Is the term “Continental Spanish” as opposed to American Spanish a proper term ? I simply want to distinguish between European Spanish and Spanish spoken in the Americas. I haven’t seen it used in writing and I can’t find it online. I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
There isn’t really a single “American Spanish” covering the Americas, and a “European Spanish” used in Spain. Most attempts to descibe variation of Spanish identify five or six different variants found in the Americas (of which Mexicano is the variant most often encountered in the US) and maybe two variants dominating in Spain - Castellano and Andaluz. But I think these variants are more differences in accent and pronunciation than in grammar or vocabulary.
So if I used the term Continental Spanish would it be wrong?
Each country in the Americas has its own variant of Spanish, although like UDS mentioned, they can be grouped by regions.
Spain also has some variants, but perhaps the one you’re thinking is the Castilian Spanish (castellano)? If you’re refering to the stereotypical one where there is marked difference between z and s, that is.
I see from this link that it is a terms that is actually used.
Speak & Read Spanish 4 - DVDs Program (Includes …
BookXcess: Malaysia's Biggest Online Book Store…
Cached
Speak & Read Spanish 4 - DVDs Program (Includes Continental & Mexican Spanish) … Together with accurate pronunciation, this Speak & Read Spanish DVDs …
That’s a course I’d never recommend, because I have no idea what Continental Spanish is. Andalusian? Academic? Castillian? Navarro-Aragonese? Formal? All of the above?
Nava, I’m guessing Castilian, since that is what most foreigners first associate with “Spanish from Spain”.
Yes Nava.
I agree. I looked through many of the posts on this forum, and “Continental Spanish” is definitely not favored.
Thank you all
davidmich
There’s as much difference in the Spanish spoken in the different regions of Spain as between any two random American countries.
An we still understand each other.
When I was learning German in college, the instructor was fond of pointing out that he was teaching us “High German”, and that basically no one spoke it in everyday conversation. It’s used for government documents in Germany and for easy credits in American colleges. “On the Street” German varied extensively throughout the many regions of German-speaking folks, and that “High German” would get us by as tourists but there would still be local idioms and verb constructions that would be different.
Spanish here in the Americas is the same, I still confuse my Mexican neighbors by pronouncing the “y” like a “j”, like the word yo is pronounced “Joe” in some parts of Central America.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Mexicans referred to people from Spain as Peninsulares, and probably to their language the same way.
In other Spanish colonies, too, according to this:Peninsulares - Wikipedia The term is probably obsolete now. But according to this, Spanish as spoken on the Continent is still “Peninsular” or “Iberian” Spanish:
“Castilian” and “Andalusian” are subsets of Peninsular Spanish.
Can Spanish speakers understand Catalan speakers? I know it’s not a Spanish dialect but a separate language.
In Spanish class, there was Castilian Spanish, then there were all the variants in the Americas, some of which were as far from each other as any were from Castilian.
ISTR that Mexican Spanish was the most divergent and the largest in terms of speakers, while Cuban and the Spanish spoken by the upper-classes in S. America were the nearest to the Spanish spoken in Spain.
Cuban? I don’t think so.
Caribbean Spanish due to isolation is pretty archaic.
If I were to choose a variant that’s the farthest to the norm, it would be Argentinian Spanish.
Catalan is farther from Spanish than Portuguese. The latter and Spanish being somewhat mutually intelligible.
And the consensus seems to be that Colombians are the easiest to understand by everyone. I am not sure if that would be Colombians from a specific region, because I’ve heard some Colombians mutilate the language like the best of us.
Mexican Spanish is most divergent from Castilian? I don’t know the basis for that. Nor would I group Cuban with the “upper classes in South America.”
Cuban and other Caribbean dialects including Panamanian were in more direct contact with Spain more recently than some areas, and may have a few features in common with modern Spanish spoken in Spain that may be absent elsewhere. But still, Caribbean dialects are rather distinctive.
One pattern is that some dialects found in highland regions of Central America, the Andes, and Argentina is the use of vos as the second person singular, a feature that has mostly died out in Spain.
It depends on where in Colombia. Colombians from the Caribbean coast speak a Caribbean dialect like Panamanians, which can be very hard to understand. In my personal experience, the Spanish spoken in Andean regions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru is the clearest and easiest to understand.
Generally yes. There will be dialects that will have more troubles than others and some words which will not be evident, but the same applies to Spanish-Italian or Portuguese-Spanish.
Or Basque?
Basque is quite different from Spanish, Spanish includes some words from Basque but they’re relatively rare and it can be difficult to tell which language got that term from the other; some terms are understandable but they tend to be the ones producing rolleyes from the traditional speakers (aeroportua is quite evidently airport*, but also quite evidently not using Basque roots). In general, it’s about as mutualy intelligible with Spanish as, say, Arabic.
- Strictly speaking, “to the airport”; Basque has declensions.
Thanks.