# Where is the "standard Spanish" accent from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 26, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287 "2005-07-26T20:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/21 "2014-08-20T19:15:26Z")
Argentine accent is distinctive? How so? is it because of the fact that a significant portion of the Argentine population are defendant of people who had origins from outside Iberia, especially Italy and a Germany? ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/22 "2014-08-20T19:33:49Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Argentine accent is distinctive? How so? is it because of the fact that a significant portion of the Argentine population are defendant of people who had origins from outside Iberia, especially Italy and a Germany? The Argentine accent (or, more accurately, Río de la Plata accent) is very distinctive in that the /y/ and /ll/ sounds are voiced with a j sound. Think “Zsa Zsa Gabor” or “measure.” Also, they use a different second-person pronoun (vos, instead of tú) which results in slightly different conjugations when speaking in the second person. > **[Rioplatense Spanish](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rioplatense_Spanish)** > > Rioplatense Spanish (/ˌriːoʊpləˈtɛnseɪ/ REE-oh-plə-TEN-say, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Spanish: \[ri.oplaˈtense\]), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, or River Plate Spanish, is a variety of Spanish originating in and around the Río de la Plata Basin, and now spoken throughout most of Argentina and Uruguay. It As Rioplatense is... ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/23 "2014-08-20T19:45:22Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Argentine accent is distinctive? How so? is it because of the fact that a significant portion of the Argentine population are defendant of people who had origins from outside Iberia, especially Italy and a Germany? The Italian influence is part of it. However, one of the most distinctive things is the use of[_vos_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo)as the second person singular pronoun instead of\* tu\*, which is found mainly in Rioplatense Spanish and some Central American dialects. They also use a “sh” or “j” sound for _ll/y_ sound of other dialects. And Argentines say _Che!_ a lot, the source of the nickname of Che Guevara. There are also lots of differences in vocabulary. [Argentine accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taGbC6kk8VA) [Rioplatense Spanish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rioplatense_Spanish) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/24 "2014-08-20T19:52:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > As you indicate yourself, there isn’t any real Standard English Accent. There are only national/regional standards. Received Pronunciation may be standard in Britain, and General American for the US and Canada. But neither is standard for the other’s region, nor for Australia/New Zealand. Since there are 19 Spanish-speaking countries, finding a standard that works for all of them is even more impossible. Sure, but the vast majority of native English speakers would be covered by RP or US newscaster english. Hell, the Kiwis, Australians and Canadians combined have the same number of native English speakers as the UK does. That’s kind of where we’re going- for all 300 million+ US English speakers, the “standard” accent for news, etc… is US newscaster english. For the rest, RP would serve. What are the Spanish equivalents? ISTR that in Spanish class back in the day, Cuban was held up as somewhat neutral ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/25 "2014-08-20T20:47:30Z")
> [@bump](#): > > ISTR that in Spanish class back in the day, Cuban was held up as somewhat neutral If that’s so, it’s astonishing to me. [Cuban](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Spanish) (and other “Caribbean” Spanish accents, like Puerto Rican and Panamanian) is very distinctive, characterized by the dropping of final consonants, especially “s,” as indicated in the joke in post #4 of this thread. It also tends to be spoken rapidly. For me it’s one of the most difficult accents to understand. It would be sort of like regarding Cockney or Brooklynese as neutral. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/26 "2014-08-21T07:47:18Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I have always heard that the “snooty” accent in Spanish in the Argentine one? Is it true? I would have thought the Madrid one was. Ah, but which Madrid one? Las Rozas (_osea_) is the equivalent of Valley Girl. Getafe (_ejque_) is one of the stereotypical “bumpkin” ones, although I guess in this case it counts as urban bumpkin… The accent that’s closest to “standard” for Spain - but not for Latin America - is Valladolid’s, and they have some grammatical peculiarities that newscasters from there do their best to lose because again they’re too strong a marker (they use some pronouns differently from everybody else, where “everybody else” includes Spain’s former colonies). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/27 "2014-08-21T08:39:29Z")
Queen Letizia would have such an accent I suppose? Newscaster accent I mean? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/28 "2014-08-21T08:51:39Z")
Yeah, and it’s so rare to hear her speak non-professionally that I don’t know whether she uses any others. The same goes for Felipe. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/29 "2014-08-21T08:52:09Z")
The Queen is from Oviedo, and spent her childhood there. It’s a long way from Valladolid. Then she spent most of her teenage years in Madrid. I don’t think she has ever lived in Valladolid. She was a journalist and newscaster, but I didn’t understand Nava to say that newscasters in Spain assume a Valladolid accent. While the Vallodolid accent is close to standard, he said that newscasters _from_ Valladolid make a point of dropping certain characteristics typical of Valldolid. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/30 "2014-08-21T08:59:00Z")
Both. TV personnel and actors, in general, try to “drop” their regional accents and approach that of Valladolid, which is held as “the standard to which our spelling is closest”. In fact, this is often done by many other people to assist communication with people from other areas. In the last 20 years or so, there has been less of a bias against regional accents, but still: the way Antonio Banderas speaks in most of his Spanish movies is much closer to Valladolid than to Málaga; Penélope Cruz surprised Trueba phoning him with a “southern” accent that he had no idea she could use (she was born in Madrid and had always worked in a Valladolid accent, but her parents are from Extremadura and she spent her summer childhoods there). The Valladolid accent is viewed as “neutral”, it is what’s used in dubbings and voiceovers. And while Letizia is from Oviedo and has also lived in Mexico, I’ve known quite a few people who couldn’t use their local accents, they spoke “Academic Spanish” and that was it. I don’t know whether she can switch accents or not. Olvido Gara was born in Mexico but I’ve never heard her speaking anything but academic Spanish and I have heard her say that her Mexican accent would be so bad she’d find it disrespectful to try and use it. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/31 "2014-08-21T09:09:24Z")
How distinctive are Catalan, Galician or Basque accent when speaking Spanish? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287/32 "2014-08-21T09:20:46Z")
There’s all kinds of ranges; those are bilingual regions, you get people for whom Spanish is their secondary language (and these are more likely to have a strong accent), others who don’t speak the local language at all but whose speech is influenced by it. I don’t speak Basque, nor did my father, but the local Spanish dialect is peppered with Basque expressions. Depending on which region/language we’re talking about there will be phonetic differences or grammatical mistakes; for some speakers it’s completely unnoticeable; others get mistaken as being from another neighboring region (nobody ever asks me whether I’m Basque, or Navarrese - when people do notice an accent they ask about either Saragossa or Catalonia, and don’t ask me why it is a city for one option and a region for the other). The kind of mistakes made in Spanish by someone whose primary language is Basque are often linked to gender, so we describe this “mis-grammar” as _gramática Vizcaína: pollo gorda, gallina flaco_ (grammar from Vizcaya: the chickens are female and the hens are male). In Catalan it’s often prepositions and phonetics, most noticeably the l; many false friends. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-standard-spanish-accent-from/314287.md?page=1)