Voseo

Spanish language
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Old Middle Influences
Grammar
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Peninsular Pan-American Standard
Dialectology
seseo yeísmo voseo leísmo loísmo
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In Spanish grammar, voseo (Spanish pronunciation: [boˈse.o]) is the use of vos as a second person singular pronoun, including its conjugational verb forms in many dialects. In dialects that have it, it is used either instead of tú, or alongside it. Voseo is seldom taught to students of Spanish as a second language, and its precise usage varies across different regions.^[1] Nevertheless, in recent years it has become more accepted across the Spanish-speaking world as a valid part of regional dialects. Use of tú for the second person singular (the form that is considered standard) is known as tuteo.

Vos is used extensively as the second person singular in Rioplatense Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay), Eastern Bolivia, Paraguayan Spanish, and Central American Spanish (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, southern parts of Chiapas in Mexico).

Vos had been traditionally used even in formal writing in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Such voseo has been gradually adopted in Central America, where even the most prestigious media networks and press have begun (at some time before 2018) to use vos reflecting the informal address in Spanish as opposed to the formal address of usted. Nowadays it is very common to see billboards and other advertising media using voseo. In the dialect of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (known as 'Rioplatense Spanish'), vos is also the standard form of use, even in mainstream media.

Vos is present in other countries as a regionalism, for instance in the Maracucho Spanish of Zulia State, Venezuela (see Venezuelan Spanish), in the Azuero peninsula of Panama, in various departments in Colombia,^[2] and in parts of Ecuador (Sierra down to Esmeraldas). In Peru, voseo is present in some Andean regions and Cajamarca, but the younger generations have ceased to use it. It is also present in Ladino (spoken by Sephardic Jews throughout Israel, Turkey, the Balkans, Morocco, Latin America and the United States), where it replaces usted. In the United States, Salvadoran Americans are by far the largest voseo users followed by other Central Americans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and Costa Ricans.

Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations for vos with tú as the subject pronoun (verbal voseo),^[3] as in the case of Chilean Spanish, where this form coexists with the ordinary form of voseo.

It has been claimed that the countries that use voseo today have in common that they were geographically isolated during colonial times; regions with good communications with Spain at that time—today's Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Peru—do not use voseo, or its use is confined to remote areas—this is the case in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. In colonial times, there was, by law, no regular boat communication between today's Argentina and Spain.

History

Originally a second-person plural, Vos came to be used as a more polite second-person singular pronoun to be used among one's familiar friends. The following extract from a late 18th-century textbook is illustrative of usage at the time:

We seldom make use in Spanish of the second Person Singular or Plural, but when through a great familiarity among friends, or speaking to God, or a wife and husband to themselves, or a father and mother to their children, or to servants.

Examples.

O Dios, sois vos mi Padre verdadéro, O God, thou art my true Father; Tú eres un buen amígo, Thou art a good friend.

— Raymundo del Pueyo, A New Spanish Grammar, or the Elements of the Spanish Language^[4]

The standard formal way to address a person one was not on familiar terms with was to address such a person as vuestra merced ("your grace" originally abbreviated as v.m.) in the singular and vuestras mercedes in the plural. Because of the literal meaning of these forms, they were accompanied by the corresponding third-person verb forms. Other formal forms of address included vuestra excelencia ("your excellence" abbreviated as ussencia) and vuestra señoria ("your lordship/ladyship" abbreviated as ussia). Today, both vos and tú are considered to be informal pronouns, with vos being somewhat synonymous with tú in regions where both are used. This was the situation when the Spanish language was brought to the Río de la Plata area (around Buenos Aires and Montevideo) and to Chile.

In time, vos lost currency in Spain but survived in a number of countries in Spanish-speaking America: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia (east), Uruguay, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and some smaller areas; it is not found, or only found in internally remote areas (such as Chiapas) in the countries historically best connected with Spain: Mexico, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Perú, and Equatorial Guinea. Vuestra merced evolved into usted (vuestra merced > usarced > usted; in fact, "usted" is still abbreviated as either Vd or Ud). Note that the term vosotros is a combined form of vos otros (meaning literally "ye/you others"), while the term nosotros comes from nos otros ("we/us others").

In the first half of the 19th century the use of vos was as prevalent in Chile as it was in Argentina. The current limitation of the use of vos in Chile is attributed to a campaign to eradicate it by the Chilean education system. The campaign was initiated by Andrés Bello who considered the use of vos a manifestation of lack of education.^[5]

Usage

Geographical distribution

Distribution of voseo:

  spoken + written

  primarily spoken

  spoken, alternating with tuteo

  absent

Countries where voseo is predominant

Voseo used on a billboard in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The sign reads, "Do you want to change? Come to Claro." In tuteo, it would have been, "¿Quieres cambiar? Ven a Claro."

Voseo on a billboard in El Salvador "Order your cold one here!" "¡Pide tu fría aquí!" would have been the tuteo equivalent.

In South America:

1. Argentina (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is virtually unused)
2. Paraguay (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is virtually unused in most of the country, except in Concepción)
3. Uruguay (both pronoun+verb and pronoun tú + verb conjugated in the vos form)

In Central America:

1. Costa Rica (The voseo has historically been used, but is losing ground to ustedeo and tuteo, especially among younger speakers. ^[12]Vos is now primarily used orally with friends and family in the San Jose metropolitan area and near the Nicaraguan border and in advertising signage. Usted is the primary form in other areas and with strangers. The tuteo is occasionally used in writing, but when it is used in speaking by a Costa Rican, it is commonly considered fake and effeminate.)^[13]
2. Nicaragua (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is seldom used).
3. Guatemala : verbal voseo is widespread in the country. It is commonly used throughout the society, the pronoun tú, although not unheard, is extremely rare.

Synchronic analysis of Chilean and River Plate verbal voseos

The traditional assumption that Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms are derived from those corresponding to vosotros has been challenged as synchronically inadequate in a Baquero and Westphal article,^[17] on the grounds that it requires at least six different rules, including three monophthongization processes that completely lack phonological motivation. Alternatively, the article argues that the Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms are synchronically derived from underlying representations that coincide with those corresponding to the non-honorific second person singular tú. The proposed theory requires the use of only one special rule in the case of Chilean voseo. This rule plus other rules that are independently justified in the language make it possible to synchronically derive all the Chilean and River Plate voseo verb forms in a straightforward manner. The article additionally solves the problem posed by the alternate verbal forms of Chilean voseo like the future indicative (e.g. bailaríh 'you will dance'), the present indicative forms of haber (habíh and hai 'you have'), and the present indicative of ser (soi, eríh and eréi 'you are'), without resorting to any ad hoc rules. The theoretical framework of the article is that of classic generative phonology.

Attitudes

In some countries, the pronoun vos is used with family and friends (T-form), like tú in other varieties of Spanish, and contrasts with the respectful usted (V-form used with third person) which is used with strangers, elderly and people of higher socioeconomic status; appropriate usage varies by dialect. In Central America, vos can be used among those considered equals, while usted maintains its respectful usage. In Ladino, the pronoun usted is completely absent, so the use of vos with strangers and elders is the standard.

Voseo was long considered a reprehensible practice by prescriptivist grammarians (with the idea that only Castilian Spanish was good Spanish), but it is now regarded simply as a local variant.

See also

• Similar trends of personal pronouns in Portuguese
• Spanish dialects and varieties
• Spanish verbs
• T–V distinction#Romance languages

References

Sources

• (in Spanish) Díaz Collazos, Ana María. Desarrollo sociolingüístico del voseo en la región andina de Colombia.
• (in Spanish) El voseo at Spanish Wikibooks
• (in French) Le Voseo
• (in Spanish) Voseo at the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts (Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas). Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española) (2005)
• (in Spanish) Voseo Spanish Site dedicated to teaching Argentine Voseo usage
• (in Spanish) Baquero, Julia M. and Westphal, Germán F. (2014) "Un análisis sincrónico del voseo verbal chileno y rioplatense.” Forma y Función, 27 (2), 11-40."
• (in Spanish) Carricaburo. Norma Beatriz (2003). El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy - Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual
• (in Spanish) Hotta. Hideo (2000). La estandarización y el regionalismo en el voseo del español argentino
• (in Spanish) Roca, Luis Alberto (2007). Breve historia del habla cruceña y su mestizaje
• (in Spanish) Rosenblat, Ángel (2000). El castellano en Venezuela
• (in Spanish) Toursinov, Antón (2005). Formas pronominales de tratamiento en el español actual de Guatemala