Castilian Spanish

Terminology

The term Castilian Spanish is used in English for the specific varieties of Spanish spoken in north and central Spain. This is because much of the variation in Peninsular Spanish is between north and south, often imagined as Castilian versus Andalusian. Typically, it is more loosely used to denote the Spanish spoken in all of Spain as compared to Latin American Spanish. In Spain itself, Spanish is not a uniform language and there exist several different varieties of Spanish; in addition, there are other official and unofficial languages in the country, although Spanish is official throughout Spain.

Castellano septentrional ("Northern Castilian") is the Spanish term for the dialects from the Northern half of Spain, including those from Aragón or Navarre, which were never part of Castile. These dialects can be distinguished from the southern varieties of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Murcia. Español castellano, the literal translation of Castilian Spanish, is not a common expression; it could refer to varieties found in the region of Castile; however, the dialects of Castile, like other dialects, are not homogenous, and they tend to merge gradually with the dialects of other regions.

Phonology

• Word-final may be pronounced as a voiceless . This is most common in the provinces of Burgos, Palencia, Valladolid, the east of León and Zamora, northern Segovia and Ávila, and Soria. This pronunciation is present, though less common, in La Rioja, Guadalajara, Cuenca, and Madrid, and it is scarcely documented in Toledo, Ciudad Real, and Albacete.
• is elided in the ending -ado throughout nearly all of Spain. In other environments, elision of intervocalic is characteristic of southern varieties of Spanish.
• Syllable-final is often aspirated in Madrid and Castilla–La Mancha. Before a sound, it can be realized as a voiceless velar fricative , such that es que 'it's that' sounds like . In and around Toledo, typically remains before , while it's typically aspirated or elided before , and usually aspirated or becomes before .
• , spelled as , is pronounced as a palatalized voiceless alveolar affricate , at least in Madrid.
• Spanish from most of the Iberian Peninsula, including Castile, uses an apical , as opposed to the non-retracted voiceless alveolar fricative of Andalusian, Canarian, and Latin American Spanish, as well as of English.

Grammar

• A wide swath of central Castile is home to leísmo. The Royal Spanish Academy considers leísmo to be incorrect, though it considers it to be admissible when referring to a single, male person.

References

Sources

• {{cite book |editor1-last=Gutiérrez-Rexach |editor1-first=Javier |chapter-url=http://www.uam.es/FyL/documento/1446774238570/2016_Dialectos%20del%20espa%C3%B1ol%20peninsular.pdf |access-date=18 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200712235153/http://www.uam.es/FyL/documento/1446774238570/2016_Dialectos%20del%20espa%C3%B1ol%20peninsular.pdf |archive-date=July 12, 2020
• {{cite book |author-link=John M. Lipski |chapter-url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/geo.pdf |editor-last1=Hualde |editor-first1=José Ignacio |editor-last2=Olarrea |editor-first2=Antxon |editor-last3=O'Rourke |editor-first3=Erin |archive-date=2024-09-19 |access-date=2022-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240919190339/https://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/geo.pdf |url-status=dead
• {{cite book |author1-link=John M. Lipski |editor1-last=Boberg |editor1-first=Charles |editor2-last=Nerbonne |editor2-first=John |editor3-last=Watt |editor3-first=Dominic |editor1-link=Charles Boberg |editor2-link=John Nerbonne |chapter-url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/Dialectology%20chapter.pdf |archive-date=2024-10-04 |access-date=2022-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241004082420/https://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/Dialectology%20chapter.pdf |url-status=dead
• {{cite book |access-date=21 June 2022 |url-access=registration

References

1. (2006). "Random House Unabridged Dictionary". Random House Inc..
2. (2006). "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language". Houghton Mifflin Company.
3. (1998). "Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary". MICRA, Inc.
4. (2007). "Encarta World English Dictionary". Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
5. {{Cite Dictionary.com. Castilian
6. "Castilian". Merriam-Webster.
7. (December 2016). "Variación de la -/d/ final de palabra en Madrid: ¿prestigio abierto o encubierto?". Boletín de filología.
8. (1 January 2016). "La –/d/ final en el atlas dialectal de Madrid (ADIM): un cambio en marcha". Lapurdum.
9. (2012). "The Loss of Intervocalic and Final /d/ in the Iberian Peninsula". Dialectologia.
10. Wright, Robyn. (2017). "The Madrileño ejke : a study of the perception and production of velarized /s/ in Madrid". The University of Texas at Austin.
11. (December 2016). "Investigating lenition patterns in south-central Peninsular Spanish /spstsk/ clusters". Journal of the International Phonetic Association.
12. Klaus Kohler. "Castilian Spanish – Madrid".
13. (December 2003). "Castilian Spanish". Journal of the International Phonetic Association.
14. (March 1980). "Observations on Present-Day Seseo and Ceceo in Southern Spain". Hispania.
15. (22 July 2024). "Uso de los pronombres lo(s), la(s), le(s). Leísmo, laísmo, loísmo".