When we are studying a new tongue, the first perception we have is that the way it was taught to us is the way that it's spoken. It's interesting to see that there are 32 Departments (Departments is the equalvalent to States) and Five Regions; within those five regions there are eleven main dialects and within those main dialects there are hundreds of slangs that are found in the thousands of towns and the cities. With all this linguistic diversity, what are the best steps to take to understand the Spanish dialects of Colombia?, The answer is really simple; inform yourself first about it because if you are traveling and you hear an expression you are not used to, perhaps you will think that you are been insulted when in reality you are been greeted with local slang.
There are eleven main dialects in Colombia, 2.5 dialects per region; these dialects are The Paisa, The Rolo, The Central Colombian Spanish, The Pastuso, The Costonian Spanish or Costeñol, The Llanero Spanish, The Choquano Spanish, The Island Patois, The Vallecaucano Spanish, The Santanderean Spanish and The Opita. These eleven dialects expose how differently Spanish is spoken. A brief example- the Coast Spanish is veryy different from the Rolo; you will see the difference with the diction because in the Rolo Dialect it's spoken with a chant and the Coast Dialect is spoken really fast, putting accents in almost every word. These differences will be explained later one by one.
Beyond the key difference I mentioned, you will notice other differences such as the insertions of polite words in the sentences, the diminutive , the insertions & suppression of personal pronouns, the slang words, intra-family common expressions and the misplacement of prepositions in the daily speech. Those are some key issues that you will need to follow to know what kind of Colombian Spanish is been spoken. Due to the influence of the media on the thoughts of the masses there is a belief that there is one accent in Colombia, the accent that is shown in the soap operas. Those soap operas deny the dialect diversity of the country. giving the wrong idea about the way people speak. I hypothesized that this what I call "Colombian Television Accent" is influenced by the Central Region of Colombia where most of the national television is produced, and because the television is produced in the central region, by default the production will be influenced by the regional culture and speech.
Before we move on to the individual articles we are going to make a small semantic and morphologic recap about the Colombian Spanish; the plural second person is ustedes and vosotros, The occlusive consonants aren’t used too much in the north coast as the informal speech is used more often than in the highlands, where people use a more polite pattern of speech. In the highlands diminutives are used more often than in the north coast. These few examples give a perspective about the wide variety of dialects that are spoken in Colombia. We are going to study more about the dialects in each of the individual articles.