Chilote Spanish Explained
Chilote is a dialect of Spanish language spoken on the southern Chilean islands of Chiloé Archipelago (es|Archipiélago de Chiloé or simply, Chiloé). It has distinct differences from standard Chilean Spanish in accent, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, especially by influences from local dialect of Mapuche language (called huilliche or veliche) and some conservative traits.
After the battle of Curalaba (1598) and the Destruction of the Seven Cities Chiloé was further isolated from the rest of Chile and developed a culture with little influence from Spain or mainland Chile. During the 17th and 18th centuries most of the archipelago's population was bilingual and according to John Byron many Spaniards preferred to use Mapudungun because they considered it more beautiful.[1] Around the same time, Governor Narciso de Santa María complained that Spanish settlers in the islands could not speak Spanish properly, but could speak Veliche, and that this second language was more used.[2]
Phonology
- As in Chilean Spanish, the pronounced as //s// is aspirated at the end of the syllable and the pronounced as //d// between vowels tends to be removed.
- Aspirated realization of "j" as pronounced as /link/.
- Transformation of the groups pronounced as /[bo, bu]/ and pronounced as /[ɡo, ɡu]/ into pronounced as /[wo, wu]/.
- Preservation of the nasal consonant velar pronounced as //ŋ// (written "ng" or "gn") in words of Mapuche origin. This phoneme does not exist in standard Spanish. Eg: culenges pronounced as /[kuˈleŋeh]/ (In the rest of Chile, it is said culengues pronounced as /[kuˈleŋɡeh]/).
- Difference in treatment for "y" and "ll" : From Castro to the north, no difference is made between them, since both are pronounced as pronounced as /link/ (yeísmo). In sectors of the center and the south they are pronounced differently, they can be pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/. There are also other places in the southern and western parts where they are both pronounced pronounced as /link/.
- It is common for "ch" to be pronounced as a fricative pronounced as /link/, similar to an English "sh". This fricative pronunciation has a social stigma associated in Chile.
- In some places the group "tr" is pronounced differently according to the etymology of the word: if it comes from Spanish, both consonants are clearly pronounced, while if the word comes from Mapudungun, it is pronounced pronounced as /[tɹ]/, similar to a "chr". However, in the rest of the places, the words of Mapuche origin that had this consonant have replaced it by the "chr" and in the rest this group is pronounced pronounced as /[tɾ]/ as in most dialects of Spanish, unlike what occurs in Chilean Spanish, in which you tend to use pronounced as /[tɹ]/ regardless of the origin of the word.
- Paragoge
A vowel is added to the end of words ending in "r" or "c". Eg: andar pronounced as /[anˈdarə]/, Quenac pronounced as /[keˈnakə]/.
- The prosodic aspects of Chiloé Spanish have recently been studied and show an ascending intonation.
Morphology
The Spanish of the Chiloé Archipelago shares a number of morphological characteristics with that of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado and with that of rural areas of the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, Tlaxcala, Jalisco, and Guanajuato:[3]
- Second-person preterite forms ending in Spanish; Castilian: -ates, -ites instead of the standard Spanish; Castilian: -aste, -iste.
- Latin -b- is retained in some imperfect conjugations of and verbs, with the preceding -i- diphthongized into the previous vowel, as in: vs., vs. Spanish; Castilian: traía, Spanish; Castilian: creiban vs Spanish; Castilian: creían.
- Verbs ending in Spanish; Castilian: -er are, like those ending in Spanish; Castilian: -ir, conjugated in Spanish; Castilian: -imos for both the present and preterite tenses. The reverse occurs in New Mexico and rural Mexico, where Spanish; Castilian: -ir verbs can be conjugated Spanish; Castilian: -emos in the present tense.
- Non-standard -g- in many verb roots, such as Spanish; Castilian: creiga 'believe'.
- In their present-tense subjunctive first person plural conjugations, verbs are pronounced with stress on the antepenultimate syllable, instead of on the penultimate one, thus Spanish; Castilian: váyamos and Spanish; Castilian: báilemos instead of Spanish; Castilian: vayamos and Spanish; Castilian: bailemos.
- The clitic pronoun Spanish; Castilian: nos 'we' is often replaced by Spanish; Castilian: los. This is found in Traditional New Mexican Spanish but is not attested within Mexico.
Notes and References
- Byron, John. El naufragio de la fragata "Wager". 1955. Santiago: Zig-zag.
- [Renato Cárdenas|Cárdenas, Renato]
- Sanz . Israel . Villa . Daniel J. . The Genesis of Traditional New Mexican Spanish: The Emergence of a Unique Dialect in the Americas . Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics . 2011 . 4 . 2 . 417–442 . 10.1515/shll-2011-1107 . 163620325 . 13 April 2021.
