Puerto Rican accents

Puerto Rican accents, both in Spanish and English language, could be described as a reflection of Puerto Rico's culture.

To understand the concept of the Puerto Rican accent in Spanish, one must remember that every country in Latin America has different accents in this language, many of which are very similar. The Argentine and Uruguayan accents, for example, were heavily influenced by the presence of Italians in those countries. Brazilians, with Portuguese as their native language, have an accent in Spanish that is strongly influenced by their Portuguese background.

In Puerto Rico's case, Spaniards arrived from many regions within Spain and brought with them their own regional dialects/accents. However, the great majority of European immigrants to Puerto Rico throughout its history came from the Hispano-Arabic area of Spain known as Andalusia. Another great majority arrived from North Africa, most notably the Canary Islands. When visiting Tenerife or Las Palmas (Islas Canarias, Spain), Puerto Ricans are usually taken at first hearing for fellow-Canarians from a distant part of the Canary archipelago. It is the accents of these regions which served as the basis of the style of Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico.

Arawak indigenous culture (in Puerto Rico, specifically that of the Taíno Amerindian), though destroyed by Spanish slave owners, survived through its miscegenated descendants and, as the first fusion of a non-European language to Spanish, became the major tying force which brought together all the other cultural contributions which would soon come. The Arawak language, Lokono, has left behind thousands of words. It has added to Puerto Rican Spanish the pleasant speaking tone which is often said to roll off the tongue like a song.

Africans in Puerto Rico were brought in as slave labor, the majority for work on coastal or lowland sugar plantations. They contributed hundreds of words, colloquialisms, intonations, and rhythm.

Chinese Puerto Ricans and other Asians that have established themselves in Puerto Rico also adopt the accent, but also keep a tinge of an east Asian accent.

The Puerto Rican accent is very strikingly similar to the accents used by those from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean basin, including: Cuba and the Dominican Republic and those from the Caribbean/coastal regions of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Honduras, and Nicaragua (particularly to a non-Puerto Rican). It also continues to be similar to the accent of the Canary Islanders and Andalusians in southern Spain. However, many Puerto Ricans find a great distinction between their accent and other Caribbean accents.

Features of the Puerto Rican accent in spoken Spanish

Seseo

This refers to pronouncing as /s/ the sound written <z> or <c> (when soft; that is, followed by an <i> or an <e>) like most other Latin-American accents, whereas in Europe /θ/ is used. Examples: [zapato] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is /saˈpato/, not /θaˈpato/; and [azul] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is /aˈsul/ not /aˈθul/.

Aspiration or elimination of the /s/

This usually occurs before a consonant or at the end of a word, /s/ is debuccalized to [h] or eliminated altogether. Examples include [las muˈxeɾeh] instead of [las muˈxeɾes] (las mujeres, 'the women') [loh ðoh] instead of [los ðos] (los dos, 'the two'). This is also common in other Caribbean basin Spanish-speaking countries.

Elimination of /d/ between vowels

This usually happens usually near the end of a word. Examples include [ehˈtao] instead of [esˈtaðo] (estado, 'state'), and [ˈto.o] instead of [ˈtoðo] ('all').

Elimination of /d/ at the end of a word

In this case, a stress is usually placed on the final vowel. Examples include [päˈre] instead of [päˈreð] (pared, 'wall') and [mäˈðɾi] instead of [mäˈðɾið] (Madrid).

Change of /r/ to /x/

Many rural Puerto Ricans do not roll their tongues on the double "r" sound in words (ex. "arroz" or "carro"), making it sound like the Scottish loch. This is a characteristic associated most closely with the area around Ponce (when a person drags their r's, they are automatically catalogued as ponceños, or a citizen of Ponce or any country area of Puerto Rico).

Change of /r/ to /l/

The /r/ that comes before a /d/ is often changed to an /l/, so that words like "perdón" (forgiveness) and "verdad" (truth) become "peldón" and "velda" respectively.

Shortening of words

Puerto Ricans also often shorten words by eliminating whole syllables. A good example are the words para, madre, and padre ("for", "mother", and "father"): Puerto Ricans may pronounce para as /pa/, madre as /mai/, and padre as /pai/.

U.S.-Puerto Rican accent in Spanish

U.S.-resident Puerto Ricans, descended from the large number of migrants who left the island throughout the 20th Century, can be found today en masse along the Eastern coast of the United States. In addition to major metropolitan areas such as New York, many Puerto Ricans also migrated to areas such as Chicago, Florida, Boston, and even California. Because of their high-rates of military enlistment, large Puerto Rican populations are also found in isolated spots across the U.S. near military installations.

The accent of post-first generation Puerto Rican migrants to the U.S. is heavily influenced by their predominantly English-speaking surroundings. While still sounding Puerto Rican, their accents are tinged by the area of the United States where they grew up. Their grammatical composition is sometimes influenced by American English rather than Spanish.

Puerto Rican accent in English

As with any other case of a non-native learning a language, many Puerto Ricans learn a particular accent of English. If learned in the US, they may speak English as it is spoken in their region. Some Puerto Ricans still residing in the island acquire a distinctly American accent when speaking. Others will develop different variations of the accent depending on who or what the main influence was during the learning process. This is due not only to the fact that English is taught from the first grade in most schools, but also that most English teachers (particularly private school teachers) are very fluent in the language. Residents of towns with large populations of African descendants such as Loiza tend to acquire a distinct Caribbean accent when speaking English, similar to that of nearby islands in the West Indies. A Puerto Rican's accent depends entirely on who or what was the main influence during the learning process of the English language. Because of this, there is no definitive Puerto Rican accent in English.