Amazonian Spanish
Amazonian Spanish, or also jungle Spanish, is a variety of Spanish spoken in the Amazon. Influenced by the Amazonian languages, it is especially established in the departments of the Peruvian Amazon such as Loreto, Ucayali, San Martín and Madre de Dios. Amazonian Spanish is also spoken in some areas of Brazil adjacent to Loreto and Ucayali, in the Amazon Region of Colombia, and in the Bolívar and Amazonas states of Venezuela.
Features
Phonological
They are basically phonetics. They are not expressed in written or formal speech.
- Change of the j (inspired by internal situation) f (always bilabial), especially when it is next to a u semivocal. (The colds of Saint John; The colds of Sän Fan).
- Omission of some vowels: See you at the feves. for See you Thursday..
- Lention gu- by the sound w (glove[wa:nte]).
- Alophonic use (without semantic implications) of vocallic elongations (of the jungle ▪ dē the jungle).
- There is occluivization of the intermediates /b/ /d/ /g/ in tonal ascent with aspiration and elongation of the vowel.
- The seals /p/ /t/ and /k/ are performed with a word start aspiration.
- The /y/ tends to african (unlike what happens on the coast).
- There is also assitation, not very strong of vibrant.
Morphosyntactics
- Anteposition of the genitive and double possessive.
- From Antonio his friends.
- Anteposition of articles in front of their own names. (Johna; Lä Fuäna).
One of the distinctive characteristics of Amazonian Spanish is the method of construction of the possessive form: speakers say de la X su Y (de la X es Y), instead of standard Spanish the Y of X (the Y of X). Another distinctive grammatical feature is the use of possessive forms in place of certain genitive forms; compare Standard Spanish He asked the Yaminahua in front of me with Loreto-Ucayali He asked the Yaminahua in front of me (He asked the Yaminahua woman in my forehead).
Personal nouns are preceded by a definite article (the or la, depending on the gender).
Status
Amazonian Spanish is sometimes classified as a separate language from Standard Spanish, for example by the Ethnologue. However, the research records of this dialect are few.