Caribbean Spanish

Caribbean Spanish is the general name for the Spanish dialects spoken across the Caribbean region, introduced to the area following the 1492 voyages of Christopher Columbus. In its narrowest sense it covers Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, extending more broadly to Panama and the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, and in its widest sense to the Caribbean coastal areas of Mexico and Central America; it has more than 25 million speakers, making Spanish the most widely spoken language of the Caribbean islands. It shares features with Canarian Spanish and, more distantly, Andalusian Spanish, including seseo, yeismo and extensive weakening of syllable-final s, along with the consistent use of ustedes rather than vosotros and a tendency to retain subject pronouns that standard Spanish typically omits.