Language Atlas

How Languages Connect
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Dialects and Varieties

Chilean Spanish

Spanish Dialects and Varieties

Chilean Spanish is a set of Spanish varieties spoken across most of Chile, regarded by linguists as one of the most divergent varieties of the language. It is marked by yeismo, the merging of the sounds represented by ll and y, by seseo, the lack of a distinction between the sounds of s and the soft c or z, by frequent aspiration or dropping of syllable-final s, and by widespread use of the informal voseo verb forms in casual speech. The Real Academia Espanola recognizes more than 2,200 words and idioms as exclusive or largely exclusive to Chilean Spanish, and the dialect also shows influence from the indigenous Mapudungun and Quechua languages as well as loanwords from German, English and Argentine Spanish.

Facts
Region
Chilean Spanish is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile. 1
Speaker Community
Chilean Spanish had an estimated 17.4 million native speakers as of 2015. 1
Distinguishing Features
Chilean Spanish has distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and slang that set it apart from Standard Spanish. 1
Classification
Variety Kind
Regional Dialect 1
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Chilean Spanish
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section, characterization sentence
    Chilean Spanish dialects have distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usages that differ from those of Standard Spanish.
  • Lead section, opening sentence
    Chilean Spanish (Spanish: espanol chileno or castellano chileno) is any of several varieties of the Spanish language spoken in most of Chile.
  • Infobox, native speakers field
    17.4 million (2015)
  • Variety kind, Chilean Spanish entity page
    Chilean Spanish is a set of Spanish varieties spoken across most of Chile, regarded by linguists as one of the most divergent varieties of the language.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.