Old Spanish Knife

[David R]

Originally Posted by kronckew

my early exposure to spanish was of course flavoured by the colonial version spoken south of the border, in my years in texas and california. also flavoured by liberal internal applications of the above mentioned tequilla (in margharitas). what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

surprise! when i got to valencia on a summer training cruise, they all lithp their S's! apparently, one of the royals way back had a lisp, so rather than embarrass him and lose their heads, everyone around him always lisped too. it became fashionable, and the custom perpetuates to this day, but never made it to the new world. so for a few days i was called by the local female wildlife as 'that crazy mexican'. the portugese also seems to have resisted the lisp.

I had two teachers of Spanish, about 20 years ago, one from Colombia and the other from Spain, so I can confirm your experience. The differences go beyond the lisp, and even effect the vocabulary. One explanation being that many of the colonists were actually Italian, another that archaic forms were preserved in the colonial patois (as with US Anglic) and the other that the colonists picked up sailors slang on the voyage.