Spanish Latin American Transcription Services

Spanish language in the Americas refers to the Spanish language spoken in the Americas, as opposed to Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in Africa and Asia. Linguistically, this grouping is somewhat arbitrary, akin to having a term for “overseas English” encompassing variants spoken in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, but not England. There is great diversity among the various Latin American dialects, and it would be hard to point to one trait shared by all of them which is not also in existence in one or more of the variants of Spanish used in Spain. Of the more than 469 million people who speak Spanish as their native language, more than 418 million are in Latin America and the United States.

There are numerous regional particularities and idiomatic expressions within Spanish. In Latin American Spanish, loan words directly from English are relatively more frequent, and often foreign spellings are left intact. One notable trend is the higher abundance of loan words taken from English in Latin America as well as words derived from English. In Latin America they speak of la computadora while in Spain it’s el ordenador, and each word sounds foreign in the region where it is not used. Some differences are due to Iberian Spanish having a stronger French influence than Latin America, where, for geopolitical reasons, the United States influence has been predominant throughout the twentieth century.

To understand the concept of the Hispanic American accents in Spanish, one must remember that every country in Hispanic America has different accents in this language, many of which are very similar. This is caused by interaction of different accents.

Spaniards arrived from many regions within Spain and brought with them their own regional dialects/accents. However, the great majority of Spanish immigrants to Hispanic America throughout its history came from the southern region of Spain known as Andalusia. Another great majority arrived from the Canary Islands. Canarian and Hispanic American dialects share a similar intonation which, in general terms, means that stressed vowels are usually quite long. When visiting Tenerife or Las Palmas (Islas Canarias, Spain), Hispanic Americans are usually taken at first hearing for fellow-Canarians from a distant part of the Canary archipelago. It is the accents of these regions which served as the basis of the style of Spanish spoken in Hispanic America. Other Spanish immigrants like Castilians (another native Spanish-speaking people), Catalans, Galicians, and Basques also settled Hispanic America and affected the accents.

Indigenous peoples who were met by Spaniards also affected the accents. Their languages, together with the strong influence of the Canarian dialect, have added to Latin American Spanish the softer sing-song speaking tone. Africans were brought to Latin America in as slave labour, the majority for work on coastal or lowland sugar plantations. They contributed hundreds of words, colloquialisms, intonations, and rhythm.

In late 19th century, European settlers of non-Spanish origin (including Italians, Germans, Britons, Scandinavians, Poles, and Russians) and Middle Eastern settlers (mostly Arabs from Lebanon and Syria) arrived in Hispanic America and affected various Hispanic American accents.