’m in Miami and I forgot to tell anyone.”
what we’re talking about here is languages, not linguistics, two very different questions. I, for example, have been studying languages all my life, speak a number of them, have taught languages, translated between them etc. so it’s fair to say that I know something about languages. On the other hand I know next to nothing about linguistics. I’ll happily participate in a thread about languages, but if I come across a thread about Wittgenstein and Chomsky, I might take a peek, but I probably won’t have anything to add.
I didn’t know we were arguing – I’m rather enjoying your posts. I understood that you were claiming it was documented that lots of Mexicans are crossing the border posing as Cubans, and you cited that article as a reference, is all.
*Coger *and *escoger *are not interchangeable. Coger means to grab. Escoger is to choose, to pick out. There’s also recoger, which means to pick up.
Re Caribbean Spanish: I believe Caribbean Spanish is the most archaic form of Spanish still in use. The islands were mostly abandoned by Spain for hundreds of years and the language survived with much less change than in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world.
I speak Dominican Spanish and have pretty good ear when it comes to matching nationalities to accents. I found Panamanian Spanish to be incredibly close to Dominican Spanish, even closer than Puerto Rican and Cuban Spanish. Strange
In general Caribbean Spanish speakers do speak faster. Generally uneducated folks will have stronger accents, more educated folks will have subtler accents and speak closer to the standard.
Linguistics is the study of language. Linguists are the experts on languages. It’s like saying that “computer game playing” and “computer game design” are two completely different things: yes, you can be great at one and know next to nothing about the other, but in the end it’s all about the same stuff.
Thanks for conceding that. In return, I will concede that I may have been ambiguous.
When I used the word “argue”, I meant the same thing as when you used the word “claim”. That is, “argue” as in “she presented a great argument for decriminalization”, not as in “we argued [with each other] all day and never got anywhere”.
Thanks!
Well, it depends on what you mean by “lots”. It could be said that a terrorist attack claiming 30 victims killed “lots” of people in Tel-Aviv, but the same body count would not qualify as “lots” in New York. Catch my drift?
So if “lots” means “at least a blip on the radar”, then yes. IIRC the article showed that a few thousand people had come to the US from Cuba through Mexico in the last few years.
If “lots” means “the majority” or “enough to squeeze three hours of History Channel content out of”, then no.
Maricon as a term of endearment. Venezuelans use it a lot, but only between close friends. Colombians tend to prefer marica, which is the very same. Using offensive words as terms of endearment is very common. That said, I would never ever say maricon to a Puerto Rican. That word is not thrown around lightly around here.
Caribbean spanish. Cuban and Puerto Rican are very different. People from the South Cone tend to confuse them, but they are very different from each other. Similarly, people from the Caribbean tend to confuse all the different accents from the South Cone, which are also pretty distinct from each other. I am sure this would hold equally true for other languages. Where someone hears a East Coast accent, a local will distinguish a New Yorker from a Vermonter.
Also, most countries have different accents for social classes. It doesn’t take more than a sentence to gauge the socioeconomic level and education of a person. Also, many countries in Latin America are large and have distinct regions. There are plenty of variations within them, so it would be imprecise to talk about a Colombian accent, for example. You would have to specify region.
All in all, though, we tend to understand each other pretty well. As usual, swear words and sexual euphemisms vary a lot and are a mine field of confusion, but most people who have travelled and known people from other regions, have no difficulty falling back to standard spanish to minimize misunderstandings.
Several nationalities tend to avoid the use of “tu”. At least among men. It is often seen as a sign of femininity.
I see now – you mean Cubans, bona fide Cubans. Yeah, that’s indisputable. By no definition of “lots” are Mexicans crossing the border pretending to be Cubans, at least insofar as any evidence that’s been cited.
Whoops, I responded to the wrong thing. But yeah, I agree with you, it’s not plausible that “lots” of Mexicans are crossing the border pretending to be Cubans. But I provided a cite that some are, and those who insist that it just doesn’t happen, ever, could stand to take a closer look at my cite. It’s not scientific, but things like that don’t just come out of thin air.
Like English, there is a level of standardization that is taught at public and private schools and via media that creates a level of understanding even with regional and social-class differences. Just yesterday, I was watching CNNEspañol. The interviewer was a Colombian reporter interviewing an Argentinian political commentator in a tv network (CNN Español) that broadcasts to different Latin American countries and it reaches me, a Mexican. I had no problem understanding the interview.
“Femininity” It just used only in informal conversation so most Spanish speakers tend to use “usted” in order to avoid “bad manners.”
The problem is that it’s an article with a reporter that does not cite any real source for such comment. And. Yes. There are reporters that to make up stuff out of thin air. Even in respectable newspapers.
The accent is very different. There are differences in vocabulary but the construction is very similar. But yes, I don’t know how anyone would mistake a Puerto Rican for a Dominican or a Cuban. We sound nothing alike.
The countries need not be large. Somebody from Cibao (central mountainous region of the Dominican Rep.) have a different accent than the South East, for example. It is pretty obvious to us, but an outsider may miss these subtleties.
I am an educated Dominican from a small region in the country, even Dominicans can’t place my accent. I get asked all the time if I am South American. I don’t sound anything like anyone from South America, they just can’t figure where I am from based on accent alone.
It just used only in informal conversation so most Spanish speakers tend to use “usted” in order to avoid “bad manners.”