Talk:Castilian Spanish

message: There is absolutely no difference between Castilian language and Spanish language ( as you understand Spanish language in English).
I am Spanish from Madrid. We use those two words, "español and castellano" as totally interchangeable, and I would say people in Latin America use it the same way, although I am not one hundred percent sure.
If we refer to the language that an Argentian or a Bolivian speaks, we say he/she speaks "español" or he speaks "castellano" and both things mean exactly the same.
If we speak about the dialect of Spanish spoken in Andalucia we say "dialecto  andaluz" wich is a "dialecto del español" or a "dialecto del castellano" as well as Bolivian or Argentinian are "dialectos del castellano". We all speak the same language and we can talk to each other like an Australian and a Canadian can talk to each other ( probably the Spanish language is more uniform throughout the former Spanish colonies than English is in the former English colonies because of 500 years of colonization, although again I am not 100% sure).
On the other hand, there are other languages spoken in Spain, like Catalan, Basque, and Galician( the latest is almost Portuguese), that are different languages. No one would say that Catalan language is Spanish language( except some ignorants influenced by the right wing propaganda, no specialist in linguistics would accept it, even in the far right). It is a different language, very close to Spanish, but different. Portuguese is closer to Spanish than Catalan is, and yet, it is another language.
This is because Castilia was the strongest Kingdom in the union of Kingdoms that formed Spain, and Castilian became the dominant language in Spain. So nowadays, Spanish is a synonym of Castilian. No native Spanish speaker could say the opposite I belive, regardless of its political opinion towards the Catalan or the Basque problem. This is something obvious for any person who speaks Castilian natively.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.60.16.205 (talk) 14:48, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled, 2017 

message: Sorry, but I don't think the English phrase 'Castilian Spanish' is informal. Rothorpe 13:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be widespread, but it's quite misleading.  --Jotamar 13:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if you translate it word-by-word into Spanish. The name is perfectly correct in English language (cfr. Andalusian Spanish). Regards, --Asteriontalk 18:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

text: No, as Asterion says, you must avoid translating it back into castellano.  We are talking about the English phrase, and it happens that this is the one that has become established.  'Iberian Spanish' would be better, certainly, but not too many people will be typing it in the box. Rothorpe 20:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. How would you translate the name of the dialect of English people speak in England? Inglés Ingleso, right? That just translates to English English. Thus it's better to translate it as Inglés Británico, just like Iberian Spanish. Taric25 07:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, English English as well as British English are both used.  But just as previously stated, in the English language, "Castilian" is used to denote a particular dialect spoken in Spain. It is not synonymous with "Spanish" in most cases. In the Spanish language, castellano and español are synonymous, but this is an English language article.  Kman543210 (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Informal name?

message: The term "Castilian Spanish" (Español castellano) does not exist in Spanish, therefore the sentence "but its exact meaning can vary even in that language" doesn't make any sense. Additionally, the term "castellano", when referring to a language and used as a noun refers exclusively to the Spanish language. Please fix.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.15.153.91 (talk) 12:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence has no base 

message: I would like to add additional information to this article in regards to some of the differences in word usage and accent in Castilian Spanish vs. Latin American Spanish (for example, why Latin America uses seseo). I am new to Wikipedia, so I just wanted to make sure there wasn't another article out there that already does this and that no one would object.  I think this is a good article and could be more useful for someone who may be interested in the differences if it had a little more content. Kman543210 (talk) 02:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, any cooperation is welcome, but I guess you could check out Spanish dialects and varieties for that. That article is linked from this one. Thanks for your attention, and welcome to Wikipedia! Cvalda (talk) 13:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add More Content 

message: This article is supposed to deal with Spanish from Castille, as it says in the intro, but instead deals exclusively with aspects of Spanish particular to all of Spain. Furthermore, alot of what is said in the article is misleading or entirely wrong. - Dalta (talk) 14:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Castillian Spanish vs. Spanish from Spain 

message: This article presents very little in the way of correct information and even worse, it has no references for some of the claims it makes.  The list of comparative words should be deleted altogether because there are too many dialects of Spanish for a comparison list of this sort.  I modified it somewhat, but if other editors have no objections I will delete it because it does not present an accurate picture.  It is not fair to represent a word as "Latin American" when more than half of Latin America does not use the word.  Comments please,--75.3.115.122 (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A very poor, informal article 

message: Castilian Spanish is a subset of Peninsular Spanish. This article should focus on Castilian Spanish as distinct from other varieties of Peninsular Spanish, rather than the differences from American Spanish. The differences between Peninsular Spanish and American Spanish should be moved to the Peninsular Spanish article. Nurg (talk) 04:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you tell us what "Castillian Spanish" is exactly, and how it differs from "Peninsular Spanish"? --Jotamar (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: According to this article, Castilian Spanish is "the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in north and central Spain", as opposed to, for example, Andalusian Spanish. Nurg (talk) 11:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  That cannot be sourced properly. There are many varieties of Spanish in in north and central Spain, and I fail to see what they have in common. Other dialects can be accepted in terms of traditional name, such as Andalusian Spanish, even if they don't really have any common feature, but speaking of the dialect of Spanish in north and central Spain is just stretching it too much. As for me, this page should be deleted. --Jotamar (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you think that merging the Castillian Spanish and Peninsular Spanish articles would be a good idea? Nurg (talk) 05:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at Talk:Peninsular Spanish. I already proposed a merge there. It's the best move so as not to mislead readers too much. --Jotamar (talk) 14:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Which name would you use for a merged article? Nurg (talk) 03:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I like Iberian Spanish. It leaves out the Canary Islands, but that makes sense up to a point, because their dialects are in many terms very close to those in America .--Jotamar (talk) 16:26, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Castilian vs Peninsular vs American  

message: I've heard many people from Mexico and Argentina pronounce the j and the g (that comes before i and e) like a strong Castillian j or g. For the most part, it's Mexican Americans and other Spanish speaking Americans pronounce the j and g softer (due to the loss of the strong j or g sound because of English's lack of it). I think we assume that just because Spanish speaking Americans generally don't pronounce a strong h sound, we think that all Latin Americans don't. But! Like I said earlier, I know that people (in general) from Mexico and Argentina do pronounce a strong h similar to that of Spain (sometimes even identical) and not like the weaker h sound in English. So I'm asking to get rid of the section that says that Castillian Spaniards speak a stronger h, because it seems inaccurate, even textbooks on learning general Spanish say that whether you're in Spain or in Hispanic America the j and g sound is stronger and pronounced deeper in the throat than in English.--Fernirm (talk) 01:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gutteral h 

message: I can't make head or tail of how to pronounce Castilian from this article, and I'm a PhD who has spoken Spanish most of his life. The section called Accent Particularities (what a title) needs a clear simple box with contrasts like the one in Vocabulary which is labeled Selected Vocabulary Differences. Call it Selected Pronunciation Differences, and do a few words for each difference cited.  Accent Particularities assumes the student is familiar with the concept of an International Phonetic Alphabet, and indeed, has mastered it before reading the article. Come on, guys. I can't send students to this.  Please explain in a sentence what IPA is, and link to its article. And give the pronunciation differences in simple phonetic English versions, with the IPA following in a parenthesis. That would be wonderful. Thanks. Profhum (talk) 11:43, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Castillian means different things for diferent people, and most of the time it seems to refer (in English) to a very stilted newsreader pronunciation. No student should learn such an artificial way of speaking. --Jotamar (talk) 18:27, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Profhum The reality is that most accents in Latin America are derived from one or a mix of regional accent present in Spain. Perhaps a new article called "Standard Castilian" should be created which refers to how it is spoken on TV. But as Jotamar mentions, that does not represent the reality of Peninsular Spanish as spoken by millions of people. As an example, Carribean Spanish is much closer to the Spanish of Seville (in Southwest Spain) than it is to that of Mexico. Debuccalization occurs in about half of Spain, but not in Mexico. The odd sounding Paisa accent of parts of Colombia, I assume is due to heavy Basque influence. The list is endless but we cannot talk about one "European Spanish" as distinct from American Spanish.Asilah1981 (talk) 14:38, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useless for teaching college students pronunciation as of January 2016 

message: The topic sentence in the Variations section refers to 4 regions and then is followed by a bulleted list with 2 items - this is confusing. Thomblake (talk) 20:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It was the result of an old edition that passed under the radar. Fixed now. Anyway, don't take this page too seriously, Castilian dialect is a politically loaded term, I've been thinking for years in merging this page with Peninsular Spanish. --Jotamar (talk) 22:30, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variations 

message: What I'm saying is that the northern variant of Castilian is the vernacular dialect of bilingual regions. This is an obvious fact to anyone who knows the language and I don't think there are problems with sourcing it. Exceptions may be immigrants from southern regions or their descendants but Valencian Spanish, Galician Spanish, Asturian Spanish, Aragonese Spanish, Basque Spanish, Navarrese Spanish are all of the northern variety of Castilian. I don't know why it is an issue to mention this.Asilah1981 (talk) 08:22, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: No, sorry, what you find obvious is not even true. Of course we begin with a big problem: there is no real definition of northern Spanish in the literature, you just find here and there innuendo, hinting that whatever does not sound too southern is automatically northern. I think WP readers deserve better than that. The Spanish of bilingual regions in Spain is a complex matter. I guess in Galicia it sounds basically northern, with lots of interference from Galician; however in Valencia and probably the Balearic Islands it sounds very much southern, and Catalonia is kind of a mixed bag. Did you know for example that in Valencia young native speakers of Valencian are adopting s-aspiration in their language? And it begins to happen in Catalonia too. --Jotamar (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

text: I forgot to mention  that in the Valencian Community, the Spanish-speaking areas are northern roughly down to the Turia river, from that point to the south they sound clearly southern, either Manchego or Murciano. That can be sourced. --Jotamar (talk) 18:09, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

text: Those maps are OR, but I don't want to delve into that, just remember that WP is not a source of WP. In the Balearic Islands most speakers of Spanish are relatively recent immigrants (compared for example to Catalonia) and they come most often from southern Spain. And, seriously, can't you see the sheer stupidity of defining A as "something that is not B" ? --Jotamar (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: No. It is not "sheer stupidity", it is basically how the dialects are divided. Overall northern Castilian (except for a few features like leismo which aren't even universal) is similar to standard Spanish as spoken on the news. What seems more like sheer stupidity to me is bringing up Andalusian immigrants in the Balearics or Valencian urban youths trying to sound working class. Just so long as you don't bring up Melendi... Anyways, I will try to find the appropriate sources.Asilah1981 (talk) 15:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean, trying to sound working class? So you do admit that working class in Spain equals southern dialect? --Jotamar (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It does in certain cities, yes. Particularly those affected by southern immigration.Asilah1981 (talk) 13:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Certain cities but not in Catalonia or Valencia, right? ;-) --Jotamar (talk) 15:11, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes in Valencia and Barcelona, you just said it yourself a few lines up!Asilah1981 (talk) 10:38, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

text: The difficulty is that such plain fact, as you call it, contradicts what I hear around me every single day. --Jotamar (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Jotamar What exactly do you hear in Catalonia/Valencia (I assume that is where you are from) which sounds like southern Spanish to you? Is it perhaps the use of "oliva" instead of "aceituna", or maybe the widespread aspiration of the "s" so typical of Catalonia? Give me a break, man.Asilah1981 (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't give you a break because, again, you seem ready to use WP to spread the myths favoured by Spanish Nationalism. And what is that nonsense about the widespread aspiration of the "s" so typical of Catalonia??? --Jotamar (talk) 16:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Jotamar - Castilian Spanish

message: Hi, 
I have made a few changes to the article (please view article history). The article is written with a persuasive tone/ essay like style, rather than a fact-based article. In order to avoid this argumentative tone, I modified sentence structure and changed words that Wikipedia deems as “unsupported attributions/ Weasel terms”, avoiding “expressions of doubt”, “Editorialising terms” and “Unspecified places or events” terms. Hyperlinks were also added in order to assist readers. 
Writer3444
Writer3444 (talk) 09:29, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid that some of your changes do not improve the page. Castilian Spanish is not a thing, it's just one of the many simplifications used to try to outline the complexity of language, and in this case it's a simplification used mostly by people who know very little about Spain or the Spanish language; therefore trying to describe it as if it were a well-defined variety is counterproductive. Furthermore, at least one of your changes is a plain misunderstanding. I proceed to edit the page. --Jotamar (talk) 22:29, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes, October 2020 

message: Is it about the term? Is it about Spanish as spoken in Spain as a whole (ie Peninsular Spanish), is it Standard Spanish, or is it about Spanish as spoken in Castile/Northern and Central Spain (which aren't synonymous)? Basically this article is confusing, a lot of its content could go on other pages. There needs to be a section for info on Spanish in Northern Spain, which could be a section of or the majority of this article, or in Peninsular Spanish. Erinius (talk) 08:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The Regional Variations in Spain section could fit Peninsular Spanish better, so would much of Differences from American Spanish that isn't northern Spain-specific. Erinius (talk) 08:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been pondering about a merge of this page and Peninsular Spanish, so if you feel like doing it, go ahead. --Jotamar (talk) 19:43, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I've decided that I'm against a merger, but I still think most of the "Differences from American Spanish" section should be on Peninsular Spanish. This article can go over the Spanish spoken in Castile (which really isn't a single dialect area of course) and so that's why I've added some notes on phonology. Since the term Castilian Spanish also implies 'standardness' there could be more information on standard norms too. Erinius (talk) 21:06, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The main point I'm concerned about is that while Peninsular Spanish is a pretty precise concept, Castilian Spanish is not. There are different opinions about what constitutes Castile today, but more importantly, none of those possible Castiles represents any coherent dialectal space. Speaking about the dialects of Spanish in Castile is not that far apart from speaking about the dialects of Spanish in provinces that begin with the letters A to K, and then those with L to Z. So, if you prefer to keep this page, ok, but any information relative to internal dialectal differences in Spain fits much better Peninsular Spanish than Castilian Spanish. --Jotamar (talk) 23:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's This Article About?