Bolivian Spanish

Bolivian Spanish
Español boliviano
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲol βoliˈβjano]
Native to	Bolivia
Native speakers	4.1 million (2014)[1] 4.5 million in Bolivia (2014)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Western Ibero-Romance West Iberian Castilian Spanish Bolivian Spanish
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Recognised minority language in	Brazil
Regulated by	Academia Boliviana de la Lengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa[2]
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
IETF	es-BO
Bolivia
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Bolivian Spanish (or Castilian) is the variety of Spanish spoken by the majority of the population in Bolivia, either as a mother tongue or as a second language. Within the Spanish of Bolivia there are different regional varieties. In the border areas, Bolivia shares dialectal features with the neighboring countries.

Throughout Bolivia the preservation of phonemic contrast between /ʝ/ and the lateral /ʎ/ (i.e. the absence of yeísmo) is the norm.^[3][4] Aspiration of syllable-final /s/ is frequent in the lowlands, while in the highlands the sibilant /s/ tends to be preserved, realized either as a laminal or, frequently, an apical [s].^[4][5] In highland dialects, the "trill" phoneme (orthographic ⟨rr⟩ or word-initial ⟨r⟩) is often assibilated, realized as a voiced apicoalveolar fricative,^[5][6] or alveolar approximant, which pronunciation is similar to the sound of ⟨r⟩ ([ɹ]) in English. In highland Bolivian Spanish there is "intense reduction" of unstressed vowels in contact with /s/, often resulting in syllables with /s/ as their nucleus, e.g. pues ("well,...") pronounced [ps].^[4][7]