Characteristics of Cuban Spanish

As a Caribbean dialect, Cuban Spanish shares a number of features with nearby varieties, including coda deletion, seseo, and /s/ debuccalization.

The pronunciation of certain consonants, specially with relation to their syllabic position makes it sometimes more difficult to understand.

1. One of the most prominent features of Cuban Spanish is the debuccalization (or sound change) of /s/ like in the following sentence:

Esos niños no tienen carros [ˈesoh ˈniɲoh no ˈtjenen ˈcaroh] (‘Those kids do not have cars’)

The /s/ may also be deleted and the pronunciation of the [h] may be dropped, potentially rendering [ˈeso ˈniɲo no ˈtjenen ˈcaro].

Other common examples are: “disfrutar” (to enjoy) is pronounced “difrutar”, “fresco” (fresh) becomes “freco”. In Havana, “despues” is typically pronounced “depue”.

2. Lenition, in Cuban Spanish also occurs with the deletion of final /d/. With intervocalic deletion (e.g. condado [konˈda.o] ‘county’). “Tumbado” is pronounced “tumbao”.

3. Another characteristic of Cuban Spanish is the use of the diminutive -ico and -ica instead of the standard -ito and -ita. But this use is restricted to words with -t in the last syllable. For example, plato (‘plate’) platico instead of platito while cara (‘face’) becomes carita. This form is common to the Venezuelan, Cuban, Costa Rican and Colombian dialects.

4. Like in most Socialist states, the term compañero/compañera (meaning “comrade”) is used instead of the common señor/señora.

Origins of Cuban Spanish

(from Wikipedia) Of all the regional variations of the Spanish language, traditional Cuban Spanish is most similar to, and originates largely from the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands of Spain. Cuba owes much of its speech patterns to the heavy Canarian migrations, of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Migrations of other Spaniards such as Galicians, Catalans, Basques and Asturians also occurred, though without as considerable an influence.

Much of the typical Cuban replacements for standard Spanish vocabulary stems from Canarian lexicon. For example, guagua (‘bus’) differs from standard Spanish autobús. The word guagua originated in the Canaries and is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn. An example of Canarian usage for a Spanish word is the verb fajarse (‘to fight’). In standard Spanish the verb would be pelearse, while fajar exists as a non-reflexive verb related to the hemming of a skirt.

Much of the vocabulary peculiar to Cuban Spanish comes from the different historic influences on the island. Many words come from the Canary Islands, but some words are of West African, French or indigenous Taino origin, as well as peninsular Spanish influence outside of the Canary Islands, such as Andalusian or Galician. American influence has lent several words such as pulover (which is used to mean “T-shirt”) and chor (“shorts”, with the typical Spanish change from English ‘sh’ to ‘ch’) for clothing. The unique political situation today has led to the development of words which are specific to modern Cuban culture.

Manners

When speaking to the elderly, or to strangers, Cubans speak more formally as a sign of respect. They shake hands upon both greeting and saying farewell to someone. Men often exchange friendly hugs (abrazos) and it is also common for both men and women to greet friends and family with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Informalities like addressing a stranger with ‘mi corazón’ (my heart), ‘mi vida’ (my life), or ‘cariño’ (dear) are common. “Mi amor” (my love) is used, even between strangers, when at least one of them is a woman (for example when being served in a shop).