Re: Question about Spanish


Peter T. Daniels kirjoitti:

Javi wrote:

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
phoglund@xxxxxx wrote:

foggytown wrote:

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

foggytown wrote:

Dear Group,

I am doing some research for a short story and perhaps I can find some
assistance in here. Question: are there countries once colonized by
Spain where the daily spoken language is now a form of Spanish which
has so degraded that it would not be understood by Spaniards or other
(former) colonies?

Please don't say "degraded." It suggests that the language is somehow
inferior or inadequate. Whatever the social circumstances of its
speakers, the language is fully as expressive as that spoken by any
Castilian.
--

I wonder if you were a Castillian you would feel the same?


Well, the fact is that even in Spain, Latin American authors such as
Gabriel García Márquez from Colombia and Jorge Luis Borges from
Argentina are held in high esteem. Spanish is not exactly my specialty,
it is just a nice language with an interesting literature I wanted to
read in the original language, but as far as I know, Argentine Spanish
is one of the most divergent - by your token, "degraded" - varieties of
the New World, but it sure does not make Borges indigestible for
Peninsular lovers of good literature.


How "degraged" is Chilean in comparison, which has given us Neruda and
Isobel Allende? (Who now seems to write in English rather than Spanish,
at least sometimes.)

What do you mean with "Chilean"? Informal verbal communication or formal
written communication? Or both? Or anyone?

I mean BY "Chilean" exactly what phoglund meant by "Argentine Spanish"
or you meant by "Argentinian" -- whatever variety of the language can be
unmistakeably identified as characteristic of the country it's named
for. (I kinda doubt there's such a thing as "Argentinian," simply
because Argentina is a pretty big country that's had a lot of
immigration from all oer.)

Actually, even before I started learning Spanish, I read a book called
"Introduction to Latin American Spanish", which left the impression
that popular speech is remarkably uniform in vast areas. There might
not be such a thing as Argentinian, but there certainly is a very
influential Buenos Aires or "metropolitan Río de la Plata" variety,
which influences the Spanish of Uruguay and Paraguay too.


It is one of the less divergent dialects of Spanish, although lately
it's being influenced by Argentinian.

Neruda wrote and IsAbel Allende writes standard peninsular Spanish, with
some words for lexical items that have no name in Spain.

And Borges didn't?

I seem not to recall a single instance of voseo in Borges's works. Did
Borges employ voseo or did he not? I guess there is so little personal
address in his books that you can read half his production right
through and still be uncertain if he had voseo or not.

.

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