A mystery conjugation in Uruguay
I have an American friend who has lived in Uruguay for many years. She is home visiting family now, so we had a chance to chat about my favorite topic "Spanish".
She was explaining a slang form of "vosotros" to me. She told me she has difficulty even remembering how to conjugate in ustedes form because it is not used. This was confusing to me. She also described Uruguay as having a strong Portuguese influence on their language because of their proximity to Brasil. Has anyone else ever heard of this?
Is this the same "vos" as described by Benz or is this something different entirely?
4 Answers
Hola Nicole:
I found this article that talks about the instance of tuteo near the border with Brazil as well as the variants in language that occurs due to mixing of languages near the border
Tuteo vs Voseo
En la región fronteriza con Brasil del departamento de Rocha y partes del departamento de Maldonado, se habla una variante del español rioplatense que prescinde del voseo en favor del tuteo, particularidad que se debe supuestamente al origen castellano de su población originaria aunque siendo la variedad de portugués del sur de Brasil, una variedad arcaica que utiliza el tuteo (y prescinde del voseo que es la regla en el portugués moderno) se puede asumir también la influencia fronteriza.
Portuguese Dialects of Uruguay
Existe en la región norte de Uruguay una serie de variantes del portugués que reciben el nombre científico de "Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay".[40] Su más conocida variante es llamada Portuñol riverense (ninguna relación con el portuñol, la simple mezcla de portugués y español).[41] Es hablado en la frontera entre Uruguay y Brasil, y más específicamente en la zona de las ciudades hermanas de Rivera (Uruguay) y Sant'Ana do Livramento (Brasil), como también en el Chuy y a lo largo de la frontera. Utilizan tal lengua solamente los ciudadanos uruguayos y brasileños.
It may be that she is referring to the Portuguese vocês which corresponds to the Spanish vosotros, but this is just a guess on my part based on the information presented above.
Dunno about the conjugation (maybe it's the voseo, I think Uruguay uses it too), but I remember reading once about Portuñol, could that be what you're talking about?
Vosotros is an informal plural program, like an informal version of ustedes. You would use it for a group of people whom you would address individually as tú. It is not the same thing as vos. Vos is an informal second person singular pronoun, and an alternate for tú. Its usage which varies by region. Vosotros, as I am familiar with it, does not necessarily replace ustedes. However, there are places, like Spain, where tú is much more common than usted, and so, by extension, vosotros is much more common than ustedes. I don't know if Uruguay is one of those places, but, from what your friend said, I gather that it may be.
Hola a todos!! I have just returned to Australia from Argentina and I went to Uruguay for the day and even know it was just a day I found their spanish the same as in Argentina. The usual things like "ll" (sha sound), vos instead of tu, sos instead of eres!!
