Colombian Spanish

Colombian Spanish covers the varieties of Spanish spoken across Colombia, a term that describes geography more than any single set of linguistic features given the country's internal diversity. It is the country's dominant language, with about 46.3 million first language speakers and roughly 93,500 second language speakers as of 2015. Linguists commonly divide the country into eleven dialect areas, including the Caribbean or coastal variety, Paisa in the coffee growing regions, the Cundiboyacense highlands, Rolo in Bogotá, Llanero in the eastern plains, and Pastuso in the southwest, among others. The northern coastal dialects show phonological changes typical of Caribbean Spanish, while the highland varieties are considered more historically conservative, and the educated speech of Bogotá carries particularly high prestige among Spanish speakers across the Americas. The Colombian Academy of Language, founded in 1871, is the country's official language regulator and the oldest Spanish language academy after Spain's own Royal Spanish Academy.