Pontifica Universidad Catlica del Ecuador

School of Linguistics
Name: Jefferson Imbaquingo

Spanish dialect from Quito and Lima

Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Due to this fact, many

dialects have sprung up across the globe. The dialects to be compared in this paper is

Lima Spanish to Quito Spanish. These are the capitals and they are neighboring countries.

Notwithstanding the closeness in territory, these both accents differ at phonological,

lexicon and morphological level. We will try to approach to any pragmatic observation if

necessary or if the case.

In the realm of phonology, we find some differences that were decisive to tell that

they were two different dialects. Firstly, the manner of articulation of /r/ sounds in Quito

Spanish is far stronger that in Lima Spanish. Also, the sound of /s/ is distinctive. In Quito

Spanish, the /s/ is more vibrant than in Lima Spanish. This resembles the situation that

occurs here in the coastal region of Ecuador. The /s/ sound is aspirated and subsequently

its sound is soft but stronger enough not to disappear. In fact, many may mistake Lima

Spanish accent with Quito; if it were not for the music that Lima Spanish has, it would be

considered another variant of coast region Spanish. The suprasegmental features cannot

be excluded from this analysis. Lima accents is characterized for its music. It contrasts to

Quito accent when it comes to intonation. For example, in yes/no questions Lima accent

has a rising intonation, whereas Quito accent has a more neutral or falling intonation.

Maybe this gives us the feeling that it has a sort of music.

 Lexically both these accents differ at a certain extent, though not so much. The

use of less common vocabulary (to the author of this paper) such as oblicua; Quiteo

would say diagonal. In fact, I think that it is not a common word in Lima either because

one of the speaker of the audio analyzed seemed to have not understand what the other

interlocutor meant by oblicua. In Quito Spanish there is a higher usage of adverbs with

diminutive even though adverbs do not admit diminutive or any modifiers. Quiteos

would say things like poquito, acasito, etc,(as in the audios from QUITO), but in Lima

people would not use an adverb without modifiers. Instead of poquito the Limense

speaker said ligeramente. On the other hand, Lima Spanish uses heavily adverbs ending

in -mente, and Spanish favors adverbial phrases and even adjective. For example,

Limense would say Baja rectamente, but Quiteo would say it Baja recto.

In the last case, the use of poquito is interesting since despite it does not obey the

rules of traditional grammar, people from Quito use it so much that it conveys a different

meaning than the adverb without the diminutive particle. In the conversation1, one of the

interlocutors guides the other through the map, and to show distance she uses hasta el

fonto, lejos, but to express specific distance, she uses poquito and the listener interprets it

automatically and can find her way in the map. Nonetheless, in Lima conversation2, the

speaker uses expression such as baja rectamente o oblicuamente, but this means trouble

for the listener to interpret.

Additionally, it is important to mention that each dialect can vary depending on

the context a conversation takes place. As both conversations are example of giving

directions to get somewhere, explanations are repeated several times. However, it goes

without saying that Spanish dialogue flouts the Grices maxim of quantity at a greater

1
http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlasentonacion/enquestes/espanol/quito/index.html#maptask
2
http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlasentonacion/enquestes/espanol/lima/index.html#maptask
extent that Lima dialogue does. The speakers seem to repeat the same instruction

repeatedly. Moreover, they asked unnecessary questions to make sure of the other

persons location on the map. Hence, each intervention is long and wordy. In the case of

Lima, dialogues are way shorter and straightforward.

To conclude, we have seen that, despite the same language and closeness in

territory, Quiteo and Limense dialects/accents differ in many significant ways. Lima

accent may sound softer, melodically and flowing, which Ecuadorian automatically relate

to coastal region accents. Nevertheless, at the same time, Lima Spanish is not just as

referential as Quito Spanish regarding adverbs in distance for example. Both varieties are

unique and different in their own ways and this is why each of both are rich and worth

studying further.
SOURCES
LIMA
http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlasentonacion/enquestes/espanol/lima/index.html#maptask
QUITO
http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlasentonacion/enquestes/espanol/quito/index.html#maptask