Caribbean Spanish

Caribbean Spanish (Spanish: español caribeño) is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. It closely resembles the Spanish spoken in Andalusia and the Canary Islands. More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in the Caribbean islands of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and in the Caribbean mainland along the coast of Mexico, Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Ric... more

Caribbean Spanish (Spanish: español caribeño) is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. It closely resembles the Spanish spoken in Andalusia and the Canary Islands. More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in the Caribbean islands of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and in the Caribbean mainland along the coast of Mexico, Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) Colombia and Venezuela. Frequently, word-final /s/ and /d/ are dropped (as in compás [komˈpa] 'beat', mitad [miˈta] 'half'). /s/ (as well as /f/ may also be debuccalized to [h]. Similarly, nasals and /ɾ/ in the infinitival morpheme may also be dropped (e.g. ven [bẽ] 'come', comer [koˈme] 'to eat'); the dropping of final nasals doesn't result in further neutralization compared to other dialects since the nasalization of the vowel is maintained. Several neutralizations also occur in the syllable coda. The liquids /l/ and /ɾ/ may... less