Reply to Why do Hispanics refer to themselves as Spanish?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I used to teach ESOL in Alexandria to primarily Spanish-speaking adults. We once had a discussion about this during one of our sessions. The overwhelming majority said they did not like the term 'Hispanic' and felt it was only accurate in discussing the history of the Spanish conquests. None felt like it was an accurate identifier for modern-day Spanish speakers from the americas; if anything, it was perceived negatively - none of them said they feel particularly 'Spanish' or connected to Spain. Even the Spanish that they speak is quite different to Castilian - they've taken that heritage and morphed it into their own thing and are proud of being Puerto Rican, Honduran, Salvadoran, etc. All preferred the term Latino/a. [/quote]

Here's the monolingual clueless gringo. Yes, of course there are some regional differences...[b]but Spanish in Latin America is much more similar to that in Spain than American is to British English[/b]. And there's a much stronger cultural connection even today.

Just saying.[/quote]

I'm a linguist who's fluent in both English and Spanish. I'm familiar with regional dialects etc. Can you quantify your statement for me, please? How are English accents/variances less similar than Spanish ones? Sounds like bull to me.[/quote]

I am also skeptical!  My argentine DH sounds like he's speaking a different language when he's talking to porteños (Buenos Aires from birth) than when he's interpreting using a neutral Spanish. [/quote]

+1. DH has a lot of family in BsAs. Their Spanish sounds completely different than someone from Guatemala or Venezuela. [/quote]

I am a NP, bilingual and a native Spanish speaker, have traveled all over the English and Spanish speaking world, and I agree with the second PP here. Educated Spanish from every Spanish speaking country in the world is extremely similar. Of course accents vary from place to place, as they do in every language--and once you get into the less formally educated populations, they do even more so. Think of how different a rural Scottish accent is to a Queens accent to one from Louisiana!

Is the poster above comparing the Spanish of a middle class Argentine to the Spanish a recent Guatemalan immigrant?? Can you see how little sense that makes?? There is actually very little variety in the Spanish spoken and written from country to country with a small handful of exceptions that are easily understood. Once you get into the territory of analyzing street slang or the very regional dialects among a not very formally educated population, sure things go in many different directions, but it shocking how much they do in English--even just within the US!

To the linguist... I have studied some linguistics but I am definitely not a linguist. I'll give it a shot, BUT comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I think that that there is a much greater variety of phonemes as well as patterns of vocab choices in the English of populations of similar educational and economic backgrounds than there is in the Spanish of peoples of comparable backgrounds. The sounds of Spanish just don't vary all that much.   [/quote]

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