Salvadoran Spanish allophony

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### SALVADORAN SPANISH ALLOPHONY ###
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Author: Renato Montes <renato233645@gmail.com>
License: CC-BY-SA <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ca/>
         Copyright 2020 Renato Montes
         Feel free to copy, modify, share, etc., acc. to CC-BY-SA.
Changes: 2019-01-10 consonants
         2020-01-03 vowels

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~~~~~~~ INTRODUCTORY NOTES ~~~~~~~~~
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What type of colloquial Salvadoran Spanish?

The colloquial Salvadoran Spanish I present is mostly the one used by people somewhat better off economically from the capital city, San Salvador. There are many interesting things that could be said about the Spanish of Salvadoran people with less education, particularly those from the eastern rural half of the country, but sadly I am not as familiar with that kind of speech as I'd like to be.

About the IPA notation

Spanish, even in its standard form, has vowel linking across word boundaries when a word ends in an unstressed /e o/ and the next vowel starts with a different vowel. This will be transcribed with the IPA linking punctuation, which is rarely used by conlangers. E.g. lo attractivo [lo‿atɾaɣˈtiβo] (standard pronunciation) 'what is attractive (about sth)'. In colloquial Salvadoran Spanish, such word-final unstressed /e o/ are often [j w], so de aquí [dj‿aˈki] 'from here' should be read as two syllables, [dja] and [ˈki].

Spanish, even in its standard form, has vowel collision across word boundaries when two unstressed syllables of the same quality meet, and in lower registers also when an unstressed vowel precedes a stressed vowel of the same quality. This will be transcribed by dropping the first vowel from the IPA and adding linking punctuation. E.g. este es el lugar [ˈest‿es el luˈɣaɾ] (standard pronunciation) 'this is the place', esa amiga [es‿aˈmiɣa] (standard pronunciation) 'that (female) friend'.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TL;DR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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This post is long, so a tl;dr version is provided.

Consonants

- [ʃ] exists, especially in syllable-final position
- common Spanish /ʝ/ is actually [ɟʝ] or [j]
- /n/ is often [ŋ] in word-final position
- common Spanish /x/ is actually [h]
- /s/ can vary between [s] or [h] depending not only on its phonetic position/environment, but also on social class and social context
- /sb sd sj sg/, mostly across word boundaries, are often [bb dd ɟɟʝ gg].

Vowels

Vowels are not that interesting, except for maybe a little smoothing of /e o/ into the glides [j w].

- word-final unstressed /Ce/ can be pronounced [Cj] before a word that starts with /a o u/, as long as we're talking about a few grammatical words followed by a word that's very syntactically tight/close, like a preposition + a noun or infinitive, e.g. desde ayer [deddj‿aˈjeɾ] 'since yesterday'
- same for /Co/ [Cw], e.g. no entiendo [nw‿enˈtjendo] 'I don't understand'
- the ending /eˈaɾ/ -ear and related forms with /ea/ are often [ja]: peleamos [peˈljamos] 'we fight', pelearé [peljaˈɾe] 'I'll fight', but pelea /peˈle.a/ [peˈle.a] 's/he fights'. Also, -eé is always [je]: peleé [peˈlje] 'I fought', with standard [peleˈe] being enormously careful and formal
- in well-known words (even if not common), /oˈe/ [we] and /oˈa/ [wa], e.g. autoestima [autwesˈtima] 'self-esteem', coagular [kwaɣuˈlaɾ] '(for blood) to clot'


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~~~~~~~~~~~~ CONSONANTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~
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/p t k/ [p t k]

In El Salvador it's common to pronounce /ps/ as [ks]: opción [okˈsjoŋ]. (Many people, including me, do only say [opˈsjoŋ] though.) The allophony of /p k/ before /t/ found in the standard language also applies to colloquial Salvadoran: eructar 'to burp' can be [eɾuɣˈtaɾ] or, more carefully, [eɾukˈtaɾ], see also reptar [reβˈtaɾ] ~ [repˈtaɾ] 'to slither'.

/b d g/ [b~β d~ð g~ɣ]

Colloquial Salvadoran, like many other dialects, sometimes drops intervocalic /d/ entirely in some morphemes of high frequency, e.g. todo [ˈto.o] 'all', nada [ˈna.a] 'nothing'. This is done less extensively than what can be heard in Caribbean, Chilean or Andalusian dialects though, for example, the suffix -ado is always [ˈaðo] and never "[ˈao]". On the other hand, the preposition de is often pronounced [e] after a word ending in a vowel, as in caja de dulces [ˈkaha e ˈðulses] 'box of sweets', which sounds unacceptable to many non-Salvadorans.

Like in other Central American dialects (but unlike most dialects), /b d g/ are often [ b d g] after /s l ɾ/: esos vinos [ˈesoz ˈbinos] (formal pronunciation, read more below under /s/) 'those wines', El Salvador [el salbaˈðoɾ], cerdo [ˈseɾdo].

/tʃ/ [tʃ~ʃ] (and marginal /ʃ/ [ʃ])

Colloquial Salvadoran has instances of words with syllable-final [ʃ], which could probably be analyzed phonemically as syllable-final /tʃ/, e.g. aiguashte [aiˈɣwaʃte] (a local traditional condiment), mishmish [ˈmiʃmiʃ] (word for calling the attention of a cute cat), eshta [ˈeʃta] '(vulgar) my dick, cock' (an affectation of esta verga 'this dick' after dropping the noun).

Note that a few marginal instances of syllable-initial /ʃ/ exist: ¡shu! [ʃu] (word for getting hens to move away), brusha [ˈbɾuʃa] 'female witch-doctor' (an affectation of bruja 'witch'). Under the recent influence of English, a minority of speakers insist in using [ʃ] in words like sushi and show, but these are more commonly pronounced [ˈsutʃi] and [ˈtʃou].

/ɟʝ/ [ɟʝ~j]

/ɟʝ/ corresponds to common Spanish /ʝ/. It has the same pattern of allophony found in /b d g/: enyesar [eɲɟʝeˈsaɾ] 'to plaster', el hielo [el ˈɟʝelo] 'the ice', traes yuca [ˈtɾaez ˈɟʝuka] 'you bring cassava', comer yuca [koˈmeɾ ˈɟʝuka] 'to eat cassava', la yuca [la ˈjuka] 'the cassava'.

/m n ɲ/ [m n~ŋ ɲ]

/n/ is pronounced [ŋ] in word-final position when it's not followed by a stop. It's common to nasalize /n/ before /s/. cantan la tonada [ˈkantaŋ la toˈnaða] 'they sing the tune', cantan solos [ˈkantã(ŋ) ˈsolos] 'they sing alone', cantan bajito [ˈkantam baˈhito] 'they sing softly'.

/f h/ [f h]

Colloquial Salvadoran has [h] in all positions for common Spanish /x/. The velar [x] and uvular [X] that can be heard in much of the Spanish-speaking world are foreign to us.

/s/ [s~h]

In El Salvador, there is great sociolinguistic variation regarding the exact environments (whether in terms of phonetic position or social context) where /s/ can be [h]. Pronouncing /s/ as [h] "too often" can be a sign of having "less education" or belonging to lower social classes of society, but pronouncing /s/ as [s] exclusively or "too often" can have a negative connotation in the direction of linguistic arrogance. On top of that, a Salvadoran individual pronounces /s/ as [s] more frequently in formal social contexts than in other "lower" contexts.

As far as the people of San Salvador, the common pattern is that /s/ is [h] in syllable-final position and word-final position (even before a word beginning with a stressed vowel), with the caveat that it shouldn't be done "too often" for the social context. In San Salvador, it's common to maintain /s/ [s] before a pause, and also in the cluster /st/ (but not /sp sk/). Some examples: pescar [pehˈkaɾ] 'to fish', las once [lah ˈõse], los sostengo [loh sosˈteŋgo] 'I hold them up', sostenelos [sosteˈnelos] 'hold them up!'.

There are some instances of syllable-initial /s/ as [h] in some very common lexical items, such as the pronoun clitics se lo [he lo] '[verb] it to them', or the /s/ of saber [haˈβeɾ] when followed by an unstressed vowel. (I'd like to note that syllable-initial /s/ as [h] is practically non-existent in the speech of some people, including me, but you do hear it with some frequency in San Salvador.)

Syllable-initial /s/ as [h] is much more extensive in the eastern, less urban parts of the country, where you can hear things like El Salvador [el halbaˈðoɾ].

Finally, but not less importantly, /s/ commonly (but not obligatorily) undergoes assimilation to a following /b d j g/, and then only optionally remains as a geminate: esos vinos [ˈeso(b) ˈbinos] 'those wines', escribes detalles [ehˈkɾiβe(d) deˈtajes] 'you write details (about sth)', las llaves [la(ɟ) ˈɟʝaβes] 'the keys', ¡Dios guarde! [ˈdjo(g) ˈguaɾde] 'God help us!'. As it's not obligatory, these can also be [laz ˈɟʝaβes] or [lah ˈɟʝaβes], etc. (John Lipski once wrote a paper about this phenomenon in Honduran Spanish, but as far as I know this bit is still unreported in linguistic literature for Salvadoran Spanish...)

/r ɾ l/ [r ɾ l]

These phonemes are, remarkably, the same as in Standard Spanish. In fact, I once came across a paper that made the comment that San Salvador Spanish is one of the few Latin American dialects where /tɾ/ is actually [tɾ]; many dialects such as those of Bogota or Santiago de Chile have something like [tɾ̥] instead. In fact, [tɾ̥] can be commonly heard in the eastern half of El Salvador, both in the cities and the less urban areas.

/j w/ [j w]

These phonemes are the same as in Standard Spanish. E.g. pie [ˈpje] 'foot', bueno [ˈbweno] 'good'.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VOWELS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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/i a u/ [​i a u]

Almost nothing interesting to say here. A couple conversational particles can optionally be said with a very back [ɑ], namely má [mɑ] 'take this; catch this' (a shortened form of tomá, vos-imperative of tomar 'to take'), and ¿va? [bɑ] '(in tag questions) isn't it?' or ¡va! 'alright, OK, that's great'.

Tag question ¿va? is an apocope of ¿veá?, which is also in current very frequent use. In turn, ¿veá? is a phonetically-decayed form of 1980s colloquial Salvadoran vedá, commonly heard in audio/video recordings from that era and still heard in the Salvadoran diaspora outside Central America (as large numbers emigrated in the 1980s due to the civil war). ¿Vedá? is then a shortened form of ¿verdad? 'isn't it true?', commonly found in spoken Spanish, which, unlike vedá (an obsolete variant in El Salvador), is also in some actual use among Salvadorans in less colloquial registers.

¡Va! 'OK!' is perhaps an apocope of ¡vale!, which, contrary to some popular impressions among both Latin Americans and Spanish learners, can be found there and there in Latin America.

/e o/ [e o], except unstressed /Ce/ before /a o u/ and /Co/ before /i e a/ can be [Cj] and [Cw] in a few particular contexts

For the most part, /e o/ are [e o].

Word-final unstressed /Ce/ can be pronounced [Cj] before a word that starts with /a o u/, in colloquial and more so vulgar speech and when certain function (grammatical) words are involved. The syntactically tight/close environment encourages this in those cases, but in the speech of San Salvador I'm describing here, it doesn't in most other situations, so dile antes 'tell him/her today' is usually [ˈdile ˈantes] (not "[ˈdilj‿ˈantes]").

The contexts in question are the preposition ante/de/desde/entre + a noun or infinitive, the subordinator que + the next word, the pre-verbal clitics me/te/le/se + a verb, the subordinator que + the next word, and the interrogative pronoun (and exclamative) qué + a verb. E.g. desde ayer [deddj‿aˈjeɾ] 'since yesterday', de una vez [dj‿una ˈβes] 'at once, immediately', ¿Qué hacés? [kj‿aˈses] 'What are you doing?', se acabaron [sj‿akaˈβaɾoŋ] '[the things] ran out', dice que alcanzaron [ˈdise kj‿alkãˈsaɾoŋ] 's/he says they were enough', ¿Qué hacemos, vos? [kj‿aˈsemob ˈbos] 'What do you think we should do?'.

Same goes for /Co/ [Cw], namely in the contexts of the negator no + a verb, a verb ending in 1SG -o + a following article or noun, the subordinators como/cuando + the next word, and the interrogative pronouns (and exclamatives) cómo/cuándo/cuánto + the next word. E.g. no entiendo [nw‿enˈtjendo] 'I don't understand, I don't get it', cuando hicimos eso [kwandw‿iˈsimoh ˈeso] 'when we did that', ¿Cómo encontró el bolado? [ˈkomw‿enkonˈtɾo el boˈlaðo] 'How did he find the thing?', no le hablo a ese [no lj‿ˈaβlw‿a ˈese] 'I don't talk to that guy'.

The patterns are a bit different inside a word. The verbal ending -ear and its related -ea- forms, which derives verbs from nouns, in the conjugations where they're /eˈa/ or wholly unstressed /ea/, are often pronounced with [ja]: peleamos [peˈljamos] 'we fight', pelearé [peljaˈɾe] 'I will fight', but note pelea /peˈle.a/ [peˈle.a] 's/he fights' and peleo /peˈle.o/ [peˈle.o] 'I fight'. Also, -eé is always [je]: peleé [peˈlje] 'I fought', as standard [peleˈe] is considered enormously careful and formal.

The above paragraph does not necessarily include basic verbs with -ear. Crear [kɾeˈaɾ] 'to create sth' never becomes a homophone of monosyllabic criar [kɾjaɾ] 'to raise [children, animals]', but mear 'to take a piss' is indeed [mjaɾ], to the point that this sound change affects the conjugation of verbs like mear [mjaɾ] in beautiful non-standard ways (present yo meyo [ɟʝo ˈmejo] 'I take a piss').

In well-known words, even if they're not common but rather belonging to areas such as psychology or medicine, /oˈe/ is often [we] and /oˈa/ is often [wa], e.g. autoestima [autwesˈtima] 'self-esteem', coagular [kwaɣuˈlaɾ] '(for blood) to clot'.

/je ja jo ju/ [je ja jo ju]

Not much of interest here, e.g. nieve /ˈnjebe/ [ˈnjeβe] 'snow'. Just note that words like hielo and yema 'yolk' are actually /ˈɟʝelo/ and /ˈɟʝema/, so un hielo [uɲ ˈɟʝelo] 'an ice cube', de hielo [de ˈjelo] 'of ice'. As in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, there exist "careful" speakers who influenced by the orthography pronounce un hielo as [un ˈjelo].

As mentioned endlessly in works on Spanish phonology, these can plausibly be analyzed as /ie ia io iu/ as long as you're willing to phonemicize syllable boundaries, considering the existence of word pairs like continúo /kontiˈnuo/ [kon.ti.ˈnu.o] (alternatively /kon.ti.ˈnu.o/) 'I continue' vs. continuó /kontiˈnwo/ [kon.ti.ˈnwo] (alternatively /kon.ti.ˈnuo/) 's/he continued'. (The reader, if interested, is encouraged to read about this elsewhere; I'll simply use clear notation such as /kontiˈnu.o/ for continúo rather than insist that the reader remember a particular phonological interpretation.)

/wi we wa/ [wi we wa]

Not much of interesting here, e.g. nueve /ˈnwebe/ [ˈnweβe] 'nine'. Just note that words like huevo are actually /ˈgwebo/, so un huevo [uŋ ˈgweβo] 'an egg', de huevo [de ˈ(ɣ)weβo] '[made] of egg'. As in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, there exist "careful" speakers who influenced by the orthography pronounce un huevo as [un ˈweβo] (or even [un ˈwevo], with the foreignism [v]...).

These can also be analyzed as /ui ue ua/ if you include syllable boundaries in the phonemic representation.

/jai jei joi jaw wai wei.../ [jai jei joi wai wei...]

These triphthongs appear as an effect of the /e o/ [j w] desyllabification mentioned above in this section, e.g. de hoy [dj‿oi] 'of/from today', se ausentó [sj‿ausenˈto] 's/he was absent'. Some of these triphthongs appear in Standard Spanish too as part of vosotros-forms in verbal conjugation (apreciáis [apɾeˈsjais] 'you guys appreciate', actuéis [aɣˈtweis] '[so that] you guys act'), but as Salvadoran Spanish doesn't use vosotros, such conjugations are very much foreignisms, when they find themselves doing things like reciting a poem written by a Spaniard or a Latin American from the 19th century or earlier.