Venezuelan Spanish (castellano venezolano or español venezolano) refers to the Spanish spoken in Venezuela. Spanish was introduced in Venezuela by colonists. Most of them were from Galicia, Basque Country, Andalusia, or the Canary Islands. The last has been the most fundamental influence on modern Venezuelan Spanish, and Canarian and Venezuelan accents may even be indistinguishable to other Spanish-speakers. Italian and Portuguese immigrants from the late 19th and the early 20th century have also had an influence; they influenced vocabulary and its accent, given its slight sing-songy intonation, like Rioplatense Spanish. German settlers also left an influence when Venezuela was contracted as a concession by the King of Spain to the German Welser banking family (Klein-Venedig, 1528–1546). The Spaniards additionally brought African slaves, which is the origin of expressions such as chévere ("excellent"), which comes from Yoruba ché egberi. Other non-Romance words came from indigenous languages, such as guayoyo (a type of coffee) and caraota (black bean).

Features

Regional variations

There are several subdialects of Venezuelan Spanish: The Venezuelan dialect influences of Patois of Trinidad and Papiamento, the language spoken and taught most in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

Lexical influences

Native influence

Venezuelan Spanish, like that of the rest of Spanish America and Castilian in general, has taken many words from indigenous languages. Some examples:

Common words

Sources