Costa Rican Spanish

Costa Rican Spanish
Español costarricense
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲol kostariˈsense]
Native to	Costa Rica
Region	Central American Spanish
Native speakers	5,130,000 (2023)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Western Ibero-Romance West Iberian Castilian Spanish North American Spanish Central American Spanish Costa Rican Spanish
Early forms	Old Latin Classical Latin Vulgar Latin Old Spanish Early Modern Spanish
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Costa Rica
Regulated by	Academia Costarricense de la Lengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa[2]
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
IETF	es-CR
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Spanish language
A manuscript of the Cantar de mio Cid, 13th century
Overview
Pronunciation stress Orthography Names
History
Old Middle Influences
Grammar
Determiners Nouns gender Pronouns personal object Adjectives Prepositions Verbs conjugation irregular verbs
Dialects
Andalusian Andean Argentine Belizean Bolivian Canarian Caribbean Central American Chilean Colombian Costa Rican Cuban Dominican Ecuadorian Equatoguinean Guatemalan Honduran Mexican Murcian New Mexican Nicaraguan Paraguay Panamanian Peninsular Peruvian Philippine status Puerto Rican Rioplatense Saharan Salvadoran Standard Uruguayan Venezuelan
Dialectology
Seseo Yeísmo Voseo Leísmo Loísmo
Interlanguages
Llanito Jopara Judaeo-Spanish Portuñol Spanglish Castrapo Creoles Roquetas Pidgin Chavacano or Chabacano Palenquero or Palenque
Teaching
Hispanism RAE Instituto Cervantes
v t e

Costa Rican Spanish (Spanish: español costarricense) is the form of the Spanish language spoken in Costa Rica. It is one of the dialects of Central American Spanish. Nevertheless, because the country was more remote than its neighbors, the development of this variety of Spanish followed a distinct path.

Today, despite the relatively small size of the country, each province maintains unique characteristics in pronunciation and lexicon. For instance, the Guanacase province's variety bears similarity to that of Nicaragua, while the tú form can be found more toward the border with Panama.