My girlfriend is putting together a textbook for the
Salvadoran MinEd and needed some examples of
peculiarities of Salvadoran Spanish. I went to
Wikipedia to help her out and found a generalized
section on Central American Spanish that was laughable
for anyone who knows anything at all about Central
American Spanish.
I'm guessing the writer was a Nicaraguan who just
generalized Nicaraguan speech for the rest of the
isthmus.
BTW: Panamanian is considered as a Caribbean accent of
Spanish, not Central American (except for Chiriquí).
Here's the meat of the Wikipedia article
Phonetics and phonology
Some characteristics of Central American phonology
include:
/s/ at the end of a syllable or before a consonant is
pronounced like [h], except in central Guatemala and
in Costa Rica.[citation needed]
***Wrong, final /s/ is generally pronounced just about
everywhere outside of Nicaragua. And even there, it's
commonly pronounced by educated people. In highland
Costa Rica and Guatemala, it just happens to be
universal. In Honduras and El Salvador, most people do
pronounce final /s/ and syllable final /s/, although
people I've met from Caribbean Honduras pronounce it a
bit less.
In Salvadoran rural Spanish and southern Honduran
rural Spanish you do often hear INITIAL /s-/
pronounced like /h-/ as in /la heNora/ for <la
señora>.
Initial and intervocalic <f> are often pronounced as
/h/ as well in rural Spanish, as is inital <h> --but
this is true of much of Latin America.
j (/x/), is aspirated except in some areas of Costa
Rica; it is soft as the /h/ in English (e.g.:
Yahoo).[citation needed]
***NOT QUITE --<j, ge, gi> are pronounced the same
throughout Central America and the Caribbean and much
of South America with little to no aspiration. Before
palatal vowels, you often hear /ç/, which is common
throughout Latin America.
There is no confusion between /l/ and /r/, as in the
Caribbean.[citation needed]
***TRUE, except for some Caribbean Central American
speakers I've heard
/s/, /z/ and in some cases /c/ (as in cerrar) are
pronounced as [s][citation needed]
DUH --we are talking about Latin American Spanish. BUT
in E. El Salvador, S. Honduras and Nicaragua, you
often hear þ (theta) or ś (apical s) for dorsal
/s/.
Phonologically, one can speak of the Gulf of Fonseca
as a subregion opposed to the highlands and also to
the Caribbean coast.
The most common form for the second person singular in
Central America is vos[2].
***NOT QUITE. Vos is used primarily in men's speech.
Tú is probably more common in women's speech in
Guatemala and El Salvador. Vos is often stigmatized in
Guatemala and El Salvador. Nicaragua and Costa Rica
are definitely voseo country --tú is considered as
"effeminate" or effete, although Costa Rican women
tend to use usted more often than vos. It is very
common to hear a mish-mash of tú. vos and usted --even
among college educated people in El Salvador.
Ads tend to be in tuteo in Guatemala and El Salvador
but in voseo in Nicaragua and Costa Rica --e.g.the cel
phone giant Movistar does them that way.
People say "vení" for "come here" or "pedí tu cosa"
for "ask for your thing"
***SORRY --I've never heard a tico ever say "Pedí tu
vaina" or a guanaco say "Pedí tu volado" or a nica say
"Pedí tu chunche.". Yes they do have ads that say
"pedí tu helado."
Its conjugation follows the pattern, (for you have)
vos tenés instead of tú tienes, or (for you sing)
vos cantás instead of tú cantas. The pronoun Usted is
used when addressing older, unfamiliar or respected
persons, as it is in all Spanish countries; however,
in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras it is
frequently used with younger people, and in Honduras
between husband and wife.[3]
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