Varieties of Spanish in The United States - (8. Central American Spanish in The United States)

8
Central American Spanish in the

United States
Introduction
Beginning in the 1980s immigration from Central America to
the United States reached considerable proportions, and as
of the 2000 census Central American communities in the
United States represent some 5% of the total Latino popu-
lation, outnumbering both Cubans and Dominicans. A com-
bination of economic reasons and political pressures—the
latter particularly acute during the Central American civil
wars of the 1980s—has stimulated the northward migra-
tion of economically stable family units. Because there is no
common border between Central America and the United
States, and because many families arrive by air or by sea,
there is a greater tendency to settle in geographically
delimited population clusters, which then form centripetal
nuclei attracting further immigration. It is common for
Copyright © 2008. Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved.
Central American immigrants, like their fellow Latin

Americans, to settle in cities with large Spanish-speaking
populations; this follows both from the geographical loca-
tion of such cities, which usually represent the southern
border of the United States and/or major airline termini,
and from the desire to live in a minimally foreign environ-
ment. Although the Central Americans who move to
already-established colonies at first interact principally with
their compatriots, it is not long before the inevitable contact
with other Hispanic Americans and American-born Latinos
takes place, leading to transculturation and the expansion of
social horizons of all groups involved.
142
Lipski, J. M. (2008). Varieties of spanish in the united states. Georgetown University Press.
Created from utpb-ebooks on 2024-04-23 23:41:18.
CENTRAL AMERICAN SPANISH IN THE UNITED STATES 143
Regional and Social Variation in Central

American Spanish
Central America is a region of great disparities in levels of personal wealth and
education, both in urban and rural regions. This has noticeable effects on lan-
guage variation, with considerable vertical stratification of sociolinguistic variables
in all Central American countries. The main Central American migrations to the
United States have involved people from rural regions with relatively low levels
of formal education; as a consequence, linguistic traits common to rustic speech
but shunned in formal academic settings are often prominent in Central American
speech communities in the United States.
As a dialect zone Central America is the least well documented of all the
major Latin American regions, and most of the core bibliography dates back
half a century or more. Until the 1980s almost no linguistic studies of Central
American Spanish were based on fieldwork (Canfield 1953, 1960 for El
Salvador is a noteworthy exception), and the region remains underrepresented
in linguistic studies to this day. In broad terms Central American Spanish can
be divided into three major dialects: Guatemala, Costa Rica, and the triad of El
Salvador–Honduras–Nicaragua. The main features that distinguish these
dialects involve the pronunciation of key consonants, particularly final /s/ and
the trill /r/; vocabulary items tend to be more evenly distributed across these
five countries, and all Central American nations share the use of the subject
pronoun vos, described in the following section.
The two flanking countries of the former Capitanía General de Guatemala,
later the ill-fated Central American union, share a strong pronunciation of
word-final /s/ that bears a great similarity with most of Mexico and the
Andean zone. The three central countries aspirate word-final /s/ as [h] to a
greater or lesser extent and, in general, have weaker consonantal articulations.
Both Guatemala and Costa Rica exhibit some preference for a fricative /r/
(somewhat like the s in English measure) and the pronunciation of the group
/tr/ as an affricate, approaching English ch. There are many regional differ-
ences among the Central American dialects, which share the following pho-
netic traits:
• Weak pronunciation of the posterior fricative /x/ (the jota) to a simple aspiration [h].
In words like trabajo (work) the /x/ is barely audible.
• Weak pronunciation of /j/ in contact with /i/ and /e/; the /j/ often disappears in
words such as gallina (hen), silla (chair), sello (stamp).
• Word-final /n/ is velarized, as in English sing.
144 CHAPTER EIGHT
Central American Morphology: The Voseo

The five Spanish-speaking Central American republics exhibit a great amount of
linguistic diversity among themselves, and yet there exist certain common
characteristics that may be used to define the entire group as opposed to the
Mexican area to the north and the Panamanian/Caribbean region to the east and
south. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Central American Spanish is the
all-pervasive use of the second person familiar pronoun vos instead of tú, which
appears in Mexico, the Caribbean, Spain, and much of South America. Histori-
cally, these forms have always prevailed in Central America, and yet there has tra-
ditionally been a learned reaction against the voseo, which has been considered
vulgar, plebian, anti-literary and a barrier to Central American aspirations to
higher culture, principally because such forms had long since disappeared from
Peninsular dialects.1 One may find such condemnations in the works of gram-
marians, linguists, novelists, poets, journalists, and politicians.2 Poetry and prose
by Central American authors, even when set among the Central American prole-
tariat or peasantry, has nearly always employed a tuteo, which is totally at odds
with linguistic reality. Official announcements, as well as commercial advertise-
ments, political slogans, religious announcements, and the like, have similarly
standardized the tuteo, when not using usted, as have hymns, anthems, and prayers.
The latter case is curious, since many Central Americans of humble origin, when
formulating personal petitions and prayers, address God and the Virgin Mary as
vos, while officially learned and recited prayers use either tú or vosotros, with the
latter form also being used by many parish priests, whether or not they are of
Central American origin (traditionally many have been from Spain or from other
Latin American nations). The dichotomy between the official position and the
everyday environment has created an insecurity or inferiority complex that
Haugen (1968) has termed “schizoglossia,” particularly evident when Central
Americans speak with Spaniards or Latin Americans from other areas, even those
who also employ some variant of the voseo. Typical comments include “we don’t
use the correct forms,” or “we shouldn’t use those words.”
Recently, however, the popular attitude toward the voseo has been shifting in
Central America, largely as a result of the efforts of writers and popular leaders
representing nationalistic sentiments frequently aligned with leftist political ten-
dencies. This is most noteworthy in the stories and novels written in the past three
decades, among which may be mentioned the following: El Salvador: Roque
Dalton (Pobrecito poeta que era yo), Salvador Cayetano Carpio (Secuestro y capucha),
Manlio Argueta (Caperucita en la zona roja); Nicaragua: Sergio Ramírez (¿Te dio
miedo la sangre?), Fernando Silva (El vecindario); Honduras: Ramón Amaya Amador
(Cipotes), Roberto Castillo (Subida al cielo), Horacio Castellanos Moya (¿Qué signo es
usted, niña Berta?); Costa Rica: Carlos Luis Fallas (Mamita Yunai ) and the novels of
Fabián Dobles and Quince Duncan; Guatemala: Virgilio Rodríguez Macal (Guayacán).
On official levels, Central America still maintains the tuteo, together with the
more common usted, with only Sandinista Nicaragua having adopted the voseo as
a symbol of Central American individualism.3 In post-Sandinista Nicaragua, offi-
cial use of vos in documents and slogans is rare verging on vanishing, but neither
has the non-Central American tuteo reemerged (Lipski 1997). Only Costa Ricans,
with few major political upheavals to their record, seem most comfortable with
the voseo among more cultured speakers, while at the same time employing usted
with a greater frequency than is found in the other Central American republics.
Naturally enough, when Central Americans travel to other Latin American
countries or interact with Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans in the United
States, one of the first points of linguistic culture shock is the voseo, for the situa-
tion is asymmetrical. While the Central Americans are familiar with the tuteo, if
only passively, most other Latin Americans, especially those with little formal edu-
cation, are thoroughly baffled by the voseo and find it alternately strange, humor-
ous, or even offensive. The Central American, in turn, may react in a variety of
ways, ranging from completely suppressing the voseo in order to more readily inte-
grate into other Hispanic communities to aggressively maintaining the vos in order
to symbolize individuality and the desire not to lose cultural identity. Whereas the
speakers of Mexican or Caribbean dialects rarely suffer linguistic modifications
upon coming into extensive contact with Central Americans, the same is not true
of the numerically inferior latter group; the pronominal system experiences a
number of pressures, resulting in a more complex hybrid system identical neither
with the Central American nor with the Mexican/Caribbean standards of U.S.
Latinos.
The Central American voseo patterns are as follows:
PRESENT INDICATIVE: hablás comés decís

PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE: hablés comás digás
IMPERATIVE: hablá comé decí
FUTURE: hablarás comerás dirás
PRETERITE: hablastes comistes dijistes
The indicative form of ser (to be) is sos, whereas the future forms maintain the
suffix vowel a, except in a few marginal regions that maintain the archaic suffix -és.
In rural regions, it is still possible to find (ha)bís instead of has in the present
perfect, as well as other archaic or analogical verb formations.
146 CHAPTER EIGHT
Although the verb conjugations remain the same across Central America,
choice of pronoun + verb varies from country to country and across sociolin-
guistic categories within each country. Thus, for example, Costa Ricans may use
usted even in intimate family settings, between siblings or spouses, with vos being
considered rustic and/or rude, whereas in neighboring Nicaragua almost every-
one is treated to a spontaneous use of vos, a trait that gives the nicas the reputation
of being confianzudos (overly familiar). In Guatemala, in contrast, field studies sug-
gest that men use voseo constructions more frequently than women and avoid
using them to women as a sign of respect (Pinkerton 1986). In the U.S. setting,
where Central American varieties are usually in contact with dialects from Mexico
and/or the Caribbean, additional nuances emerge. To cite a typical example, a
survey conducted in the 1980s among Salvadorans (in Houston) and Hondurans
(in New Orleans) in comparison with compatriots in participants’ home countries,
indicated that modifications to the traditional uses of vos, tú, and usted were already
occurring (Lipski 1986a). An interesting situation was observed in the treatment
of children by parents, because in most of Central America parents normally
address children as usted in early years, until they are five to seven years of age, so
that the children learn the respectful forms of address first. This usage is invari-
able in those families that demand the usted from their children, but even in fam-
ilies that eventually tolerate vos from children to parents, it is customary for the
latter to use usted with smaller children. Naturally, the usted also reappears with
older children when the need to reprimand is foremost. Among Central
Americans who have spent considerable time in the United States, the custom of
using usted with small children is on the decline, as is the use of usted from children
to parents. Some familiar form is normally employed in both situations, the nature
of which varies. A summary of the findings appears in table 8.1.
Baumel-Schreffler (1994) conducted surveys among working-class Salvadoran
residents in Houston, Texas. Her results are comparable to those reported above,
although with some differences. The male informants preferred vos (50%), usted
(37.5%), and tú (12.5%), respectively, as a first gambit when speaking to another
man, but opted for vos (44%), usted (33%), and tú (22%) when speaking to a
woman. Female informants, on the other hand, overwhelmingly preferred usted as
a first gambit in all situations. As for attitudes regarding the voseo, 71% of the
informants felt that tú was more refined than vos (20% found no difference, and
10% felt that vos was more refined). On the other hand, 61% believed that vos was
a friendlier form, as opposed to 20% who found it to be less friendly, and 20%
who found no difference. Although based on a small number of informants, this
survey is illustrative of the complexity surrounding pronominal usage in Central
American dialects.4
Table 8.1 A Cross-section of Central American Pronominal Usage

Salvadoran Honduran
in the in the
United United
Context El Salvador States Honduras States
Children to parents U (V) V U (V) V
Parents to children U+V V U+V V
Close friends T/V T/V V V (T)
Fellow students T/V T/V V V (T)
Professional T/V (U) T (V)/U V (U) V (T)/U
colleagues
Insult V V (T) V V (T)
Lovemaking V V (T) V/U V (T)
Official usage U/T U/T U/T U/T
Love letters/poetry T T T T
Hispanic friend T (V) T T (V) T
Anglo friend T T T (V) T
Compatriot in V (T) V (T)
United States
Compatriot in V V
Central America
T = tú; V = vos; U = usted. Forms in parenthesis indicate very limited use. Forms added by + indicate
recent trends. Forms added after / indicate alternate usage, depending upon contextual variables.
The Central American Lexicon

The five Spanish-speaking nations of Central America embody a wide range of
vocabulary, some derived from local indigenous languages, and some of Spanish
origin but with modified meanings (Folse 1980). Few if any of these items are
confined to the geographical boundaries of a single nation, as a result of the his-
torical context in which the Spanish language evolved in individual Central
American colonies. Some of the more regionalized words are listed in the chapters
on individual Central American varieties in the United States; among the words
commonly associated with Central America (at least with the four nations that
have provided the majority of immigrants to the United States) are the following:
andar (to carry on one’s person)

barrilete (kite)
bayunco (clumsy, worthless)
bolo (drunk)
148 CHAPTER EIGHT
chele (blond, fair-skinned)

chompipe (turkey)
chucho (dog)
cipote (small child)
guaro (liquor)
pisto (money)
Scholarship on Central American Spanish

in the United States
The bibliography on Central American varieties of Spanish in the United States is
quite small, and most of the available studies focus on a single dialect. Peñalosa
(1984) is an early study on Salvadorans and Guatemalans in Los Angeles. There
is a brief description of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan dialects but no mention
of the use of these Spanish varieties in the multidialectal and multilingual Los
Angeles setting. Lipski (1985d) compares the variable pronunciation of final /s/
in the Central American dialects, which can be largely extrapolated to trans-
planted Central Americans living in the United States. Lipski (1988a) briefly com-
pares Central American and Chicano/Mexican American varieties in the U.S.
setting. Saragoza (1995) studies the needs of Central American children in U.S.
school classrooms, without explicit focus on Spanish language behavior. Varela
(1998–99) describes Central American Spanish in Louisiana, particularly the
Hondurans in New Orleans. Rivera-Mills (2000) gives a detailed sociolinguistic
study of a multidialectal Latino community in northern California, in which Cen-
tral Americans (from El Salvador and Guatemala) interact in Spanish with indi-
viduals from Mexico and some other Spanish American dialect zones. Lipski
(2000b) offers an overview of the linguistic situation of Central Americans in the
broader context of immigrant language communities.
Notes
1. For a general descriptive and historical presentation of the voseo in Latin America, albeit
somewhat inaccurate in the case of Central America, see Páez Urdaneta (1981), Rona
(1967), Chart (1954).
2. Cf. the following examples: Láscaris (1977, 168–88) is mildly critical. Agüero Chaves
(1960a: 44–48; 1960b: 87f ), Arroyo Soto (1971, 71–74) are also mildly critical but
mainly descriptive. Mántica (1973, 55) is merely descriptive, whereas Membreño
(1895, 204–5) is more critical and cites the criticisms of Bello (1903, 113). Another
vocal critic of the voseo was Cuervo (1885), who amended the criticism to a descriptive
note in subsequent editions of this work. Valle (1948) and Batres Jáuregui (1892) also
adopt a critical attitude toward the voseo.
3. During the Sandinista period one could see billboards and slogans such as
Nicaragüense, cumplí con tu deber, whereas some visas, stamped in passports, bear the
slogan Nicaragua espera por vos, and letters sent out to compañeros, both Nicaraguan and
foreign and on official stationary, routinely employed the voseo, whereas only usted
would normally be appropriate following official protocol.
4. Comparable data for other Central American varieties are found in Baumel-Schreffler
(1995) and Pinkerton (1986) [Guatemala]; Castro-Mitchell (1991) [Honduras]; Gaínza
(1976), Vargas (1974), and Villegas (1965) [Costa Rica]; Rey (1994) [Honduras and
Nicaragua].

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8

Central American Spanish in the

Central American immigrants, like their fellow Latin

Regional and Social Variation in Central

Central American Morphology: The Voseo

The Central American voseo patterns are as follows:

PRESENT INDICATIVE: hablás comés decís

Table 8.1 A Cross-section of Central American Pronominal Usage

The Central American Lexicon

andar (to carry on one’s person)

chele (blond, fair-skinned)

Scholarship on Central American Spanish

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