Peninsular Spanish

Spanish language
A manuscript of the Cantar de mio Cid, 13th century
Overview
Pronunciation stress Orthography Names
History
Old Middle Influences
Grammar
Determiners Nouns gender Pronouns personal object Adjectives Prepositions Verbs conjugation irregular verbs
Dialects
Andalusian Andean Argentine Belizean Bolivian Canarian Caribbean Central American Chilean Colombian Costa Rican Cuban Dominican Ecuadorian Equatoguinean Guatemalan Honduran Mexican Murcian New Mexican Nicaraguan Paraguay Panamanian Peninsular Peruvian Philippine status Puerto Rican Rioplatense Saharan Salvadoran Standard Uruguayan Venezuelan
Dialectology
Seseo Yeísmo Voseo Leísmo Loísmo
Interlanguages
Llanito Jopara Judaeo-Spanish Portuñol Spanglish Castrapo Creoles Roquetas Pidgin Chavacano or Chabacano Palenquero or Palenque
Teaching
Hispanism RAE Instituto Cervantes
v t e

Peninsular Spanish (Spanish: español peninsular), also known as the Spanish of Spain (Spanish: español de España), European Spanish (Spanish: español europeo), or Iberian Spanish (Spanish: español ibérico), is the set of varieties of the Spanish language spoken in Peninsular Spain. This construct is often framed in opposition to varieties from the Americas and the Canary Islands.

From a phonological standpoint, there is a north-south gradient contrasting conservative and innovative pronunciation patterns. The former generally retain features such as /s/ – /θ/ distinction and realization of intervocalic /d/, whilst the latter may not. Processes of interaction and levelling between standard (a construct popularly perceived as based on northern dialects) and nonstandard varieties however involve ongoing adoption of conservative traits south and innovative ones north.^[1] In line with Spanish language's rich consonant fluctuation, other internal variation within varieties of Peninsular Spanish is represented by phenomena such as weakening of coda position -/s/, the defricativization of /tʃ/, realizations of /x/ as [x] and [h] and weakening or change of liquid consonants /l/ and /r/.^[2]

Morphologically, a notable feature in most varieties of Peninsular Spanish setting them apart from varieties from the Americas is the use of the pronoun vosotros (along with its oblique form os) and its corresponding verb forms for the second person plural familiar.

Language contact of Spanish with Catalan, Basque and Galician in the autonomous communities in which the latter languages are spoken notoriously involve borrowings at the lexical level, but also in the rest of the linguistic structure.^[3]