Is There Such a Thing as the Best Spanish?
When asking any Spanish speaker which variants of the language they consider the most correct, those of their own country usually prevail.
If we go to the movies, during the film we might have «pororós» in Argentina; but if we do it in Mexico, Chile, or Spain, it will be «palomitas» or «palomitas de maíz»; «crispetas» in Colombia; «cotufas» in Venezuela; «millo» in Panama, or «rositas de maíz» in Cuba, not to mention the Anglicism «popcorn».
Spanish is spoken by almost 600 million people, and it is the mother tongue of 500 million. These Spanish speakers, spread throughout the world, do not have a homogeneous speech but rather great diversity: their variants can be dialectal (diatopic), social (diastratic), or stylistic (diafasic); «guay,» «chévere,» «padre,» or «bacano» belong to informal styles, as opposed to «excelente» or «espléndido,» with the same meaning but of a more formal character.
Given such diversity, there is a pan-Hispanic norm common to all Spanish speakers: spelling is the same for everyone. But there are other norms that are not general since they concern specific areas: in Spain, there is a difference between the pronouns «vosotros/ustedes,» but not so in America, where only «ustedes» is used.
Another example is «voseo»: in Rioplatense Spanish (Argentina, Uruguay), it belongs to the educated norm, and we find it in advertising; however, in other places, it either does not exist (Cuba, Mexico, Spain), or it acquires a different status (Central America, Colombia, Chile).
Geographic Differences
Geographic varieties lead many speakers to wonder: is there a «better» Spanish than another? More correct, or closer to an ideal Spanish? A quick or enthusiastic answer does not always imply truth, as there is no Spanish better than the rest from a territorial point of view.
To reflect on whether there is an ideal Spanish according to its geographic or dialectal variety, two parameters can be established: the beliefs of the speakers, on the one hand, and what the experts say (prescriptivism), as manifested by the institutional stance represented by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and the Association of Spanish Language Academies (ASALE).
«The Best Spanish,» According to Institutional Stance
The academic position has evolved over time. The first works of the Royal Spanish Academy (Dictionary of Authorities from 1726-1739, Spanish Orthography of 1741, and the Grammar of the Castilian Language of 1771) showed a concentric view of Spanish, which identified the Spanish of northern Castile as almost exclusively normative. However, it must be recognized that, for the time, they offered an open perspective by including typical voices from other areas, among which Americanisms are found. Although the presence of these Americanisms was very scarce, from the late 19th century, the Academy aimed for Hispanic American lexicon to be reflected in the Dictionary, an attitude that intensifies since the 1925 edition (15th). Currently, both the RAE and ASALE affirm to maintain a pan-Hispanic language policy, emphasized since the publication of the 1999 Orthography, followed by works such as the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts and the New Grammar of the Spanish Language of 2009.
This institutional stance does not highlight some variants over others and insists on the concept of «pluricentrism»:
«The principle here is that the norm today has a polycentric character. The linguistic cohesion of Spanish is compatible with the fact that the social valuation of some grammatical constructions may not coincide in different linguistic areas.» Page XLII of the prologue of the Manual of the new grammar of the Spanish language edition.
Dominant Variants
Therefore, from the institutional point of view, the norm of Spanish is pluricentric: the Spanish of Spain is not more correct for distinguishing the sounds of the graphemes «s» and «z» than that of America.
The problem lies in determining how many prestigious variants or linguistic models there would be: Spanish from Spain, Spanish from Mexico and Central America, or Andean Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish, and Austral Spanish? Would it be better to specify by countries? Would all these variants have the same level of prestige?
If institutions do not pronounce on this issue, the speakers themselves may do so.
What Do Spanish Speakers Think?
There are several studies on the attitudes of Spanish speakers towards the varieties of Spanish, among which stands out, for its pan-Hispanic character, the work «Linguistic Attitudes of Spanish Speakers Towards the Spanish Language and Its Varieties» carried out in 20 countries between Hispanic America and Spain.
In this work, it is observed that, regardless of origin, great importance is attached to «speaking well,» that is, to linguistic correctness. Consequently, the variants considered more correct will be those of greater prestige.
In the research, when asking the respondents which variants of Spanish they considered the most correct, those of the respondents’ own country prevailed, along with others such as those from Spain or Colombia.
Thus, these beliefs do not imply linguistic uniformity since, just as they all agreed on the importance of «speaking well,» they also agreed on diversity.
Therefore, there is no better Spanish in relation to countries, neither institutionally nor by beliefs. Simply, there are speakers who use the language well and others who do not, but having synonyms in the lexicon like «alubias,» «caraotas,» «frijoles,» «habichuelas,» «judías,» or «porotos» contributes to diversity, and this creates the richness of Spanish.
Amalia Pedredo González
Associate Professor of Spanish Language, CEU San Pablo University
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