Should Dominican Spanish be its own language like Haitian Creole?

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montreal

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Apr 17, 2006
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Well I do agree almost fully with you Chip but alot of people I know dont understand dominicans...

Souljanyn, here are three possibly explanations to your "Theory" stated above.

-If people don't understand Dominicans it is likely because they are not fluent enough to recognize the different dialects of the language.

-Some people from France claim not to understand me when I speak to them in French. Although that is just ignorance, they dont want to admit they can understand my dialect of French which is "lower class" to them.

-It is common for Dominicans to speak too fast and not pronounce all the vowels in a word. This is probably why you know people who dont understand them. In Quebec the exact same thing occurs and french speakers from other countries have a hard time understanding them. Is the french spoken in quebec a different language from the one spoken in France? Hell no!
 

souljanyn3

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nice defense Montrel...I'm just saying my opinion and pointing out that it has an addition of thousands of other words and input from languages that makes it one if not the most diverse form of Spanish there is...In my view it should be Creolized,but thats just me it seems like only two or so other people in this thread think the same.
 

xamaicano

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Apr 16, 2004
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Well I do agree almost fully with you Chip but alot of people I know dont understand dominicans...

I am with Rocky, I understand them and they understand me just fine and I am not a native speaker. My friend from Galicia spent 2 weeks in the DR and had no problem. Having travelled to many Spanish speaking countries, I have heard words not taught in my Spanish class. I have had to learn them in context. While there are words, phrases and speech patterns that are unique to the DR, a lot of what some people here consider dominicanism can be found in other countries. Hell, I have harder time understanding a Trinidadian coworker or the Welsh contractor that worked on my house than I do Dominican Spanish speakers. And they are native Engish speakers. If I were to place barometer on my level of understanding it would be based on the education of the speaker rather than the nationality.
 

Rocky

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nice defense Montrel...I'm just saying my opinion and pointing out that it has an addition of thousands of other words and input from languages that makes it one if not the most diverse form of Spanish there is...In my view it should be Creolized,but thats just me it seems like only two or so other people in this thread think the same.
There you go again with the thousands of words story, a fact which you have not substantiated, except by saying that you once read it somewhere.
This is incorrect info.
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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souljanyn3, anyone can present a wild premise and challenge people to prove them wrong. All the arguments you have put forward so far are groundless and/or based on incomplete information.
 

SuperConejo

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Mar 30, 2007
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I posted linguistics articles of the dominican republic, done by different linguist, lets see how groundless that is. ;) . No one is saying that Dominican Spanish is a whole different language like Basque vs Castillian. Even though its base is castillian it still differs enough to be unique, in specially in the countrysides. I bet that galician went to a resort or a big city in D.R, many of the people in the resort speak even different from local dominicans as they are trained to be the most inteligible to outsiders. All creolization means the changing of a language through both input of new words, and grammar. Being raised and all in D.R, when coming to he u.s, and even till his day i dont understand what alot of spanish speakers who are from rural areas in other countries say. I have a hard time understanding some Argentinians, Peruvians, bolivians, mexicans, and most definetly the castillian spoken in spain, i remember trying to read that bible in castillian at first, Reina Valera, i didn't understand half the words. The problem is that these ways of speaking are disencouraged by the "assimilated groups" of people in these countries. For example, there are countless of cibae?os who have lost their "i" after assimilating to other cities, specially the ones who have moved to the Capital, and specially after coming to the u.s. This is another example of the loss of these valuable linguistic achievements by our people, that unless valued and apriciate will be lost in time.
The way Dominican spanish is being judge by some, Castillian spanish should be judged as well, why call it a language then? Why not call Castillian spanish a "dialect" of Latin, jsut like French, Spanish and Romanian. And in that light what do you say of Portugese, its not all that different from castillian, so why not call portugese a dialect of castillian, and the list goes on.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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Without a desire to heap coals upon this fire, let me just say that I came from a formal swearing in ceremony just a few minutes ago.

Lots of speeches, with very erudite Spanish, no creolisms, no poorly constructed verse, just good, plain speech.

I think that many people should associate themselves with a slightly more educated class of people.

I am sure that many here could not understand Appalachian English either!! Or Louisiana parish speech.... Or Deep South drawls...

HB
 

Exxtol

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Jun 27, 2005
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It really is..It's amazing how creative the "afro-centric" people get trying to force upon us their agenda..This same agenda has been presented in a million ways already.

You seem to be juxtaposing "afro-centrism" with an intrinsic "agenda"--as if it is the only ethnic based approach to study that suffers from inherent bias(es). You should be careful of that summation and the condescension attached to it. By the way the OP has at least argued one thing consistently--that it is the inclusion of African and Indian words that make Dominican Spanish, creole, and otherwise disparate from the Spanish language--not that I agree of course.

Quite frankly I don't see a racial agenda here at all. I think it's more a matter of obstinance, ignorance of linguisitcs, and as chiri said earlier--the poster trying to buttress a flimsy argument with anectdotal evidence, "half truths", and "baseless" information.

--Exxtol
 

souljanyn3

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Feb 8, 2008
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I Agree Superconejo...


Seems like everyone has voiced there opinions at this point :tired:...
 
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gypsytan

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Oct 19, 2007
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Not sure whether some of you are native Spanish speakers or not. I am. I have also traveled and worked extensively over all Latin America (with the exception of Chile and Ecuador). In my view, Dominican Spanish is actually the poorest Spanish I've ever listened to or read, maybe with the exception of the Puerto Rican (although they're both almost equally poor). It has nothing to do with the use of "slang". Every Latin American country has words that are particular to its country or region, but the Dominican spelling and pronunciation of so many words makes difficult even for native Spanish speakers like me to understand it clearly (a problem I never had in any other Latin American country I have visited).

True, Dominicans in Santo Domingo have a better command of the language, but elsewhere, I honestly believe it is quite poor. I can't but be surprised every time that I hear an American telling me that they're going to the DR to take Spanish lessons. I wonder why they don't go to Spain or Colombia (mind you, I'm not Colombian, but the Colombians have by far the best command and use of Spanish in Latin America).

Truth is that Dominicans at times have asked me if I can speak "Dominican".
 

Rocky

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Sorry, thought i did earlier.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/afrodom.pdf (English)

http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/afrohait.pdf (Spanish)

They differ a lil bit.
This doesn't support the case that you guys are trying to make.
A psossibility, they say.
A possibility !!!
That's a far cry from the thousands of words.

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