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Most Prestigious Spanish Dialect | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes  Studies: Portuguese | Message 17 of 63 08 May 2013 at 1:45am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Forgot to add: I agree that you should pick the accent/dialect that you wish. I'm definitely not saying that one is better, just calling a spade a spade. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 18 of 63 08 May 2013 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
But it isn't similar to Spanish and I also explained why.
In English, yes; in Spanish, I doubt it. Unless you confine your survey to one single country/ region.
Firstly the situation with English is not the same as with Spanish. I already explained why. Secondly, while analogous situations to your example do exist in Spanish, it's not actually an example of a dialect universally seen as more prestigious; it's a case of one particular group of people seeing a particular dialect as more prestigious. It's not the same.
Only in Spain and I repeat: we are talking about dialects universally seen as more prestigious. Some of the dialect features of Northern Spain would not be seen as good Spanish in much of Latin America (I already gave some examples).
By Americans do you mean US Spanish speakers? If so, then again you are failing to grasp the concept of something being universally seen as more prestigious; if you mean Spanish speakers in the Americas, then my experience talking to Latin Americans has been quite the opposite: most have no particular love for the Spanish spoken in Northern Spain.
Once again I refer you to my above comments. US preferences do not constitute universal preferences.
Only in Spain. Spanish preferences do not constitute universal preferences.
The US is economically, militarily and culturally dominant in the Anglophone world. It also has a much larger population than any other English-speaking country. No such dominant country exists in the Spanish-speaking world. The upshot of this is that such national or regional preferences are not universal. To give a concrete example: I read somewhere that the use of "vos" instead of tú is seen a low prestige speech form in some countries; yet it certainly isn't in most of Argentina. I strongly advise the OP not to worry about this issue and learn whatever variety of Spanish takes his/her fancy. Edited by Random review on 08 May 2013 at 4:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 19 of 63 08 May 2013 at 4:31am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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@ casamata: I stand by the points I made in my previous post but I apologise for the
attitude, there was no need for it. Edited by Random review on 08 May 2013 at 4:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 20 of 63 08 May 2013 at 4:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I didn't detect any attitude but apology accepted. :) Ok, if you want me to be very specific, then I amend my statement. 1. Amongst Americans learning Spanish, I would bet that the majority of Americans consider the Spanish accent more prestigious than Mexican Spanish. And I would expect that amongst Spanish *learners* in the world, the Spanish accent would be amongst the most prestigious, if not the most highly-regarded. Although Mexico is actually about the 12th-14th richest country depending on the type of GDP calculated, its poor distribution of wealth has led to many of its citizens going to the US. People in the US see the poor Mexican immigrants and associate them and their language with poverty. Conversely, Spain is by far the richest per capita Spanish speaking country; thus, it is logical that people would consider it more prestigious. Myself, I don't care that there are many Mexicans in the US that come from humble beginnings so I like learning Mexican slang and their idioms. 2. Also, and I am repeating this for the umpteenth time, I'm not saying that any one accent is better, just that certain accents are generally perceived as more high-class. Learn whatever you want. Edit: 3. To the OP, in case he is thinking about which type of Spanish to learn, the general advice that is given (and even the founder of HTLAL says this) is to learn a "neutral" accent. That is, not the Argentine, Dominican, nor Chilean accents, for example. I agree with this bit of advice *if* you are ambivalent about what accent you like best; they all seem equally good to you. But if you like how the people in a very specific region speak, like the Canarian islans, then go ahead, learn it. In actually answering his question about the most prestigious Latin American accent; I would have to say that most Americans exposed to Spanish would say Colombian. Argentine may get second in a large survey, however... Edited by casamata on 08 May 2013 at 5:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 21 of 63 08 May 2013 at 5:57am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interesting discussion. My problem is that I don't have a good reason to learn any
specific dialect. I have a slight preference for Argentinian Spanish, but that is basically negated by the fact that it is a divergent dialect. I don't have a group of friends from any one Spanish-speaking country. I have no plans to travel often to any Spanish-speaking country. I don't foresee myself communicating much with the Spanish speakers in my region. I'm learning Spanish mostly to enjoy Spanish media from all over the Spanish-speaking world and to understand this large community better. But I'd still like to have a dialect that I'm aiming for because it helps me to organize Spanish in my head and I will certainly end up speaking it from time to time. I like how with most languages there is a standard, prestige dialect that you can aim for without hesitation. That doesn't seem to be the case with Spanish, and it's making my choice quite difficult. These are basically the choices I am weighing: Argentinian Spanish, Columbian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, generic Latin American Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 22 of 63 08 May 2013 at 6:41am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
You don't have Mexicans in your neck of the woods? You can always just speak kind of a mixed, general, "South American" Spanish. Heck, Jorge Ramos, the Mexican Univision anchor says that he is sometimes mistaken for Colombian or other nationalities due to his "hybrid" Spanish. His ex-wife and kids lived in Spain so some of the things he says are clearly from Peninsular Spanish although his accent obviously is very Mexican. If you don't have a particular affinity for one accent nor a pressing need to work/study in one country, I would recommend having as neutral of a Spanish as possible. I.E, no Caribbean Spanish, no Argentine Spanish, and *definitely* not Chilean Spanish. Look up "the Chilean jungle" if you dare. My Chilean friends say that they are trilingual: they speak Castilian, English, and Chilean. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| JohannaNYC Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4453 days ago 251 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, Italian Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 23 of 63 08 May 2013 at 6:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I have heard this before, but only from white Americans who took a few years of Spanish in high school or college, never from native speakers. I actually asked a few native speakers from various country about this and they were surprised. Especially since they think it's weird and at times very annoying that Colombians tend to refer to everyone as "usted", sometimes even to little kids!! I don't know why the opinion of people who are learning the language or can't even speak it should be a factor in this discussion. It's like having blind people judge the beauty of pictures printed in a magazine. In the info from Spain you mentioned the economic factors of why Andalucian Spanish had a lower prestige than the Northern variety. However, as far as I know Colombia's economy is not in much greater shape than that of other Latin American countries. If prestige is all about money, then people should strive for Caribbean Spanish, after all professional baseball players make a ton of money. As for preference, I fell in love with the Spanish from Buenos Aires very early on. I just love its' musicality, which also happens to be one of my favorite things about the Italian language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 24 of 63 08 May 2013 at 7:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
1. Native Spanish speakers from latin America may consider a certain accent to be more prestigious than another. 1a. Many Americans that learn and know Spanish at varying degrees of proficiency (from A1-C2) usually consider certain accents more prestigious than others. I'm not white so I can't speak for white Americans. And though it is fairly rare, there are non-native speakers that learn Spanish to very high levels and can deconstruct the intricacies of Spanish grammar much better than natives. But answering your question, I think the opinions of Spanish non-natives is very pertinent; it reflects the perceptions that we have about the Spanish language. They may very well "be blind", but they think what they think, due to mass media, personal exposure, or whatever factors that have led them to conclude that X accent is more prestigious than Y accent. If they were very advanced speakers (C1, C2) with extensive experience living in many Spanish-speaking countries, their opinions would not change. They may think that a certain type sounds better or they prefer speaking it, but the premise that the average American thinks that Spanish from Spain is more prestigious than other types would remain valid. What is more prestigious? A Mercedes Benz S class costing 80,000+ with all the bells and whistles or a Toyota Corolla? Many people would prefer having the Corolla due to cost, but very few people in the world would say that a Toyota Corolla is as prestigious as a Mercedes Benz S class. 2. You have about 90 or so Dominicans playing in major league baseball. Due to the six years of team control over players, most make from 500,000 (the minimum) to a few million. Very few make the BIG bucks. That doesn't compensate for 10 million Dominicans that make very little compared to the average Spaniard. Spain's GDP and per capita income is several times that of the Dominican Republic. However, I can't explain why a good percentage of people think that Colombia's Spanish is "the best". I don't share this viewpoint but many people that I talk to seem to think so. Colombia does have a lot of natural resources and should be richer than they currently are; their problems are related to many factors, some of common public knowledge and others that may be more difficult to rectify. I also find the "usted" thing weird with Colombians. However, it is obviously not the entire country. I know in Bogotá they use the usted almost exlusively; I don't like it because the subject of each sentence is not as clear. Similarly, the fact that Latin Americans don't use the vosotros is inefficient since it can also lead to misunderstandings that the vosotros would avoid. However, I don't use the vosotros because I've spoken Latin American Spanish far too long and could not adjust to it. Edited by casamata on 08 May 2013 at 8:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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