African Spanish

African Spanish ( _es. Español Africano) is a group of Spanish dialects spoken in Africa. There are more than 986,000 people of Africa who can speak Spanish. The only officially Spanish-speaking African country is Equatorial Guinea and the only officially Spanish-speaking African dependent area is Western Sahara, while other areas in Africa where it is an official language are Canary Islands, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, and Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla in north Moroccan coast. Spanish is mostly spoken as second language, but in some areas it has been a first language, like Canary Islands, Malabo in Equatorial Guinea, and Fez in Morocco. It has also been a first language among some upper classes in Morocco and Western Sahara and many of the upper, middle, and lower classes are Arabic-Spanish bilinguals.

Dialects of African Spanish

* Equatoguinean Spanish, a Spanish dialect spoken by Africans in Equatorial Guinea.
* Spanish spoken by Arabs, Berbers, and Moors in Northwest Africa
* Canarian Spanish

African Spanish Pronunciation of Arabs, Berbers, and Moors

Unlike Latin American Spanish, the Spanish pronunciation of Arabs, Berbers, and Moors follows the Castilian Spanish dialect or peninsular Spanish. But there are some differences from Castilian one.

* /g/, which is pronounced [γ] in Castilian, is pronounced [q] .
* /p/ is devoiced to [b] .
* /b/ is pronounced as itself.
* /v/ is pronounced as [b] .
* /ll/ and /ñ/ may be pronounced [lj] and [nj] .
* /g/ before /e/ and /i/ and /j/ may be pronounced [x] or [h] .

External links

* [http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/580.asp El Cano Institute: Spanish Language in Sub-Saharan Africa]