Peruvian Coast Spanish
Encyclopedia
Peruvian Coast Spanish is the form of the Spanish language
spoken in the coastal region of Peru
. The Spanish spoken in Coastal Peru has four characteristic forms today: the original one, that of the inhabitants of Lima
(known as limeños) near the Pacific coast and parts south, (formerly from the old section of the city from where it spread to the entire coastal region); the inland immigrant sociolect
(more influenced by Andean
languages); the Northern, in Trujillo
, Chiclayo
or Piura
; and the Southern. The majority of Peruvians speak Peruvian Coast Spanish.
Between 1535 and 1739, Lima was the capital of the Spanish Empire
in South America, from where Hispanic culture spread, and its speech became the purest since it was the home of the famous University of San Marcos of Lima. Also, it was the city that had the highest number of titles of nobility from Castile
outside of Spain
. Colonial people in Lima became used to living an ostentatious and courtly life style that people in the other capital cities of Spanish America did not experience, with the exception of Mexico City
and later the city of Bogotá
. On the other hand, they mostly lived from the riches extracted from the inland mines by the Indians.
instead of 'tú' as a familiar form of address was a marker of low social class in post-medieval Spanish
, it exists throughout contemporary Latin America but it was never used in the capitals of the viceroyalties, such as Lima or Mexico City.
Prescriptive Limeño Spanish has adjusted considerably to more closely resemble the standard Spanish
linguistic model, because of the city's disdain of the contact with the Andean world and autochthonous languages
for centuries.
However, until the beginning of the 20th century, speech on the Northern Peruvian coast was similar in many ways with how individuals spoke on the Ecuador
ian-Colombia
n coast. The most remarkable variation from the Castilian
norm was the presence of 'vos', which was used to refer to one's family and is completely missing today. This part of Northern Peru also had a strong influence on the extinct Muchik or Mochica language.
by the Great Andean Migration
(1940–1980).
Its main characteristics are:
are all very present in the lexicon.
Finally, young people from Lima's higher socioeconomic strata have also developed a peculiar and mannered form of speaking, noticeable particularly in the way that they alter their tone of speaking.
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
spoken in the coastal region of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
. The Spanish spoken in Coastal Peru has four characteristic forms today: the original one, that of the inhabitants of Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
(known as limeños) near the Pacific coast and parts south, (formerly from the old section of the city from where it spread to the entire coastal region); the inland immigrant sociolect
Sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect or social dialect is a variety of language associated with a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc....
(more influenced by Andean
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
languages); the Northern, in Trujillo
Trujillo, Peru
Trujillo, in northwestern Peru, is the capital of the La Libertad Region, and the third largest city in Peru. The urban area has 811,979 inhabitants and is an economic hub in northern Peru...
, Chiclayo
Chiclayo
Chiclayo is the capital city of the Lambayeque region in northern Peru. It is located 13 kilometers inland from the Pacific coast and 770 kilometers from the nation's capital, Lima...
or Piura
Piura
Piura is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Piura Region and the Piura Province. The population is 377,496.It was here that Spanish Conqueror Francisco Pizarro founded the third Spanish city in South America and first in Peru, San Miguel de Piura, in July 1532...
; and the Southern. The majority of Peruvians speak Peruvian Coast Spanish.
Between 1535 and 1739, Lima was the capital of the Spanish Empire
Viceroyalty of Peru
Created in 1542, the Viceroyalty of Peru was a Spanish colonial administrative district that originally contained most of Spanish-ruled South America, governed from the capital of Lima...
in South America, from where Hispanic culture spread, and its speech became the purest since it was the home of the famous University of San Marcos of Lima. Also, it was the city that had the highest number of titles of nobility from Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
outside of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Colonial people in Lima became used to living an ostentatious and courtly life style that people in the other capital cities of Spanish America did not experience, with the exception of Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
and later the city of Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
. On the other hand, they mostly lived from the riches extracted from the inland mines by the Indians.
Phonetics and phonology
- The Lima accentAccent (linguistics)In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
does not have a strong intonationIntonation (linguistics)In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
as the rest of the Spanish-speaking world does.
- In Lima there is no loss of syllable-final /s/ before a vowel or the end of a sentence. It is only aspirated in a preconsonantal position. This is unique, by all the social classes in the whole Latin American coast. The pronunciation of ese is soft predorsal.
- There is a clear (but soft) emission of the vibrants /rr/ and /r/. In syllable-final position is never assibilated like ChileChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, or the AndesAndesThe Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
.
- The so-called yeismoYeísmoYeísmo is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme and its merger into the phoneme , usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. In other words, ‹ll› and ‹y› represent the same sound...
and seseo occur.
- There is no confusion of /r/ with /l/ in syllable-final position like the Caribbean countries and the lower sociolects of Chile.
- The letters 'j' and 'g 'before 'e' and 'i' are pronounced as a soft palatal [ç]. The jota is velar: /x/ (resembled CastilianCastilian SpanishCastilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers...
) in emphatic or grumpy speech, especially before 'a', 'o' and 'u'. It is never /h/.
- Word-final /d/ is usually unvoiced or turned to /t/.
- Word-final /n/ is routinely velarized (the most highlighted Andalusian trait).
Grammatical subject
Since the use of 'vos'Voseo
Voseo is the use of the second person singular pronoun vos in many dialects of Spanish. In dialects that have it, it is used either instead of tú, or alongside it....
instead of 'tú' as a familiar form of address was a marker of low social class in post-medieval Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, it exists throughout contemporary Latin America but it was never used in the capitals of the viceroyalties, such as Lima or Mexico City.
Prescriptive Limeño Spanish has adjusted considerably to more closely resemble the standard Spanish
Standard Spanish
Standard Spanish or neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety, or lect, that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. Standard Spanish is not merely Spanish adjusted to fit in prescriptive molds dictated by a linguistic overseeing authority, but also a form of language that...
linguistic model, because of the city's disdain of the contact with the Andean world and autochthonous languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
for centuries.
However, until the beginning of the 20th century, speech on the Northern Peruvian coast was similar in many ways with how individuals spoke on the Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
ian-Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n coast. The most remarkable variation from the Castilian
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
norm was the presence of 'vos', which was used to refer to one's family and is completely missing today. This part of Northern Peru also had a strong influence on the extinct Muchik or Mochica language.
Inland immigrants variation
The other main variety of Spanish from the coast of Peru is that which appeared after the linguistic influence from the Sierra and of the rural environment into the coastal cities and the former 'Garden City'Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
by the Great Andean Migration
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
(1940–1980).
Its main characteristics are:
- The strong use of diminutives, double possessives and the routine use of 'pues' or 'pe' and 'nomás' in postverbal position.
- The redundant use of verbal clitics, particularly 'lo' (the so-called loismo)
- The bilabization of /f/
- Closed timbre
- Andean tone
Recent changes
This popular variety of Coastal Peruvian dialect is not only contributed to by Andean influences but also, of course, by foreign ones: Anglicisms and ArgentinismsArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
are all very present in the lexicon.
Finally, young people from Lima's higher socioeconomic strata have also developed a peculiar and mannered form of speaking, noticeable particularly in the way that they alter their tone of speaking.
Some Common Expressions
- Agarrar y + to do something (Agarré y le dije...).
- Parar (en) = to frequently be somewhere or to frequently do something (Paras en la cabina).
- Pasar la voz = to inform (e.g. "spread the word")
- De repente = perhaps, suddenly (depending on context).
Some Common Words
- AnticuchoAnticuchosAnticuchos are popular and inexpensive dishes that originated in Peru, and popular also in other Andean states consisting of small pieces of grilled skewered meat....
= typical food consisting almost always of grilled chicken or cow heart. - Disforzarse = to be anxious.
- Tombo = police officer or soldier.
- Calato = nude.
- Chicotazo = whiplash.
- Fresco/a (or conchudo/a) = shameless person.
- Fregar (or joder) = to bother, to ruin.
- Gallinazo = a turkey buzzard or black-headed vulture. Scavenger bird of Perú.
- Garúa = tenuous rain.
- Guachimán = adaptation of the English word watchmanWatchmanWatchman or Watchmen may refer to:*Watchman , a member of a group who provided law enforcement**Security guard or watchman, a person who watches over and protects property, assets, or people...
- Huachafo = ridiculous, gaudy.
- Huásca=being drunk
- Jarana = party with folk music.
- Juerga = party.
- Óvalo = Traffic circle.
- Panteón = cemetery.
- Penar = a ghost that roams in a house.
- Pericote = mouse.
- Poto = buttocks.
- Zamparse = to break into a place (as in a waiting line, or crashing a party), or to get drunk.
Some informal words of extended use
- Aguantar = to wait, to resist.
- Combi = small public transport van (ex. Toyota Hiace).
- Chibolo/a = child, adolescent (despective if the person is older).
- Paltearse = to be scared or confused, coming from the word for avocado(palta)
- Pata = male friend, guy.
- Pollada = party where cheap food and drink is served in order to make money (low-class phenomenon similar to a Potluck).