Spanish is a big language. With around 512 million total speakers, it’s the fourth-most widely spoken language in the world, with around 471 million of these being native speakers. That puts Spanish as the second-biggest native language in the world, beating English by a whopping 100 million native speakers. Spanish dominates Latin America—it’s not the only language spoken in the region, but it’s certainly the most influential—and with its vast geographical reach come a slew of different dialects. One such dialect, a particularly noteworthy one, is Andalusian, native to southern Spain.
Andalusian Spanish hails from the autonomous region of Andalusia, which occupies the entirety of Spain’s southern coast. In addition to Andalusia and its 8 million or so residents, Andalusian Spanish is also spoken in the autonomous Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, both located in North Africa, as well as the overseas British territory of Gibraltar (as Llanito). Historically, Andalusian Spanish was stigmatized within greater Spain, but attitudes these days are reversing, and the Andalusian spoken in Seville, the region’s capital, is treated with great regard.
Nonetheless, the changing attitude toward Andalusian still doesn’t mean there are many professional Andalusian translation services available. Here at TranslationServices.com, we’re proud to offer translation services for the Andalusian-speaking community, however, and we’re happy to provide a free quote if you request one.
So, what is Andalusian Spanish like?
Andalusian Spanish, which is widely spoken throughout Andalusia and particularly Seville, differs in various ways from the conventional Castilian Spanish spoken throughout Spain as the official language. Not only is the pronunciation different, but Andalusian may use different vocabulary and grammatical structures as well. Andalusian has also had a major impact on the varieties of Spanish spoken in Latin America, considering the historical large-scale emigration from Andalusia to the New World.
One key difference between Andalusian and Castilian Spanish is in the pronouns—whereas Castilian uses vosotros as an informal second-person plural pronoun and ustedes as a formal pronoun, Andalusian uses ustedes as the only second-person plural pronoun. Interestingly, however, the informal–formal distinction remains in the verbal conjugation, meaning that Andalusian ustedes has two possible verbal conjugation patterns, depending on the formality. Sometimes, vocabulary in Andalusian Spanish also has a different grammatical gender from Castilian, and it has retained usage of the direct object marker lo for animate masculine objects, whereas Castilian speakers have largely shifted to le, traditionally the indirect object marker.
We’re proud to translate to and from Andalusian for all types of content.
As a dialect of Spanish, Andalusian shares much of its makeup with the rest of the Hispanic world, but important differences distinguish it from Castilian, which reigns over most of Spain as the lingua franca. That means that a Castilian translator isn’t sufficiently qualified to translate to and from Andalusian—you need a native speaker for true quality. Fortunately, our team is built from passionate Andalusian native speakers from all over the southern Spanish region.
Whether you want to translate to or from Andalusian, we’re here to help. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking to translate, because our team is well-rounded and diverse, with experience in all sorts of different areas. We can help organizations better cater to locals in Andalusia, and we can translate teaching materials into Andalusian so that local kids can learn in their native tongue. We can help you convert historical Andalusian documents, including poetry and literature, into English, helping share the culture and history of Andalusia with the outside world. And, of course, our literary translation services go both ways—we can also put your novel, poetry collection, app, game, or other media into Andalusia to not help you only enchant a new audience but also legitimize an important Spanish dialect.
Our team can’t wait to help you with your Andalusian translation project. Why not reach out today to get started?
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