Talk:Dominican Spanish

message: This article is not wholly accurate, it contains certain errors in the presumption of certain words and usages. The word Maracuya is not Spanish, but a word borrowed from the Araucan.  Dominicans do not call all foreigners Gringos, the word extranjero is of common use in the Island, as common as any other usage.  Dominicans, as a general rule, call mandarins; Mandarinas, not Italianas, this can be seen in supermarkets and grocery stores across the nation. Cuartos as a word for money comes form old castillian, but in use even today in the south of Spain and recognizable by most modern speakers.  Also, it is Los cuartos, for  money and el cuarto for a room. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 30 April 2007
:: agreed. Gringo is often a word used in all Spanish cultures to indicate a white (possibly white american) individual, and it will NOT be used for an Asian, Indian, or Black African despite them being foreigners or extranjeros. I'm removing this section because it is simply wrong. Adreamtonight 05:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article should be revised to include that Dominicans are able to speak correct spanish when the need arises. The article makes it seem like they just speak a butchered version of the language. What do u guys think?FEVB 00:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I think you'd like the current version. SamEV (talk) 20:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: (Article inaccuracies)

message: Was reading through the Colombian Spanish article and noticed that one of the slang words was bacano for good. This is also used in the Republic and should be added. FEVB 18:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bacano 

message: Bacano is of Spanish origin, albeit, a corrupted form. It comes from the old Spanish word "chabacano" (see the Philippine dialect of Spanish also called chabacano). Its original meaning was 'wrong, bad or incorrect'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.248.171 (talk) 18:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  More On Bacano 

message: If I'm not mistaken, this statement:
Almost exclusively Dominican in use, is the placing of the second person singular pronoun tú before the verb in the question form: "¿Cómo tú estás?" instead of "¿Cómo estás tú?". Nevertheless, when using the more formal usted, instead of tú, the conventional word order is used.
doesn't deal with phonology.  I believe there are others in the section labeled phonology that could be better classified and that this all could use some reorganization, but I'm not confident enough with my linguistics knowledge to do it myself. Ryanminier (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonology - Morphology/Syntax ?? 

message: The article says the the word guagua originated in the Canary Islands in the Dominican Vocabulary section and from the Arawak in the Arawak table.  Which one is correct?
--Beirne (talk) 00:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is guagua Arawak or Canary? 

message: This form is in wide use in Dominican Spanish yet it is not mentioned here.
For example: 
Ello no hay azucar. (There is no sugar.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.57.160 (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ello", como sujeto expletivo enfático 

message: In "Phonology" section, they mention "weak r". What exactly is your definition of "weak"? because weak is an extremely vague term, and quite frankly, it's very improper in terms of phonology.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.18.57.67 (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak R 

message: I was told by Dominicans that "mamey" is the local word for "orange color" and that Dominicans are more acquainted with it as a color name that as a fruit name.
If so, it should be mentioned in the section for local words.
--Error (talk) 23:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mamey 

message: It looks like there has been an edit war going on here recently regarding this. The edit war needs to stop and a consensus needs to be reached here regarding the points in dispute. 
*in this May 13 edit, an anonymous editor using IP address 72.76.123.126 removed without explanation an assertion saying that  Dominican Spanish has heavy influences from African languages, citing  in support as an inline EL, and removed some assertions re inter-intelligibility with non-Dominican Spanish speakers supported by  as a footnoted cite.
*in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 142.196.123.4 reverted that edit without explanation.
*in this May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion without explanation.
*in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 142.196.123.4 reverted the unreversion without explanation.
*in this May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion without explanation.
*in this May 13 edit, an anon using IP 24.21.144.93 reverted the unreversion without explanation.
*in this  May 13 edit, anon-126 reverted the reversion, violating the three revert rule. This time, there was an explanation saying, "i deleted sa part of the general description at the top of the page because it is incorrect. Although Dominican spanish has "some" african influence like the rest of the spanish speaking carribean, it is not a heavy influence as originally described."
*I saw that last edit during a WP:huggle session. In two 13 May edits here, I restored the removed material and its supporting cites and did some cleanup.
*In this 13 May edit, anon-126 again removed the material and its supporting cites, and made some other chaanges, explaining: "I made these corrections, becuase the satement in reference to Dominican spanish being heavily infuenced by African languages is wrong, and most spanish speakers have no trouble understanding Dominican spanish. Dominican spanish is mainly rootedfromcanary."
Anon-126 has a very short edit history. I'm going to create a talk page for that IP with pointers to information about Wikipedia. I'm also going to place a 3RR warning on the talk page and suggest that anon-126 discuss these issues here. It looks to me as if some info re the material which anon-126 keeps removing probably needs to be in the article, though there may be differences of opinion about how much weight it should be given (see WP:DUE). However, I'm not a Spanish speaker, Dominican or otherwise, and have no topical expertise here. I'm leaving the article with the material removed, and I suggest that editors with some topical expertise discuss this here and come to a consensus about this. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: African influence in Dominican/Caribbean Spanish? It's not a yes/no question. It is undeniable that there are words of African origin in the vocabulary. So it's extremely misleading to say that John Lipski said there is no trace of African influence in Caribbean Spanish. If you read Lipski's article that is referenced, you see that he referred only to phonology, and within that, only to the weakening of final /s/. I have edited the article to untangle lexical from phonological influence. Unfortunately I find many Wikipedia articles on language using the broad term "influence" as a synonym of lexical borrowing. In fact, confusion about the meaning of "influence" may be behind some of the editing wars that have occurred with this article. Kotabatubara (talk) 20:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  African influence + ease of understanding by speakers of non-Dominican Spanish 

message: I propose we utilize other terms in addition to "dialect" to refer to Dominican Spanish. The most important reason is that the way this article is using the term dialect is but informally (see Dialect). The standard meaning of dialect in linguistics is: a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially. Such is the way the term dialect has been used and understood until recently. Nowadays people use it informally to refer to all kinds of variations in standard languages. And there is no particular problem with this, but when it is at the expense of other terms that (in Spanish and English) are meant to refer to more general variations in the language, for example, vernacular, colloquial, etc.  The point is that strictly speaking, Dominicans do not speak a Spanish dialect (as there are many in Spain). The key aspect of the term dialect is to refer to a form of speech that has been growing away from the standard use of the language (in this case, Spanish), in a way that it is easily reconcilable from others. Dominican Spanish, however, relates more to the meaning of vernacular because the differences it has from the standard Spanish reflect more its own idiosyncrasies and history than a path toward a faster differentiation from other non-standard Spanish(es). Dominican Spanish is more easily recognizable through its accent, general forms of expressions, and idioms than by any variations in grammar, syntax, and other structural traits of a separate language. That is why Dominican Spanish is more a vernacular and colloquial than a dialect. 
The second reason is because none of the Dominican linguists (and the majority of non-Dominicans who work with Dominican Spanish) have argued for a separation of the Dominican Spanish as a form of dialect. They have written about Dominicanismos, and how the Spanish in Dominicana reflects its own culture, but none has gone as far as to call it a distinct dialect. The Spanish writing from the DR is no clearly different from other standard Spanish texts. The differences are in the colloquial or informal-conversational use of the language, and not in the formal way people learn it in schools, for example. 
To be clear, I am not saying we should not use the term dialect for the Dominican Spanish as it is often used in non-specialist writings, but that instead of privileging this term over others (i.e., form, version, vernacular, colloquial), we should use it in their company. For example, "Dominican colloquial," "Dominican vernacular," or, as it is used in parts of this article, simply "Dominican Spanish." 
I will make a few changes in this direction, but, in following with the best Wikipedia practices, I am open for discussion on this matter, and willing to consider other opinions. Historian (talk) 18:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Dialect versus Vernacular or other terminologies

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Dominican Spanish. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20160115132907/http://www.santo.domingo.com/Dominicana/cultura/idioma/zonas.htm to http://www.santo.domingo.com/Dominicana/cultura/idioma/zonas.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 02:30, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A new "edit war" on this article has broken out in the last month. If you are involved, please read WP:Edit warring. It may be a revival of the war that occurred in May 2013 (see  "African influence", above). Wikipedia policies prohibit successive reversions without explanation. Please discuss the matter calmly in this space and come to consensus. Note that "Users who engage in edit wars risk being blocked or even banned." We don't want that. Kotabatubara (talk) 17:07, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  New edit war 

message: Source: https://sites.google.com/a/geneseo.edu/spanish-linguistics/spanish-dialectology/caribbean-spanish
"- Velarización de /n/ -> [ŋ]: pan [‘paŋ].
- Nasalización de la vocal ante consonante nasal: canto [‘kãn.to]."
Article is about Caribbean Spanish in general but, are these features that occur in Dominican Spanish?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by B23Rich (talk • contribs) 01:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about these two features? 

message: Dear Editors, how can we break out of this current reversion war about "the greatest extra-Hispanic linguistic influence in the Dominican Republic" according to John Lipski? Our Wiki article includes—in quotation marks—a statement from Lipski's abstract (online at <https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/laii_research/8/>) which refers to Haitian Creole, but does not mention "West African languages". This "war" is in its third cycle, in which I am deleting the reference to West African languages. I don't have an opinion as to the validity of the claim; I'm only asking editors to respect the integrity of a direct quotation from a source. Kotabatubara (talk) 16:32, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the problem is solved:  Lipski said Haitian Creole was "the greatest extra-Hispanic linguistic influence", but in another source he said "The African contribution to Dominican culture is the most significant extra-Hispanic influence."  It would be hair-splitting to quibble about whether "greatest" and "most significant" mean the same thing, or about whether he meant different things by "culture" and "linguistic influence". Kotabatubara (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: West African languages