Rockin Bob Explains It All
[QUOTE=Jackson][blue]In the interest of getting the title of this thread correct, let me pose this question:
Second, if the term "Castellano" is interchangeable with the term "Spanish:", then what is the correct name of the dialect spoken in Argentina?
Thanks,
Jackson[/blue][/QUOTE]Jackson, Rock Harders has the answer to your question. Rioplatense is the dialect spoken in the area around the Rio de la Plata. There's an article on Wikipedia that has all the gory details:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rioplatense_Spanish[/url]
To throw in my two cents: yes, it's true most Spanish speakers from other countries think the pronunciation of Rioplatense is strange, but for anyone who knows Portuguese, it's not strange at all. It's just Spanish with a Portuguese twist. For example, take the word for "rain:"
Language Spelled Pronounced
Castellano lluvia you-via
Rioplatense lluvia shoo-via
Portuguese chuva shoo-va
Also, "you" in Portuguese is "você" so vos seems perfectly normal as well.
There's a Wikipedia article on voseo as well:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo[/url]
I suspect this all goes back to the way Spanish was spoken a long time ago. Seems Spanish and Portuguese and the other similar languages on the Iberian peninsula evolved from some common source. I don't know for sure.
For anybody's who's interested, the Real Academia Española was founded in 1713: in 1714 King Philip V gave the royal stamp of approval and supplied the mission statement: limpia, fija, y da esplendor: clean it up, agree on a standard, and make it beautiful. I know everytime I speak anything in Spanish Philip turns over in his grave. I'm sorry.
They have the definitive online Spanish dictionary here:
[url]http://www.rae.es/rae.html[/url]
One last thing: for you Windows users, there's a Text Services and Input Language box somewhere that lets you adapt your keyboard to write the accents and tildes and upside-down question marks you need for correct Spanish. They don't seem to have maps of the keyboards, but they're easily found online.
Hey, you leave out the accent, the Real Academia will tell you the word doesn't exist. At least they suggest the alternative you're looking for. They're orthodox, what can I say.
Hey Dickhead! The other day in Carrefour the cashier asks me, ¿Tendría 30 centavos? Man, if you're Rodney Dangerfield, your whole shtick would be ruined.
Also, to get really really picky, dissection is performed on dead bodies: Spanish ain't dead yet, it's in the top five languages most spoken in the world.
Enough, back to mongering.