Castilian Spanish

Map of languages and dialects in Spain.

The term Castilian Spanish can be used in English for the specific varieties of Spanish spoken in north and central Spain. Sometimes it is more loosely used to denote the Spanish spoken in all of Spain as compared to Spanish spoken in Latin America. There are several different varieties of Spanish, which should not be confused with the other official and unofficial languages in Spain, of which Spanish is only the most prominent because it is the only one that is official throughout the whole national territory.

The term in Spanish for varieties spoken in Northern and Central Spanish would be castellano septentrional ("Northern Castilian"). Español castellano, the literal translation of Castilian Spanish, while not being a common expression, would be understood literally and would refer only to varieties found in Castile itself. The varieties found, for instance, in Aragon and Navarra would be excluded even though they belong to castellano septentrional.

Inside Spain, there are many regional variations of Spanish, which can be divided roughly into four major dialectal areas:

• Northern Spanish (northern coast, Ebro and Duero valleys, upper Tajo and upper Júcar valleys). The dialects in this area are sometimes called Castilian Spanish (only in English), but in fact it excludes quite a large portion in the historical region of Castile and includes areas not in it.
• Transitional area between North and South (Extremadura, Murcia, Madrid, La Mancha). The dialects in this area have traits which are often popularly associated with Andalusia, such as implosive s-aspiration (systematic or conditioned by context). Extremadura and Murcia are often lumped into a Southern variety with Andalusian rather than being considered a part of the transitional area, since Southern traits are more pervasive there.
• Andalusian Spanish
• Canarian Spanish

The Spanish language is a pluricentric language. Because it is spoken in numerous countries around the world, each with differing standards, there is no single authority that can speak for the global community of Spanish speakers. However, regional authorities do exist. The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) defines the linguistic standards for Spanish in Spain, and its authority is often accepted in the Americas too.

The variants of Spanish spoken in Spain and its former colonies can vary significantly in grammar and pronunciation, as well as in the use of idioms. In general, courses of Spanish as a second language tend to prefer Mexican Spanish in the United States and Canada, whereas European Spanish prevails in Europe.

The most striking difference between dialects in central and northern Spain and Latin American Spanish is distinción (distinction), that is, the pronunciation of the letter z before all vowels, and of c only before e and i, as a voiceless dental fricative /θ/, English th in thing. Thus, in most variations of Spanish from Spain, cinco (five) is pronounced /ˈθinko/ as opposed to /ˈsinko/ in Latin American Spanish, and similarly for zapato, cerdo, zorro, Zurbarán. Distinción also occurs in the area around Cusco, Peru, where [θ] survives in a few words like the numbers doce, trece and, with some people, in the verb decir. To English speakers, as well as native Spanish speakers from the Americas, speakers of Castilian Spanish sound like they have lisps.[5][6][7]

Additionally, all Latin-American dialects drop the familiar (that is, informal) vosotros verb form for the second person plural, using ustedes in all contexts. In most of Spain, ustedes is used only in a formal context. Some other minor differences are:

• The widespread use of le instead of lo as the masculine direct object pronoun, especially referring to people. This morphological variation, known as leísmo, is typical of a strip of land in central Spain which includes Madrid, and recently it has spread to other regions.
• In the past, the sounds for "y" and "ll" were phonologically different in most European Spanish subvarieties, compared with only a few dialects in Latin America, but that difference is now disappearing in all Peninsular Spanish dialects, including the standard (that is, Castilian Spanish based on the Madrid dialect). A distinct phoneme for "ll" is still heard in the speech of older speakers in rural areas throughout Spain, but most Spanish-speaking adults and youngsters merge "ll" and "y". In Latin America, "ll" remains different from "y" in traditional dialects along the Andes range, especially in the Peruvian highlands, all of Bolivia and also in Paraguay. In the Philippines, speakers of Spanish and Filipino employ the distinction between "ll" /ʎ/ and "y" /ʝ/.
• In most of Latin America, usted is used more often than in mainland Spain; however, in Latin America, this tendency is less common among young people, especially in Caribbean dialects.
• In Castilian Spanish, the letter j as well as the letter g before the letters i and e are pronounced as a stronger velar fricative /x/ and very often the friction is uvular [χ], while in Latin America they are generally guttural as well, but not as strong and the uvular realizations of European Spanish are not reported. In the Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela, other parts of Latin America, the Canary Islands, Extremadura and most of western Andalusia, as well as in the Philippines, it is pronounced as [h].
• Characteristic of Spanish from Spain (except from Andalusia and the Canary Islands) is the voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant [s̺], also called apico-alveolar or grave, which is often perceived as intermediate between a laminal/dental [s] and [ʃ]. This sound is prevalent also in Colombian Paisa region, and Andean Spanish dialects.
• Debuccalization of syllable-final /s/ to x, [h], or dropping it entirely, so that está [esˈta] ("s/he is") sounds like [ehˈta] or [eˈta], in different degrees and contexts, occurs in Castile–La Mancha (except North-East) and Madrid; this is most common in southern Spain (Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia, Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla) as well as some parts of Latin America.
• Words containing these three letters together -atl- are pronounced in a different way in Castilian Spanish as compared to Mexican Spanish. In Spain, words like Atlántico and atleta are pronounced according to the syllabication At-lán-ti-co and at-le-ta. Instead, in Mexico, the pronunciation follows the syllabication A-tlán-ti-co and a-tle-ta.

• Andalusian Spanish
• Canarian Spanish
• Murcian Spanish
• Castúo
• Standard Spanish – the standard form that is very different from the medieval Spanish language-base

• WordNet 3.0. Princeton University