Welcome to a new academic article! This time let us begin with a bit of etymology. The Spanish word mayúscula (uppercase) comes from the latin word maiusculus, which means ‘bigger’. On the other hand, minúscula (lowercase) comes from the term minusculus, which means the opposite: ‘smaller’. That said, get ready to read about words that are written with ‘bigger’, uppercase letters (A, B, C, D…) and ‘smaller’ or lowercase letters (a, b, c, d…).

As a rule, Spanish is mainly written in lower case. In fact, the use of upper case is much more restricted than in other languages, such as English. Keep on reading to learn about capitalization rules in Spanish or click here to switch to the Spanish version of this post.

Uppercase Spanish Alphabet

To use Spanish uppercase letters properly, you need to know first how they look. If you can speak any other Latin-based language, the Spanish alphabet will look familiar. Except for the letter Ñ, it is pretty similar to the English one. These are the uppercase letters in Spanish:

A             B             C             D             E             F             G            H             I              J              K             L

M           N            Ñ             O            P             Q            R             S              T             U            V             W

X             Y             Z

How to Use Upper and Lowercase in Spanish

But let’s get down to the topic: when are Spanish words written with capital letters? RAE has published a complete guide on the use of uppercase and lowercase letters in Spanish. We have summarized that information a few points that will answer most of your questions.

Uppercase Words in Spanish

These are the types of words that are always written with capital letters.

1. First Word in Any Text or Sentence

Just as in many other languages, Spanish written texts begin with an uppercase letter. Want to know something interesting? You’ve probably seen sometimes a big, beautiful, hand-drawn letter at the beginning of ancient manuscripts. It is called an initial or drop cap, and it is an uppercase letter decorated in a special way that guides the reader through the text. Nowadays, we still use uppercase letters to start writing a text or to begin a sentence.

2. First Word after a Full Stop

As defined in the previous point, every word after a full stop is considered to be the beginning o a new sentence. For this reason, its first letter must be an uppercase letter. For example:

Hoy no iré. Mañana puede que sí.

(I won’t go today. Maybe tomorrow.)

3. Proper Nouns

For example, people’s names and surnames (José Martín); countries, cities, and other place names (España, Buenos Aires, río Nilo); brands (Zara); institutions (Real Academia de la Lengua); galaxies, constellations, stars, planets, and satellites (la Vía Láctea, la Osa Mayor, el Sol, Mercurio); and zodiac signs (Aries).

4. Cardinal Points

The four cardinal points are written with uppercase letters in Spanish: Norte, Sur, Este, and Oeste, as well as their combinations (Noreste, Sudeste…) However, when we use this points merely as a reference, they are written in small caps. For example:

La brújula señala el Norte (The compass points North)

El norte de Europa es bastante frío (The North of Europe is pretty cold)

5. Abbreviations

Acronyms and abbreviations are always written in uppercase letters: UGT (Unión General de Trabajadore – a trade union), ONCE (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles – a Spanish Foundation for blind people), EE.UU. (short for Estados Unidos).

Lowercase Words in Spanish

Due to English influence, many times we feel tempted to use uppercase letters when we are not supposed to, as the Spanish language doesn’t capitalize words that much. Here are some basic rules to avoid mistakes. What’s supposed to be written with lowercase letters?

1. Common Nouns

That’s an easy one to remember: coche (car), perro (dog), ordenador (computer)…

2. Generic Landmark Nouns

Streets (calle), promenades (paseo), avenues (avenida) as well as cathedrals (catedral) and other landmark-types. For example:

Vamos a dar un paseo por la calle Mayor (Let’s go for a walk around calle Mayor)

La catedral de Burgos es muy bonita (Burgos catedral is very beautiful)

3. Job Titles

Job titles such as rey (king), president (president), director, etc. are usually written in lowercase letters. However, it is pretty usual to see them capitalized when referred to a specific person, without mentioning his or her name. For example:

El presidente del Gobierno es Pedro Sánchez (The Prime Minister is Pedro Sánchez)

El Presidente anunció el otro día el cierre de las fronteras (The Prime Minister announced the border closure)

4. Geographic Features

Although the proper noun of certain geographical features is written in uppercase letters, the feature’s type (island, sea…) goes always in small caps. Let’s see a couple of examples:

El volcán Teide  (The volcano Teide)        El río Nilo (The Nile river)

5. Nationality

This is one of the most common errors using uppercase letters. All nationality adjectives, such as mexicano (Mexican), inglesa (English-female), española (Spaniard-female) or tibetano (Tibetan) are always written with lowercase initials.

Non-Standard Use of Uppercase Letters

Uppercase letters are often used to emphasize concepts. The netiquette (the way things are done on the Internet) marks that, when using all caps in the social media or in a chat, we are actually shouting.

Hope you found this blog post useful to decide whether you need to write uppercase or lowercase letters in Spanish. Thank you very much to Ramón, our Head of Studies at don Quijote Malaga, for putting his knowledge down to words. If you still have further questions, please leave a comment so we can work it out.

The art of painting is a form of expression that has endured beyond time and space, a place where society has projected the lights and shadows of humanity, all that we admire and reject of ourselves. As it happens with historical narratives, the art of painting is the reflection of our actions, a perspective on the events that have shaped our collective and cultural imaginary.

From mythological images and landscapes that elevate the spirit, through illustrious portraits of high society and until the social and individual realities embodied in different scenes of the art of painting; Spanish history has been drawn through different paintings that left an important heritage at a time when we still did not have the faithful reflection of photography or tv.

Keep reading this article if you want to discover the history of Spain through the art of painting in English. Click here to read in Spanish this article.

1. La rendición de Granada (English: The surrender of Granada)

Although there is another painting —exhibited in the Conference Hall of the Spanish Senate and painted by the great Francisco Pradilla— with the same name and more famous, this other historical painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Bayeu y Subías. It served as a sketch for the fresco decorating in the former dining room of the Royal Palace of Madrid.

After several years of fighting against Arab influence, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain managed to conquer the ancient Kingdom of Granada in 1491, thus defeating the last Muslim kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula. The conquest of Granada marked the end of the so-called Reconquista, which lasted about 700 years and was one of the most important chapters in the history of Spain.

Virtual visit of the painting La rendición de Granada at the Prado Museum.

2. Doña Juana la Loca

This work by Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz portrays a very important character in the history of Spain: Joanna of Castile. Better known as "Juana la Loca", Joanna of Castile was one of the great muses of the art of painting. Daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, she went down in history for her stormy marriage with her cousin, Philip the Handsome or the Fair. Although she never had any real power, she was Queen of Castile after the death of Isabel the Catholic in 1504. Her supposed mental illness caused her to be locked up in the Royal Monastery of Santa Clara, Tordesillas, from the year 1509 until her death in 1555. In this historical painting we can see her next to her husband's coffin, dressed in mourning and with an indifferent expression.

Virtual visit of Doña Juana la Loca at the Prado Museum.

3. Conquista de México por Hernán Cortés —16 and 17— (English: Conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés)

This is a historical painting by Miguel and Juan González. It belongs to a collection of 24 pieces created especially for King Charles II, "The Bewitched" of the Austrias’ dynasty. Hernán Cortés landed in Veracruz, Mexico, with a small army in April 1519, a fact that marked the beginning of the conquest of the Mexican territory. Thanks to the alliance with indigenous Tlaxcaltecas and Totonatas, the advance of the Spaniards reached the ears of Moctezuma II, the Aztec Tlatoani, and he presented the invaders with presents and riches in the hope that they would leave. This is the moment that immortalized this fantastic historical painting.

Virtual visit of La conquista de México por Hernán Cortés at the Prado Museum.

4. Carlos V en la Batalla de Mühlberg (English: Carlos V in the Battle of Mühlberg)

Both the power and the gallantry of Emperor Charles V, a great figure of the Spanish history, are reflected in this magnificent oil on canvas work of Titian or Tiziano, the great Italian painter of the Renaissance. This historical painting shows the victory of the young German emperor, son of Juana I of Castile, at the beginning of the 16th century at the Battle of Mühlberg. History says that the theories of religious Protestantism by Martin Luther had spread throughout central Europe. In the year 1530, several Lutheran nobles allied themselves in the so-called "Smalkalda League" and faced the Catholic Carlos V, who defeated his enemies with bravery.

Virtual visit of Carlos V en la Batalla de Mühlberg at the Prado Museum.

5. La Invencible (English: The Invincible)

An enraged sea comes alive in this impressive painting by Spanish painter José Gartner de la Peña. Although in those years it was known as the Great Navy, the Invincible Navy was a powerful naval fleet sent by King Felipe II to the British Isles in 1588 - Spanish Golden Age - in order to take possession of them overthrowing Queen Elizabeth I. The support provided by the British to the independence of Flanders and the constant pirate approaches on Spanish ships led the king to try to end the Anglo-Spanish war once and for all. However, it was a great storm the main cause of the sinking of the Invincible Navy, becoming one of the greatest enemies in the history of Spain.

Virtual visit of La Invencible at the Prado Museum

6. Las Meninas

Las Meninas is Velázquez's masterpiece, as well as one of the most studied paintings in the history of universal art. This is the portrait of the family of Felipe IV, in addition to a perfect example to illustrate the unique pictorial ability of this author, especially as regards his masterful use of perspective. While the historical painting reflects in detail the opulent isolation in which both the court and the royal family lived, the country was entering a stage of decline that would end the Austrian dynasty, one of the most important in the history of Spain.

Virtual tour of Las Meninas at the Prado Museum.

7. La familia de Carlos V (English: The family of Carlos IV)

This historical painting is a portrait of the royal family painted by Francisco de Goya. The painting hides some details that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The reign of Carlos IV passed to the history of Spain for its complete abandonment of the country's needs, which were left to Manuel Godoy while Carlos IV was engaged in hunting and other hobbies. Family and political tensions led his son, Fernando VII, to lead the famous Aranjuez mutiny in order to defeat Godoy and proclaim himself king of Spain. The family distribution in the painting is similar to that of Las Meninas by Velázquez. In addition, the fact that Queen Maria Luisa occupies the central position in the painting, normally reserved for the king, is considered a premeditated mockery by the Spanish painter towards the lack of command of the monarch.

Virtual visit of La familia de Carlos V at the Prado Museum.

8. Los fusilamientos (English: The executions)

Los fusilamientos are probably the most popular picture by the great Spanish painter of the Romanticism period: Francisco de Goya. This painting represents the massacre of the rebels by Napoleon's forces and the French repression against them in the Spanish War of Independence.

Virtual visit of Los fusilamientos at the Prado Museum.

At don Quijote, we hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you want to learn more about the art of painting in Spain, check out our video about these 5 Spanish painters you should know:

"Why should they not add a supplement to History, giving it, for example, a very discreet name so that women could figure in it without impropriety?" Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

This quote by the famous British writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) criticizes the lack of visibility suffered by women writers. The phrase is an excerpt from the essay work entitled A Room of One's Own, in which Woolf reflects on the fact that women have never been able to enjoy an own space that would allow them to participate in public, political, and social life; thus women had been forced to play a single role in life: the care of the home and the family. But were there women who exercised other roles in the shadow?

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." Virginia Woolf

When we say that a literary work is anonymous, we mean that there is no accurate information about its authorship. Many of the great works of the Spanish literature are anonymous, such as El Lazarillo de Tormes or El Cantar del Mío Cid. Similarly, we can find great examples in foreign literature, such as The Thousand and One Nights or The Saga of Erik the Red.

Although today it is impossible to know who is behind the authorship of these great masterpieces —saying that they were all written by women would be too reckless, but some of them surely were— we have enough data to determine the impact generated by women writers who decided to sign their works under a pseudonym in order to have more credibility and visibility. Data that, on a day like today, March 8, 2020, International Women's Day, we want to share with all of you.

Continue reading if you want to know the story behind these 5 Spanish female writers who used a pseudonym to publicize their literary work. If you prefer to do it in Spanish, click here.

1. Cecilia Böhl de Faber and Larrea (1796-1877)

Cecilia Böhl de Faber and Larrea was a Spanish woman writer who, in order make a space for herself in a men’s wolrd, signed her works under the pseudonym of Fernán Caballero. Remember that we are talking about the Spain of the nineteenth century, a Spain where it was very complicated to be a woman with aspirations beyond getting married and forming a family.

It is curious that, in some way, it was his father who gave her the idea, when what he really intended was to dissuade her from her desire to be a writer. Apparently, he told her not to waste her time on such matters, as they were reserved for the male gender since women were not prepared nor skilled on an intellectual level.

However, it seems that Cecilia was really determined, and, hidden behind the male privilege provided by the pseudonym, she managed to fulfill her dreams, becoming one of the first Spanish female writers. She died in the city of Seville in 1877.

2. Matilde Cherner (1833-1880)

Matilde Cherner was a great Spanish female writer, although she also stood out in the area of ​​journalism. She was born in the city of Salamanca in the year 1833, and, under the pseudonym Rafael Luna, published her first narrative works —Novelas  que parecen dramas (1877), Las tres leyes (1878), Ocaso y aurora * (1878), and María Magdalena: estudio social (1880)— as well as a large number of critical reviews.

In addition, she wrote some theatrical works signed with her real name —Don Carlos de Austria and La Cruz— which, according to the writer, were rejected to stage El haz de leña (by Núñez de Arce) and Don Rodrigo (by Laserna) instead. In fact, these works dealt with topics and issues very similar to those included by Matilde Cherner in hers. She also wrote several reviews, such as Juicio crítico sobre las novelas ejemplares de Cervantes, and collaborated in La Ilustración de la Mujer —a Madrid magazine of the time that was one of the first adopting feminist perspectives—and in the Ilustración Republicana Federal. She did not hesitate to write about controversial issues such as women's education, prostitution or access to power.

Matilde Cherner has been described as a woman of clear progressive ideas and strong political convictions, and also as a convinced federal Republican. She died in Madrid in 1880 because of an aneurysm, according to different sources.

*It was a work thought to be a serial for the press. It deals with issues such as monarchy and patriotism, ocusing on the impact that historical events generate on the personal lives of the protagonists, especially women. With this novel, Matilde recovers her real name, eliminating the male pseudonym. Somehow, this fact led the writer to rescue her intellectual identity: Republican woman, progressive ideas and marked freedom of thought.

3. María Lejárraga (1874-1974)

María Lejárraga was a female novelist, essayist, translator and Spanish playwright. She was born in the late nineteenth century in a Riojan town called San Millán de la Cogolla, and, hidden behind the name of her husband —Gregorio Martínez Serra— became a brilliant writer, a great reference of the so-called Silver Age of the Spanish literature - period that covers from 1900 until the end of the Spanish Civil War. She died in exile in the city of Buenos Aires in 1974.

However, in these times when it seems that we are surpassing the canons established in times past, the figure of María Lejárraga has returned to stay. Today, it is well known, that, the works for which her husband took all the credit —such as the adaptations to theater of El sombrero de tres picos and El amor brujo, by Manuel de Falla— were actually written by María de la O Lejárraga. The recovery of her real identity on the covers of her literary works, returns her the recognition that she should never have lost.

4. Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000)

Carmen Martín Gaite was born in Salamanca in 1925. She graduated in Philosophy and Letters and, when she was only 25, she moved to Madrid to do her PHD. Carmen Martín Gaite belongs to the group of Spanish female writers who stood out in the so-called “first postwar period in literature”, along with other pioneers such as Ana María Matute, Carmen Laforet, Elena Soriano and Josefina Aldecoa.

She established herself as a famous writer with the novel entitled El balneario, which was first published in 1957 despite having received the Café Gijón Award three years before. Entre visillos is one of her most popular books. It is an exciting story about youngsters who lived in a small city similar to Salamanca. She won the Nadal Prize thanks to this novel under the pseudonym Sofía Veloso —the name of her grandmother. The reason why she did not use her real name was that her husband - the famous writer Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio— was also in the prize’s short list of that same year.

Carmen Martín Gaite has been one of the best Spanish female writers of all time, coming to reject an armchair at the RAE —Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. She won numerous awards and continue writing until her death in Madrid in 2000.

5. Teresa de Escoriaza y Zabalza (1891-1968) 

Teresa de Escoriaza y Zabalza was born in San Sebastián on December 7, 1891. She was a great Spanish journalist and writer who, in order to gain visibility, wrote under the male pseudonym Felix de Haro.

Teresa de Escoriaza and Zabala stood out above all as a correspondent during the Rif War, but also collaborated with various publications such as La Libertad, Mundo Gráfico or El Eco de Galicia. In addition, it is said that it was she who gave the first feminist speech in the history of the Spanish radio. She also wrote a large number of war chronicles such as Del dolor de la guerra (chronicles of the campaign of Morocco) or El cresol de las razas.

She lived a long time in the United States, where she moved before the Spanish Civil War and worked as a Spanish teacher. He decided to return to Spain a few years before she died in 1968.

At don Quijote, we hope you enjoyed today's article and we also take the opportunity to wish you a happy International Women's Day.

Leon Tolstoy said that "Art is one of the means of communication between people." And he was right, because people live in society and communicate through different expressive elements such as words, movements, sounds, colors and shapes. Thus, in the same way that language did, the different artistic disciplines were born. Painters, for example, express themselves through the composition of shapes and colors.

Click here if you prefer to read this article in Spanish.

As we have stated on previous occasions, getting to know a language is also getting to know the context where it is articulated and developed. Language is the tool that human beings have to express what we feel, perceive, dream, believe or even know; the brush we have to paint our reality. Thus, language serves us as not only as the main instrument to decode the world around us, but also to describe and define ourselves as individuals.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the language of a pueblo —remember that there is no language without people using it— cannot be understood without the culture in which interaction is framed, since culture is only the reflection of the concerns and stories that make up a social reality. Similarly, different forms of cultural expression, such as art, have contributed to frame our language within a given social and historical context.

At don Quijote, we want to get you a little closer to the Spanish language through its cultural expression in the art of painting. Spain is a country with a broad historical and social tradition, so the different and major pictorial movements that have accompanied its history also reflect a vibrant and diverse reality.

While it is true that Pablo Picasso —the most international Spanish painter— marked a before and after in art worldwide, it is also true that there were other essential Spanish painters without whom we could not understand the current society of the Hispanic country. To publicize some of their names, we want to share with you 5 famous Spanish painters (that are not Pablo Picasso), as well as some of their fundamental works.

1. Francisco de Goya (Spain, 1746 - France, 1828)

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was an 18th-century Spanish painter who produced mainly oil painting, drawings and an important collection of etchings. He was the greatest exponent of Spanish Romanticism and also the father of contemporary movements, such as modernism and impressionism. In addition, he had great influence on the works of other later painters such as Pablo Picasso and Édouard Manet.

2. Diego Velázquez (Seville, 1599 - Madrid, 1660)

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, known as Diego Velázquez, was the most representative painter of the Spanish Golden Age. Although its great relevance was not recognized until 200 years after his death, Diego Velázquez was one of the most important figures in the history of Spanish painting, but also an authentic master internationally, even considered by many experts as the most talented painter of all time.

If you click on the title, you can enjoy a virtual view of one of his main works, exhibited at the Prado Museum: Las Meninas

3. Juan Gris (Spain, 1887 - France, 1927)

José Victoriano González-Pérez, better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter of the 20^th century who developed his activity especially in Paris. The great influence he received from artists such as Cézanne, Picasso and Braque led him to identify himself within Cubism, becoming one of the highest representatives of this artistic movement.

If you click on the title, you can enjoy a virtual view of one of his main works, exhibited at one of the most important Spanish museums, the Reina Sofía Museum: La guitare

4. Joan Miró (Barcelona, ​​1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983)

Joan Miró was one of the best Spanish painters of the 20th century. He was also a sculptor, engraver and potter, but his main role was in painting, becoming one of the most relevant figures of surrealism worldwide. In his works, we can see reflected the fascination he felt for the subconscious, the main theme of surrealism, as well as a style marked by parameters that make his art recognizable to the naked eye.

5. Salvador Dalí (Catalonia, 1904 - Catalonia, 1989)

Together with Pablo Picasso, Dalí is one of the most popular and famous Spanish painters of all time. He was the most prominent artist of the Spanish surrealism and changed the way aesthetics and were understood worldwide. Dalí was an eccentric as no other, and he knew how to exploit that condition on a professional level. Both his personal image and his ideas are impregnated with its artistic sensibility, something unique of his kind. Salvador Dalí remains as an essential reference in arts nowadays.

“El alma que allí canta, que allí en el misterio de la creación poética se cela y a la par se descubre, no es el alma del poeta: es el alma de su Andalucía, es el alma de su España. ¡El alma de su España andaluza, gitana y romana, patente y densa, olor y luz aliviados en música en la poesía de García Lorca!”

“The soul that sings there, that there in the mystery of poetic creation is concealed and at the same time discovered, it is not the soul of the poet: it is the soul of his Andalusia, the soul of his Spain. The soul of his Andalusian, gypsy and Roman Spain, clear and dense, scent and light relieved by music in the poetry of García Lorca!”

Today, we leverage these words said by the great Spanish poet and philologist Dámaso Alonso about Federico García Lorca —the most international granaíno (localism to refer to people from Granada)— to pay homage to one of the most studied dialects of all the linguistic and cultural variants of the Spanish language: Andalusian Spanish. Why? Because today, February 28, is the Día de Andalucía, “Andalusia Day” in English, the day that commemorates the celebration of the referendum that marked the beginning of the process for the creation of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia in 1980.

Click here to switch to the Spanish version.

A first approach to Andalusian dialects of Spanish

Andalusian Spanish is a linguistic modality of the Spanish language spoken mainly in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla and the southern areas of the province of Badajoz. In addition, the Andalusian is a dialect used in the British territory of Gibraltar, in the Bay of Algeciras, and also coexists with the Portuguese in those locations bordering the province of Huelva.

It is not surprising that a language such as Spanish, with more than 400 million native speakers spread throughout the world, presents different and diverse dialect variants. This is the case of the Andalusian dialect or Andalusian dialects,  the rich and abundant subvariants that can be found internally. Andalusia is a vibrant region where we can discover different forms of expression which are unique and proper of each area.

Andalusian Spanish: prejudices and cultural imperialism

As we have already commented above, Andalusian Spanish is one of the most studied dialects of all the variants of the Spanish language. However, this mainly theoretical perspective has not made an impression on the social ground, giving rise to many topics and false myths. It is possible that you have ever heard someone, who is not a native speaker of Andalusian Spanish, imitating the accent, sometimes even making fun of it, as well as the peculiarities of this linguistic modality.

However, it is also true that mother tongues are not an exclusive property of native speakers, and it would be interesting that, just as we adopt Lorca's poetry as one of the most valuable elements of Spanish culture, we also considered Andalusian Spanish as an essential part of the standard variety. Andalusian Spanish is just another form of expression that enriches us all, since, in addition, languages ​​and their variants are not watertight compartments with rigidly established borders and limits.

Andalusian Spanish as an oral form of expression

As the Research Group called "The Spanish spoken in Andalusia", at University of Seville, say "Andalusian speech is the result of a long historical tradition, and arises from a development —from old Spanish— partially differentiated from the one experienced by other modalities of the Spanish Language.”

In other words, the Andalusian variety is another way of speaking Spanish, a variant of the standard that is the result of hundreds of years of development and evolution, a different speech that brings richness and diversity to oral ways of expression while providing other perspectives to understand and define the world around us. In fact, Andalusians —except some cases that can be found in poetry*— write like any other users of the Spain Spanish, leaving aside their most characteristic features.

* At the beginning of the 20th century, Andalusian Spanish was about to be considered a regional and cultural variant also on a written level. One of the Andalusians that contributed to this development was the great Federico García Lorca. He knew that Andalusian Spanish was a language full of joy and musicality, something reflected in all his poetic and theatrical production. There is also a version of the literary work The Little Prince —written by Antoine Marie de Saint-Exupéry— in Andalusian Spanish.

The great diversity of Andalusian Spanish

As we said at the beginning of this blogpost, rather than talking about the Andalusian speech, we should talk about Andalusian speeches. The characteristics and attributes of the Spanish spoken in southern Spain occur differently depending on the region, province or town, giving rise to very different traits both in pronunciation and the lexicon: ceceo versus seseo , loss or aspiration of the final -s, illo vs pisha or mi alma (different terms used in Andalusia to refer to men or boys in a colloquial way), and a long etcetera.

In the same way that the Spanish spoken in the interior or northern areas of the Iberian Peninsula show clear signs of diversity, we can discover a melting pot of different shapes and colors within each of the subvariants of Andalusian Spanish. In fact, not all Andalusians speak what we colloquially call Andalusian Spanish, since not all areas of Andalusia manifest the same characteristics nor the signs that we usually classify as Andalusians. For example, in northern areas of Huelva and Seville, the variant is closer to the Spanish spoken in Extremadura, in the same way that the Spanish used in Granada is more similar to the one used in Murcia. Thus, we return to the idea that languages ​​and their dialectical variants are not fixed nor respond to established limits, but rather behave as a continuum whose elements occur without spatial interruption, flowing through the different areas where there is social interaction.

The art of Andalusian Spanish: pronunciation, grammar and lexicon

The Andalusian accent is probably one of the most representative features of the Spanish spoken in southern Spain. Researchers have long pointed out three general characteristics of Andalusian speech:

• A faster and more varied rhythm in terms of the tone used, which, in comparison to general Spanish, produces great contrasts due to the rather monochromatic tone of the Spanish used in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula.
• Certain ways of articulating sounds that have a different distribution, so that certain phonemes are produced in a more relaxed way and others in a more tense way.
• A set of pronunciation features – shared with other areas - that occur more frequently in Andalusia, reaching a high concentration and social relevance.

We cannot say that there is a proper grammar of Andalusian Spanish, since the grammar used in the south is the same as that one used in the rest of the country. However, we can observe certain variations in the way personal pronouns are used, for example, the use of ustedes instead of vosotros —although this is not a regular issue. We can also find some archaic uses in certain verbs, such as the use of the verb ser as an auxiliary instead of haber. E.g. Si me fuera dado cuenta instead of si me hubiera dado cuenta.

Lexicon: Andalusian Spanish vocabulary

The types of meaning refer to specific cases of study from the University of Seville:

Rural and related voices

• Instruments: capacho (basket), barcina (esparto net), almocafre (escardillo), calabozo (pruning ax)

• Rural machinery: alfarje (millstone), atarjea (pipe, ditch), almatriche (id.)

• Land: campiña, marisma, pago (vineyard or olive groves), cortijo, balate (ditch / wall)

• Plants and fruits: alhucema, gurumelo (mushroom), jinjolero (deciduos shrub), alcaucil (artichoke), durazno (peach), papa, pero (apple), habichuela, cañaduz (sugar cane); casco (orange slice); puyar (grow tree guide)

• Agricultural activities: ablentar (throw), esmuir (milking)

Seafaring voices

• Fish: albures (river fish), safio or zafío (conger), breca, lula (coarse squid), cardume (n) (school of fish), brótola, chanquete (two different autochthonous fish).

• Boats: traíña, boliche (a type of boat)

Food

• Human: chícharo (chickpea / pea / bean), alboronia (vegetable stew), hallulla / -o (cake), calentitos y tejeringos (churros), hochío (cake), repápalo (round muffin, donut), pipirrana (Andalusian salad)

• Cattle: afrecho (bran), arvejón (staple crops)

Home

• Soberado y doblado (upper part of the house), sardiné, sardinel, and rebate (entrance step), casalicio (large house), alacena (pantry), falsa (attic).

Weather

• Hacer buena (/mala) orilla, llampo (lightning), boria (fog), claras del día (sunrise), harinear (to drizzle) and harinilla (drizzle), flama (burning heat)

Descriptions

• About people (positive connotations): (d)espelotado (healthy, robust), jirocho (satisfied), marchoso (brave)

• About people (negative connotations): majareta and majarón (crazy), charrán (rascal), chalado and pirado (crazy), gilí (dumb), (d)esabori(d)o, chuchurri(d)o (withered, cracked ), falto (dumb), frangollón (who does things late and badly), parguela (dumb)

• Positive feelings: camelar (want)

• Negative feelings: achares (shame, jealousy), canguelo (fear), coraje (anger, irritation)

As any other language, Andalusian Spanish is linked to people and cultures. Andalusian is the Spanish of Andalusia and the language used by great geniuses like Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Pablo Picasso or Federico García Lorca.

At don Quijote, we hope you enjoy this article and that it helps you to expand your knowledge of the Spanish varieties spoken in cities such as Malaga, Seville or Cádiz.