Talk:Dominican Spanish

(Article inaccuracies)
This article is not wholly accurate, it contains certain errors in the presumption of certain words and usages. The word Maracuya is not Spanish, but a word borrowed from the Araucan. Dominicans do not call all foreigners Gringos, the word extranjero is of common use in the Island, as common as any other usage. Dominicans, as a general rule, call mandarins; Mandarinas, not Italianas, this can be seen in supermarkets and grocery stores across the nation. Cuartos as a word for money comes form old castillian, but in use even today in the south of Spain and recognizable by most modern speakers. Also, it is Los cuartos, for money and el cuarto for a room. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 30 April 2007
 * agreed. Gringo is often a word used in all Spanish cultures to indicate a white (possibly white american) individual, and it will NOT be used for an Asian, Indian, or Black African despite them being foreigners or extranjeros. I'm removing this section because it is simply wrong. Adreamtonight 05:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the article should be revised to include that Dominicans are able to speak correct spanish when the need arises. The article makes it seem like they just speak a butchered version of the language. What do u guys think?FEVB 00:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. I think you'd like the current version. SamEV (talk) 20:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Bacano
Was reading through the Colombian Spanish article and noticed that one of the slang words was bacano for good. This is also used in the Republic and should be added. FEVB 18:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

More On Bacano
Bacano is of Spanish origin, albeit, a corrupted form. It comes from the old Spanish word "chabacano" (see the Philippine dialect of Spanish also called chabacano). Its original meaning was 'wrong, bad or incorrect'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.248.171 (talk) 18:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Its use has spread recently and it is also now found in Brazilian Portuguese slang with the same meaning as in Caribbean Spanish slang. No doubt due to the growing affluence of the Latin American middle class and growing cross-border and cross-cultural connections with our Portuguese-speaking sister country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.248.171 (talk • contribs) 18:31, 15 November 2010

That Article Dismisses Dominican Spanish
What is the actual intention behind emphasizing on the slang phrases used in the Dominican Republic? Is this another attempt to ridicule and denigrate Dominicans in general? It would be as if I had chosen only the slang phrases to describe the English spoken in the inner-city streets of the United States of America.

As a Dominican residing in the USA, I feel offended by the effort this article makes in portraying Dominican Spanish in such a humiliating light. There are slang phrases in every language. That is not the only way Dominicans talk. Education, of course, plays a very important role in keeping the purity of the language. But that occurs all over the world. Our (Dominican) government doesn’t spend enough on the educational system.

I can state, however that any Dominican who is lucky enough to get access to a good education, commands the language in a very accurate manner. I was raised in the Dominican Republic and I was never exposed to that kind of slang. Indeed, no member of my family or friends ever spoke that way. There are social divides everywhere in the world, and, unfortunately, the Dominican Republic is not an exception.

Most of the people who use that kind of slang come form marginalized neighborhoods, or are people who want to appear cool or street-wise. I am very proud of the Spanish I speak. Wherever I go, unlike what the article describes, everybody who speaks Spanish understands me perfectly. If anything, we always exchange information about how certain things have different names throughout Latin America.

I have met people from all over Latin America, and those who are in constant contact with all kinds of Dominicans know very well that not all of them talk like that. At the same time, I have also seen differences in speech pattern and pronunciation among all the other Spanish versions from Latin America. I have seen that the more educated the person is, the higher their command of “standard” Castilian-Spanish will be. It's sad that the last section of this article takes the easy way out by over generalizing, instead of making the assertion that cultured and well-educated Dominicans master their native language (and maybe a second or more) at the highest standard level, just as well as cultured and well-educated people from all over the world master theirs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atom22xy (talk • contribs) 05:40, 29 February 2008

Phonology - Morphology/Syntax ??
If I'm not mistaken, this statement:

Almost exclusively Dominican in use, is the placing of the second person singular pronoun tú before the verb in the question form: "¿Cómo tú estás?" instead of "¿Cómo estás tú?". Nevertheless, when using the more formal usted, instead of tú, the conventional word order is used.

doesn't deal with phonology. I believe there are others in the section labeled phonology that could be better classified and that this all could use some reorganization, but I'm not confident enough with my linguistics knowledge to do it myself. Ryanminier (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Is guagua Arawak or Canary?
The article says the the word guagua originated in the Canary Islands in the Dominican Vocabulary section and from the Arawak in the Arawak table. Which one is correct? --Beirne (talk) 00:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

"Ello", como sujeto expletivo enfático
This form is in wide use in Dominican Spanish yet it is not mentioned here.

For example: Ello no hay azucar. (There is no sugar.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.57.160 (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Weak R
In "Phonology" section, they mention "weak r". What exactly is your definition of "weak"? because weak is an extremely vague term, and quite frankly, it's very improper in terms of phonology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.18.57.67 (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Dominican Spanish Formation ??
The article does not tell the origin or the formation of Dominican Spanish, for example, there's a part where it says the syntax for Dominican/Caribbean Spanish is different from the standard syntax of Spanish, for example Dominican Spanish go's 'como tu ta" instead of standard 'como estas tu", but that doesn't explain why that happened in the first place nor the dropping of the S's or the l for an r. It doesn't give the history of the Spanish dialect of Dominican Republic, i have only found a few websites that state some of the reasons for syntax and pronounciation, which should be added. Remember these are just suggestions and if approved then it should be added to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.72.160 (talk) 23:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * So long as you observe the policies of Wikipedia, such as WP:NOR and WP:V, you can edit the article yourself.
 * The policies include not editing when you're serving a block, but you violated that rule often. So it's not possible to welcome you with open arms.
 * Also, only the third source you listed is reliable. See WP:RS. SamEV (talk) 04:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

So the reliable source you say is the (A new perspective on Afro-Dominican Spanish: the Haitian contribution) am i correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.72.160 (talk) 10:20, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep. SamEV (talk) 03:26, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Mamey
I was told by Dominicans that "mamey" is the local word for "orange color" and that Dominicans are more acquainted with it as a color name that as a fruit name. If so, it should be mentioned in the section for local words. --Error (talk) 23:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Maco
I'm pretty sure this is slang for vagina and it is certainly a word you might want to avoid in a conversation with a Dominican.

Update: Maco is a word for frog.

African influence + ease of understanding by speakers of non-Dominican Spanish
It looks like there has been an edit war going on here recently regarding this. The edit war needs to stop and a consensus needs to be reached here regarding the points in dispute.
 * in this May 13 edit, an anonymous editor using IP address 72.76.123.126 removed without explanation an assertion saying that Dominican Spanish has heavy influences from African languages, citing  in support as an inline EL, and removed some assertions re inter-intelligibility with non-Dominican Spanish speakers supported by  as a footnoted cite.
 * in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 142.196.123.4 reverted that edit without explanation.
 * in this May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion without explanation.
 * in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 142.196.123.4 reverted the unreversion without explanation.
 * in this May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion without explanation.
 * in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 24.21.144.93 reverted the unreversion without explanation.
 * in this May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion, violating the three revert rule. This time, there was an explanation saying, "i deleted sa part of the general description at the top of the page because it is incorrect. Although Dominican spanish has "some" african influence like the rest of the spanish speaking carribean, it is not a heavy influence as originally described."
 * I saw that last edit during a WP:huggle session. In two 13 May edits here, I restored the removed material and its supporting cites and did some cleanup.
 * In this 13 May edit, anon-126 again removed the material and its supporting cites, and made some other chaanges, explaining: "I made these corrections, becuase the satement in reference to Dominican spanish being heavily infuenced by African languages is wrong, and most spanish speakers have no trouble understanding Dominican spanish. Dominican spanish is mainly rootedfromcanary."

Anon-126 has a very short edit history. I'm going to create a talk page for that IP with pointers to information about Wikipedia. I'm also going to place a 3RR warning on the talk page and suggest that anon-126 discuss these issues here. It looks to me as if some info re the material which anon-126 keeps removing probably needs to be in the article, though there may be differences of opinion about how much weight it should be given (see WP:DUE). However, I'm not a Spanish speaker, Dominican or otherwise, and have no topical expertise here. I'm leaving the article with the material removed, and I suggest that editors with some topical expertise discuss this here and come to a consensus about this. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Although yes it did originate from the canary islands, however puerto rican and cuban spanish sound much closer to canarian spanish than dominican spanish, im not the editor, i have read some linguists say that dominican spanish originated when canarian and andalusian masters while trying to teach the africans how to speak spanish then thats how dominican spanish was born, when the canarians arrived they picked up arawakan words and vocabularies and after the africans were try to impersonate how canarians speak, so i guess we can say that Dominican Spanish is Canarian/Andalusian spanish with African pronunciations, just as in other Caribbean English and French speakers, for example Jamaican Patois is southern Irish English but with African pronunciations to the same extant as Dominican Spanish, however Haitian Creole has the most African pronunciated words, BUT the accent is not African if you go to southwest France where white Haitians camefrom 400 years ago, they sound very similar to Haitians, and these are all sourced and observations, i also do linguist studies myself and i am Dominican.

-What do you say? who told you that? no! thats is just part of the "africanization" agenda some people (the afrocentrics) have against the DR in order to join Haiti and DR in one sigle country. This article is so manipulated and inaccurate (read the REAL article in spanish "Español Dominicano") and you specially, are a lot confused with your facts. Our language wasn't born from "africans learning how to speak spanish" (they couldn't even say a word anyways) but from spanish settlers and "criollos" speaking their own spanish, as in any other former spanish colony, with some words borrowed from arawak and yoruba dialects (we borrowed THE WORDS, not the pronunciation), dominican pronunciation came from andalusian (southern spanish) and dominican accent came from canarian (if you say that puertorican accent is much closer to the canarian accent than the dominican accent, then you have not listen to a puertorican nor a canarian in your life) and it is already discussed. Now, in order to get some other things clear: Africans slaves were never a majority (mulattoes and criollos were) in the spanish part of the island as they were in the french part. The slave system along the sugar cane economy in the colony declined in later 1500s, when the spaniards discovered "The Potosi" (Peru-Bolivia), "Nueva españa" (Mexico) and neglect "La Española", was because of that neglect that in later 1600´s the french invaded the western part of the island. In earlier 1700`s there was only about 4,000 slaves left (living almost as free people because the masters were so poor and the economy was so shrinked they didnt need them anymore) and 700,000 free people including mulattoes, "criollos" and spaniards in "The Capitania General of Santo Domingo" (now DR), the poorest spanish colony and one of the poorest in America. There was in the french part, the rich Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the richest colony in America, where there was 500,000 slaves and only 1,000 free people, including french masters and "affranchis" mulattoes that were all killed by the slaves during the Haitian Revolution. "Whites Haitians" never came from anywhere and never existed as such, because those people weren't haitians (Haiti didn't even exist by then), they were french and they were all killed by the slaves (who after their independence became "haitians"). And was also in later 1600´s-earlier 1700´s when the King sent lots of canary families (800) in order to "overpopulate" the colony with spanish people, because they were afraid french would took over the whole island (they didt it then though) that by that time was likely deserted and desolated (remember "Las Devastaciones de Osorio"?). That was why canaries founded and inhabited almost every city in the today Dominican Rep. specially in "El Cibao" region (North and Northwest), and a lot of neighborhoods in the old Santo Domingo, being "San Carlos de Tenerife" the biggest one..... and later, during the Trujillo dictatorship they were again brought back, but this time to dominicanize the border and whiten the population. DR is the 5th latinamerican country with the most canarian heritage and important settlements (1ºVenezuela, 2ºCuba, 3ºArgentina, 4ºMexico, 5ºRepública Dominicana, 6ºUruguay, 7ºBrasil). So get your facts right and if you want to learn more, go read "El Español en Santo Domingo" by Pedro Henriquez Ureña or "Composicion Social Dominicana" by Juan Bosch or some good book like those, and stop reading and/or spreading propaganda. Im not saying that dominicnas doesn't have african heritage, I'm just making clear that is not as strong as those afrocentrics want it to be, the spanish heritage in the DR will always be much more stronger than african, that is why we are an hispanic country and NOT an afro-caribbean one, as these people pretend us to be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.148.147.138 (talk) 00:59, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think people would want to want DR and Haiti as one single country, however, yes it is true, linguists experts have found that Dominican Spanish has more African influences than compared to Cuba and Puerto Rico. Dominican Spanish is of Andaluzian and Canarian origins (with a sagnificant Portuguese and Gallego one) with influences from African languages (some Africanisms, words, some syntax, vocabularies, some pronunciations, and rythems) and borrowed words of Indigenous origin. While Cuba and Puerto Rico are more Canarian and Spanish in origin. This is because DR lost much of it's White population rather early in history (around 200 years ago) due to the island's economic collapse, so the only ones that stayed were mainly blacks and mulattoes (majority) and a poor peasant/farmer Canarian population. However, the base of the Dominican accent is still of Andaluzian origin, the why Andaluzian is because much of the Canarian population came later and also is of Andaluzian origin (most likely SouthWest Andaluzia, Seville and Cadiz) the African influence is secondary.

http://www.monografias.com/trabajos58/origen-espanol-santo-domingo/origen-espanol-santo-domingo2.shtml#ixzz3jAXvFroZ http://traduccion.trustedtranslations.com/espanol/traduccion-al-espanol/dominicano.asp http://www.glj.com.do/a/d/doc-comohablamos.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.204.226.55 (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Africanization agenda? Haiti and DR as one country? You sound like a Trujillista. There is no agenda the Dominican Republic is a largely black country made up mostly of mulattoes of predominate African ancestry. There are a TON of Dominicans that look no different from African-Americans. Go watch a baseball game and you'll see it. There are entire barrios in Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macoris with people by in large of African descent, learn about the Samana Americans who live in the Samana Province. The Dominican Republic is a hispanic country simply because it was colonized by Spaniards not because of lack of African ancestry. I assume Afro-Carribbean nations you refer to are countries like Jamaica, that had less racial mixing and speak English due to being colonized by Britain. African culture can be found everywhere in the Dominican Republic from skin complexions and facial features, to dishes, to language, to music, to the voodoo practices that occur in the island. This article has NO mention of the African influence on language and that is disingeneous. 76.78.229.159 (talk) 03:56, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


 * African influence in Dominican/Caribbean Spanish? It's not a yes/no question. It is undeniable that there are words of African origin in the vocabulary. So it's extremely misleading to say that John Lipski said there is no trace of African influence in Caribbean Spanish. If you read Lipski's article that is referenced, you see that he referred only to phonology, and within that, only to the weakening of final /s/. I have edited the article to untangle lexical from phonological influence. Unfortunately I find many Wikipedia articles on language using the broad term "influence" as a synonym of lexical borrowing. In fact, confusion about the meaning of "influence" may be behind some of the editing wars that have occurred with this article. Kotabatubara (talk) 20:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Dialect versus Vernacular or other terminologies
I propose we utilize other terms in addition to "dialect" to refer to Dominican Spanish. The most important reason is that the way this article is using the term dialect is but informally (see Dialect). The standard meaning of dialect in linguistics is: a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially. Such is the way the term dialect has been used and understood until recently. Nowadays people use it informally to refer to all kinds of variations in standard languages. And there is no particular problem with this, but when it is at the expense of other terms that (in Spanish and English) are meant to refer to more general variations in the language, for example, vernacular, colloquial, etc. The point is that strictly speaking, Dominicans do not speak a Spanish dialect (as there are many in Spain). The key aspect of the term dialect is to refer to a form of speech that has been growing away from the standard use of the language (in this case, Spanish), in a way that it is easily reconcilable from others. Dominican Spanish, however, relates more to the meaning of vernacular because the differences it has from the standard Spanish reflect more its own idiosyncrasies and history than a path toward a faster differentiation from other non-standard Spanish(es). Dominican Spanish is more easily recognizable through its accent, general forms of expressions, and idioms than by any variations in grammar, syntax, and other structural traits of a separate language. That is why Dominican Spanish is more a vernacular and colloquial than a dialect.

The second reason is because none of the Dominican linguists (and the majority of non-Dominicans who work with Dominican Spanish) have argued for a separation of the Dominican Spanish as a form of dialect. They have written about Dominicanismos, and how the Spanish in Dominicana reflects its own culture, but none has gone as far as to call it a distinct dialect. The Spanish writing from the DR is no clearly different from other standard Spanish texts. The differences are in the colloquial or informal-conversational use of the language, and not in the formal way people learn it in schools, for example.

To be clear, I am not saying we should not use the term dialect for the Dominican Spanish as it is often used in non-specialist writings, but that instead of privileging this term over others (i.e., form, version, vernacular, colloquial), we should use it in their company. For example, "Dominican colloquial," "Dominican vernacular," or, as it is used in parts of this article, simply "Dominican Spanish."

I will make a few changes in this direction, but, in following with the best Wikipedia practices, I am open for discussion on this matter, and willing to consider other opinions. Historian (talk) 18:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Dominican Spanish. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20160115132907/http://www.santo.domingo.com/Dominicana/cultura/idioma/zonas.htm to http://www.santo.domingo.com/Dominicana/cultura/idioma/zonas.htm

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:30, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

New edit war
A new "edit war" on this article has broken out in the last month. If you are involved, please read WP:Edit warring. It may be a revival of the war that occurred in May 2013 (see "African influence", above). Wikipedia policies prohibit successive reversions without explanation. Please discuss the matter calmly in this space and come to consensus. Note that "Users who engage in edit wars risk being blocked or even banned." We don't want that. Kotabatubara (talk) 17:07, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I have been reverting an editor who jumps from address to address with each edit and who adds unreferenced content without any explanation or justification for such additions. Hmains (talk) 17:31, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

What about these two features?
Source: https://sites.google.com/a/geneseo.edu/spanish-linguistics/spanish-dialectology/caribbean-spanish

"- Velarización de /n/ -> [ŋ]: pan [‘paŋ].

- Nasalización de la vocal ante consonante nasal: canto [‘kãn.to]."

Article is about Caribbean Spanish in general but, are these features that occur in Dominican Spanish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by B23Rich (talk • contribs) 01:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

West African languages
Dear Editors, how can we break out of this current reversion war about "the greatest extra-Hispanic linguistic influence in the Dominican Republic" according to John Lipski? Our Wiki article includes—in quotation marks—a statement from Lipski's abstract (online at ) which refers to Haitian Creole, but does not mention "West African languages". This "war" is in its third cycle, in which I am deleting the reference to West African languages. I don't have an opinion as to the validity of the claim; I'm only asking editors to respect the integrity of a direct quotation from a source. Kotabatubara (talk) 16:32, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is solved: Lipski said Haitian Creole was "the greatest extra-Hispanic linguistic influence", but in another source he said "The African contribution to Dominican culture is the most significant extra-Hispanic influence."  It would be hair-splitting to quibble about whether "greatest" and "most significant" mean the same thing, or about whether he meant different things by "culture" and "linguistic influence". Kotabatubara (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)