Fly cessna Loc: Hemet ,Ca

My wife from El Salvador told me the same thing her father (padre) was half Spanish

Gilkar

When I was in High School, I was told by my Spanish teacher that The dialect of choice in Spain is "pure" Castillian. In the Castillian dialect "S" sounds are pronounced with the tongue between the teeth.

Fly cessna Loc: Hemet ,Ca

I just know what my wife tells me and my best friend is fluent in Spanish

Lyn Buchanan Loc: Alamogordo, New Mexico

I taught German n college for a few years and the language department had several Spanish teachers from other countries. One day, I walked into the office and one of the Spanish teachers came over and said, "Lyn, come have a cup of my watermellon coffee that I got straight from home. (He said it with his extremely thick accent, which doesn't come across in print). I had never heard of watermellon coffee, so I tried some. Tasted like very good, but normal coffee. I asked about it and he said, "Chess! (yes) It comes straight from my home in Watemala!

nikon_jon Loc: Northeast Arkansas

There have been some interesting comments on Spanish language pronunciations in this thread. I took Spanish for 4 years when I was in high school. I graduated, by the way in 1964. Over those years in school I had two different Spanish teachers and both of them said the the Castillian dialect got the lisped ess from some member of past royalty in Spain who lisped his esses. In an effort to be 'proper' much of the citizenry imitated that manner of speech.

That seemed weird, but in American history class we learned that President Warren G. Harding coined the word
'normalcy' in a speech he gave. Technically there is no English word 'normalcy'. The word is 'normality', but since someone as important as the president of the United States said it that way, then normalcy must be the right way to say it and it became an 'official' part of the English lexicon.

Now back to Spanish. Most of the Spanish speaking people south of the U.S/Mexican border never heard of a member of the Spanish royalty who lisped, and probably wouldn't care. They usually pronounce the 's' as 'ess'. We were also taught that in Castillian Spanish the vee was pronounced as the second bee in the word baby. In other words, you sort of elided over it in what would be called a 'soft bee'. The folks from the South American and Mexican communities usually pronounce the vee as a hard bee. If they use the English word very, it is pronounced 'bery' with a very hard bee.

These language variations are very common, even in our beloved English. Think of the word jaguar. A jungle cat and also the name of an automobile. We here in the USA say jag.war. The Brits say jag.your.

People have a tendency to imitate prominent folks that are 'educated'. We have a popular news anchor here who once reported a helicopter 'hoovering' over a scene. I had visions of a giant vacuum sweeper cruising across the land. Since this person is a college graduate, others thought that must be the proper way to say the word hovering. My thought is that those 'educated' people have a responsibility to get it right.

Sendai5355 Loc: On the banks of the Pedernales River, Texas

You say Barcelona, I say Barthelona.

fantom Loc: Colorado

Stephan G

Languages are the result of regional inflections. An interesting example is Latin.

The word : Caesar is "Sieze-aarh" in the generally accepted pronunciation in the USA. The Romans pronounced it "Kai-zar". "C" were the "k" for them. The Goths (Germans) were using this sound from the time they took over the Holy Roman Empire. And the Russians used "Tzar" for basically the same reason. "Kikaroh" would not appreciate the "Sih-seh-roh" of the more recent usage.

fuminous Loc: Luling, LA... for now...

Castillion vs Latin Spanish... (and dialects thereof)