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Cuban Spanish - why not? | ||
Tags: Latin America | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5924 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 1 of 29 20 May 2010 at 5:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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So, is there anybody here interested in Cuban Spanish? I've noticed that not that many
people are interested in Cuban Spanish (apparently Cubans speak too quickly?). This makes me rather sad. Cuban Spanish would, I think, be an interesting variety of Spanish to study... Canary island influence, possibly Yoruba influence. I wonder how it developed? This thread is dedicated to Cuban Spanish, to learners of Cuban Spanish, to people with an interest in Cuban Spanish... and so on. I would like to start off with some things about Cuban Spanish. First of all, much like Spain, we use the verb "cojer" much like Spain does. It only means "to get". We hate it when Argentinians and the like say "agarrar" instead of "cojer" - it sounds ridiculously violent. Especially when used in a computer context. "Agarra el mouse..." "Papaya", on the other hand, is a rather dirty word in C. Spanish, meaning vulva. If you want to refer to the fruit, it's best to say "frutabomba". Cuban Spanish has all sorts of interesting words reflecting the many influences on Cuban Spanish. "Guagua", meaning bus, comes from the Canary islands and refers to the sound a bus makes when leaving: wah wah! Cars are referred to as 'maquinas' or 'carros'. You will never hear someone call a car a 'coche'. 'Vosotros' is, of course, never heard (and 'vos' is very rare). If a word has a t in the last syllable, its diminutive is formed with -ico/ica rather than -ito/ita. We say "chiquitica", not "chiquitita" (whenever I sing that ABBA song, I always say "Chiquitica"). Cuban Spanish has quite a few American loanwords; examples being 'pulover' for a shirt (I think 'camisa' just sounds so odd), 'chor' for shorts, 'keik' for cake and 'pai' for pie (no idea how they're spelled; these are approximations). There are some people who calls refrigerators 'frigidaire' because of a type of refrigerator called "Frigidair". There are, of course, different Cuban accents. The typical Cuban accent is probably the one from Havana. However, you can find all sorts of accents. For example, it is not uncommon for rural Cubans to say "comenos" as opposed to "comemos". El Oriente, which is known in Cuba for being a rural area, has its own accent too (although I'll have to research it more). The Cuban accent's sound is very well known. It's apparently difficult to understand if you're not Cuban (I personally find it easier to understand than someone from Barranquilla, for example). Some defining characteristics include velarization of 'n' (so that pan [pan] becomes [paŋ]), debuccalization of s in syllable coda (so that perros ['peros] becomes ['peroh]), deletion of final intervocalic d (so that acabado [aka'bado] becomes [aca'bao]), doubling consonants when an r is before them (so that parque ['paɾke] becomes ['pakke]) and r becoming l in certain situations (so that vivir [bi'biɾ] becomes [bi'bil]). Please note that not all Cubans have all of these characteristics. For example, the only "Cuban" thing that I do is deletion of final intervocalic d. The r becoming an l in certain situations is rather varied; some people have it, I'd say most don't. It is common in Puerto Rico (another country that shares many of Cuban Spanish's peculiarities), but I can't say how much. If anyone else wants to talk about Cuban Spanish, the floor is all yours. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ZeroTX Groupie United States Joined 6137 days ago 91 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 29 20 May 2010 at 6:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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I work in a school facility where 80% of the student populace is immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries. I can easily have a conversation with any Mexican, Guatemalan or Honduran family, but Cubans? Mix Cuban accent with teenager slang and you get an indecipherable slur of non-descript language!!!
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| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6530 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 3 of 29 21 May 2010 at 1:57am | IP Logged | |||||
And "coger" sounds ridiculously violent for us, so we have to use "agarrar"... Ever thought about that? Is the exactly viceversa. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paz Newbie Chile Joined 5365 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Spanish* Studies: English | Message 4 of 29 21 May 2010 at 3:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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And "coger" sounds ridiculously violent for us, so we have to use "agarrar"... Ever thought about that? Is the exactly viceversa. [/QUOTE] I agree with you, but I prefer to say " Toma el mouse" ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5924 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 5 of 29 21 May 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I actually spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking "Man, if a Mexican were hearing me now they'd think I'm a weirdo" whenever I use 'coger'. It's especially amusing when innocuous sentences in Cuban Spanish like "Voy a coger una guagua" become something unspeakable in some other country (I forgot the country). I mean, "agarrar" just sounds like you are tightly grabbing something. What must "coger" sound like? It must be hilarious hearing things like "Coja el mouse" or "Quiero coger un perro" knowing that it's done with complete innocence. "Toma el mouse" sounds very polite and formal to me... Edited by lynxrunner on 21 May 2010 at 6:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5983 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 6 of 29 22 May 2010 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't really think so. Cubans, like Spaniards and people from other countries in LA use all the three coger, agarrar and tomar, and other similar words like sujetar, with their appropriate meanings. On the other hand, the Argentinians decided to limit themselves to just one out the 32 meanings the RAE lists for coger (there are much more really), making their language less expressive and clear. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rabochnok Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 5612 days ago 37 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Turkish, Persian | Message 7 of 29 23 May 2010 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I like the bits of Cuban Spanish I've heard, it sounds nice.
That's done in Colombia as well.
The Costeños over here do this too with the s, and it sounds cute. And it's common to eat up our d's. Interesting! Edited by patuco on 23 May 2010 at 6:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dama_J Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5298 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 8 of 29 26 May 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I love Cuban Spanish! It is my favorite dialect of Spanish... I listen to people speaking 'Cubañol' and I can't help but smile. It's so inventive and humourous, and I love the accent.
I spent 5 months in Havana this winter and I had no trouble understanding people -- for me it's much harder to understand someone from Spain, even though I have spent as much time there as I have in Cuba. A few of my favorite words/sayings in Cuban: ¡ñó! o ¡coñó! (damn! or sh*t) Asere (buddy) ¿Qué bolá? ¿Que hay? (What's up?) Tremenda ____ (Crazy good/awesome _____) Vamos pa’l gao (Let's go home) La jeba (girl or woman) La jaba/jabita (bag) Yuma (foreigner) “Ay, mi madre” “No es fácil” 1 person has voted this message useful |
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