Peninsular Spanish (Spanish: español peninsular), also known as the Spanish of Spain (Spanish: español de España), European Spanish (Spanish: español europeo), or Iberian Spanish (Spanish: español ibérico), is the set of varieties of the Spanish language spoken in Peninsular Spain. This construct is often framed in opposition to varieties from the Americas and the Canary Islands.
From a phonological standpoint, there is a north-south gradient contrasting conservative and innovative pronunciation patterns. The former generally retain features such as /s/ – /θ/ distinction and realization of intervocalic /d/, whilst the latter may not. Processes of interaction and levelling between standard (a construct popularly perceived as based on northern dialects) and nonstandard varieties however involve ongoing adoption of conservative traits south and innovative ones north.[1] In line with Spanish language's rich consonant fluctuation, other internal variation within varieties of Peninsular Spanish is represented by phenomena such as weakening of coda position -/s/, the defricativization of /tʃ/, realizations of /x/ as [x] and [h] and weakening or change of liquid consonants /l/ and /r/.[2]
Morphologically, a notable feature in most varieties of Peninsular Spanish setting them apart from varieties from the Americas is the use of the pronoun vosotros (along with its oblique form os) and its corresponding verb forms for the second person plural familiar.
Language contact of Spanish with Catalan, Basque and Galician in the autonomous communities in which the latter languages are spoken notoriously involve borrowings at the lexical level, but also in the rest of the linguistic structure.[3]
- ^ Hernández Campoy, Juan Manuel; Villena Ponsoda, Juan Andrés (2009). "Standardness and nonstandardness in Spain: dialect attrition and revitalization of regional dialects of Spanish". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 196–197 (196–197): 185–186. doi:10.1515/IJSL.2009.021. S2CID 145000590. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
- ^ Samper Padilla, José Antonio (2022). "Phonological Variation and Change in European Spanish". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.493. ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5.
- ^ Pusch, Claus; Kabatek, Johannes (2011). "Language contact in Southwestern Europe". In Kortmann, Bernd; van der Auwera, Johan (eds.). The languages and linguistics of Europe : a comprehensive guide. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 400–401. ISBN 978-3-11-022025-4.