Bolivian Spanish
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Bolivian Spanish (or Castilian) is the variety of Spanish spoken by the majority of the population in Bolivia, either as a mother tongue or as a second language. Within the Spanish of Bolivia there are different regional varieties. In the border areas, Bolivia shares dialectal features with the neighboring countries.
Bolivian Spanish | |
---|---|
Español boliviano | |
Pronunciation | [espaˈɲol βoliˈβjano] |
Native to | Bolivia |
Native speakers | 4.1 million (2014)[1] 4.5 million in Bolivia (2014) |
Latin (Spanish alphabet) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Bolivia |
Recognised minority language in | |
Regulated by | Academia Boliviana de la Lengua |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | es |
ISO 639-2 | spa[2] |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
IETF | es-BO |
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Throughout Bolivia the preservation of phonemic contrast between /ʝ/ and the lateral /ʎ/ (i.e. the absence of yeísmo) is the norm.[3][4] Aspiration of syllable-final /s/ is frequent in the lowlands, while in the highlands the sibilant /s/ tends to be preserved, realized either as a laminal or, frequently, an apical [s].[4][5] In highland dialects, the "trill" phoneme (orthographic ⟨rr⟩ or word-initial ⟨r⟩) is often assibilated, realized as a voiced apicoalveolar fricative,[5][6] or alveolar approximant, which pronunciation is similar to the sound of ⟨r⟩ ([ɹ]) in English. In highland Bolivian Spanish there is "intense reduction" of unstressed vowels in contact with /s/, often resulting in syllables with /s/ as their nucleus, e.g. pues ("well,...") pronounced [ps].[4][7]