What started this research was when a fellow coworker complimented me on understanding a student who spoke in typical Andalusian fashion. Meaning the student spoke some fragmented sentence in Spanish, and by mere luck I was able to instantly understand and give the student an answer in English before the teacher had a chance to translate. Literally a miracle.
Now, I've heard many tales as to how the accent (really a dialect) came to be. The most believable tale is that the dialect developed more or less because of the constant influence from other countries. Andalusia has been inhabited by many different people from many different countries over the years (Romans, Moors, etc.) and all of the different languages kind of morphed with Spanish into the language I deal with daily today.
However, I choose to believe a different tale shared with me by one of my Mother's friends. With a bloodline coming directly from Andalusia, she was raised to believe that the dialect was created thanks to a former King. This ruler of Spain unfortunately had a lisp. The people, not wanting to offend the man who was in charge of their well being, adapted their "S's" to a "th" sound so that the King was not bearing his lisp problem alone. As time went on, the King eventually passed, but the "th" sound did not. Hence why it is still spoken today. As for the shortening of sentences, the same can be said in that the people of Andalusia did not want to make their King speak words with "S's" unnecessarily, so they in turn spoke in fragmented sentences. When the situation was unavoidable, they changed their "S's" to the "th" sound.
What this teaches us:
1. The children of Spain never have to go to "Speech Class." Lucky.
2. I will never be fully fluent in Andalusian Spanish.
3. I will also never be a good speller since I never know whether the word has an "s" or actually a "th"
3. I will probably come home with a lisp. "What's up guys!" = "Whath up guyth!"
Happy Friday!
P.S. Thank you Pamela for sharing your story :)
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