Cuban Spanish language

Cuban Spanish is the variety of Spanish language used in Cuba.  Subdialecto is one with minor differences, mainly in intonation between the west and east of the island.

The history of Cuban Spanish is very important to understand the initial development of the various Latin American dialects. Cuba, near Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, were the first Spanish settlers who were the first to the continent. In the past, many Spanish colonists settled in the West Indies before moving permanently to the mainland, so the speech of these people used too a greater or lesser extent, some linguistic features from the Caribbean area.

These features of the Spanish Caribbean were those exported by the first waves of Spanish immigrants, most of whom came from Andalusia and the Canaries, a factor that explains the affinity of the Spanish Caribbean to southern Spain.

The independence of Cuba and the late strong Spanish emigration of the nineteenth century (in 1850 half of Cubans were born on the mainland) was a major language spoken on the island, but throughout the twentieth century, the traditional Cuban talk won partly because those Spanish emigrants were of very diverse origin (Galicia, Catalonia, Asturias, Andalusia, Canary Islands) and its dialectal features were not homogeneous.

The Galician and Catalan speakers as a first language had a medium or small domain in Cuba when acquiring the linguistic patterns of the island. Asturians didn’t speak Castilian but they used different dialects very different to Spanish, so by adopting the Spanish language in Cuba they learned the local dialect. Finally, the Andalusian and Canarian emigration could only strengthen the root of the southern Cuban language.

The Spanish presence, although not anecdotal, was not sufficient to alter the essence of the island to talk, but during the nineteenth and early twentieth century this was not unusual in Cuba.
As in the rest of the Antilles, the linguistic influence of the early Native Americans is lacking in Spanish Cuba (except for contributions to the Spanish barbecue, canoe, and hurricane).

The disappearance of the early inhabitants of the island joined the arrival of thousands of slaves from Africa. In the mid-nineteenth century the number of Africans in Cuba was very high, only comparable to the percentage in Santo Domingo (where the white population was a minority.
Morphosyntaxis

The Spanish Cuban shares most features of the Spanish Caribbean, among which are:
Dminance or treatment of you; although there is some other vos (vos habla) in the east of the island. Respect of the pronoun you is used as the standard Pan denotes respect and distance, but as in Spain there is a loss of land for the benefit of you that you sense is more egalitarian and hierarchical load you have.  The second person pronoun is unknown in the current Cuban language, but its use was not unknown in the nineteenth century because of the large emigration from Spain.

As in Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, there is a common insertion of redundant subject pronouns in the sentence: ‘Susana says that tomorrow she will not come.’  Perhaps related are subjects in the questions that are placed before the verb: How are you? Where is she going?  Instead be invested in the Spanish verb-subject: How are (you), Where is she?

The use of the indefinite past (he was) and compound (he did) was resolved according to the prevailing rule in Latin America and western parts of Spain (Canary Islands, Galicia, Leon, Asturias), i.e. the indefinite past tense is used whenever an action takes place at an earlier time for it to be recent: What happened?  I heard a thunderbolt. (Spain: What happened? I heard a thunderbolt.) It is subject only to an action whose validity extends to the present moment.   I have worked here all day (the day has not yet completed).

Phonetics

The pronunciation of “cook” and “embrace” was not unknown among some Cubans until the early twentieth century, either because they were born in Spain or because they were Cuban Spanish or the first generation were been born in areas with a strong presence Spanish. Today, this pronunciation is obsolete if it is known by the older speakers of Spanish descent.

Cuba is now completely yeista, this means that ll yy is articulated as the Cubans do not distinguish “chicken” (bird) for “SUPPORT” (seat) and “fell” (fall) and “quiet” (street). While the former is yeismo in the Caribbean (there is no testimony or recent conversation), the ll was normally used by many Spanish immigrants during the nineteenth century although there is no evidence of this linkage (in the nineteenth century yeismo was still in the minority in Spain and its extension was limited to urban areas of Andalusia).
In the western region of the country, especially in Havana and Matanzas, the characteristic absorption is the / r / to the consonant that follows: cab bon-carbon, ad-Denti, for ardentia, ag-ring for Golla, etc. This geminated pronunciation of consonant groups is also used in part of the Dominican Republic and Colombian Caribbean and its origin has been associated with the substrate present in the African Caribbean shore.
Another peculiar feature of Cuban and the rest of the Spanish West Indies is the exchange of / l / and / r /.  By this rule “soul” is pronounced “weapon” and in turn “weapon” is heard as “soul.” Sometimes more than an exchange of these consonants is observed by a mixed or indistinct pronunciation of / l / and / r / in a sound that begins as a / r / followed by weak / l /.

It is also characteristic of the West to deafened the articulation of / rr / multiple “rat” or “bar”. This pronunciation, which is not shown in general and eastern parts of the island, deafen / rr / a pronunciation that often takes two starting with a pharyngeal aspiration [h] followed by a vibration [rr], something like “pejrro” with “dog”, “jrrio” for “river” with a very soft “j”.