From what I’ve heard, it’s an “accentless” Spanish that is used in Latin American voicing/dubbing for movies, TV series and video games, with the purpose being to derive maximum enjoyment out of every country in Latin America without catering to a specific country. However, I don’t quite understand everything.
I always hear people on the internet say “Everyone has an accent” in response to someone who claims to have no accent. So how can Neutral Spanish just not have any sort of accent?
If it’s an artificially created accent that voice actors have to learn, wouldn’t that make it difficult to get immersed into the media you’re watching, since it’s not a natural accent anyone speaks with in real life?
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>If it’s an artificially created accent that voice actors have to learn, wouldn’t that make it difficult to get immersed into the media you’re watching, since it’s not a natural accent anyone speaks with in real life?
Not really. I mean, the BBC had a very similar policy for decades, forcing almost all their announcers to use an accent called Received Pronunciation, though that’s no longer required. It was and to a very large extent still is considered the standard for English pronunciation, and even though almost nobody in the UK naturally spoke that way, a great many could use it if required.
I can’t say for spanish, but I bet it’s similar to brazilian portuguese. In the 1940s intellectuals got together and decided that only the accent of Rio de Janeiro (the capital at the time) would be spoken in the theater, cinema and televison, so to this day unless the art piece is depicting specifically people from other regions the actors talk with a clean and bland Rio de Janeiro accent where they drop the exaggerated pronunciations of some vocals and most of the slangs.
For European Spaniards, “neutral Spanish” sounds like American Spanish. It just doesn’t have the local peculiarities of, say, Argentinian Spanish or Mexican Spanish.
Checking out Wikipedia, it seems that “neutral Spanish” is based on Mexican Spanish, minus the slang and other regional characteristics. However, calling this “neutral” is entirely subjective. It’s also a “comercial” variety of the language, designed to avoid making different dubbings for every Spanish-speaking country. It is not supported by any community or language institute.
It’s “neutral” in the sense that, say, someone from Kansas has a “neutral” English accent. It’s not British, New Yorker, Boston, Southern, etc., but it’s clearly identifiable and generally understandable and inoffensive to most people that hear it.
A bit of context – the Spanish spoken in Latin America was based on Castilian/Castellano – originating from Castile, Spain. There are several other dialects/languages spoken in Spain which include but are not limited to : Euskara (Basque language formally known was vasco, vasquence), Catalán (which is closer to French than Castilian), Galician/Gallego (much closer to Portuguese than Castilian). There are more, but these are good examples to just show unintelligible these languages can be to Spanish speakers within Spain whom might not understand all the different regional dialects/languages, but almost all can at least understand Castilian.
For the most part, Mexican Spanish (read: highbrow Mexico City and not working class Mexico) has become more or less the baseline neutral accent for most Latin American media. There are instances where local networks will dub over with a more local dialect (Argentina); however, consider British Received Pronunciation or Cosmopolitan (read: Parisian) French. While not everyone may speak that way, all anglophones understand RP and all francophones can understand Parisian French. This did not happen over night – it took centuries of colonialism, state sponsored educational campaigns to get here along with with the advent of radios, television and now the internet.
The phrase the “King’s English” refers to a time where what is now England was inhabited by several different ethnic groups that all spoke various different languages. Modern English sounds nothing like early or Middle English. RP is supposed to tie all the inhabitants of the UK together. Also consider that modern “Italian” didn’t exist up until the unification of the Italian states a century ago. Regional dialects still exist, but for the purpose of reaching all the masses, one dialect is used to communicate to all. Mandarin is also “fake dialect”, which to put it simply, it is the amalgamation of several regional dialects/languages within China to create a new language for the purpose of governing all those people.
Think of it as a combination that isn’t anyone’s accent while being understandable to everyone.
For example, think of something marketed at British and American English speakers. You might use the British “trousers” instead of the American “pants” as “pants” refers to undergarments to a UK audience and an American one will understand “trousers”
But, you might also use the American “cookie” over the British “biscuit” because Americans use biscuit for something else and the British audience will understand “cookie”
The accent you are using isn’t British, or American, but easily understood by both.
Think about news anchors in the states. They use neutral American English meaning they try not to sound like they’re from the south or new england or California or wherever. Just kinda in between with little regional influence.
Same with neutral Spanish. Certain areas can develop local accents or slangs that emphasize where the speaker is from so they try to minimize it
>So how can Neutral Spanish just not have any sort of accent?
The thing with “neutral Spanish” is that there isn’t such thing as a “neutral accent”. It’s what’s called “chilango” (the accent of people from Mexico City).
People from the capitals usually have a more “clear” accent in most countries (Bogota or Lima for example), but Mexico City is a special case because it’s the most populated city in North America (and the second largest in the American continent) and it’s closer to the US where most movies are made, so this idea of Central Mexican accents being “neutral” became popular.
It doesn’t make any sense because, again, everyone has an accent and it’s pretty clear when a Mexican is talking, but people have weird ideas all the time.
>If it’s an artificially created accent that voice actors have to learn, wouldn’t that make it difficult to get immersed into the media you’re watching, since it’s not a natural accent anyone speaks with in real life?
The idea is to make syllables as easy to understand as possible. Spanish isn’t like English so you can pronounce things syllable by syllable and still get what the other person is saying. Caribbeans usually pronounce the “s” as an “h”, Argentinians and Uruguayans usually pronounce the “y/ll” as “sh” and the slangs from other countries can be impossible to understand for non-natives. There’s some controversy regarding “neutral dubs” because some words sound too silly and people feel “mexicanismos” (mexican slangs) are being pushed over the rest of the region (like when they say coger for sex instead of coger for “to grab/pick” or “papalote” instead of cometa for a kite).
Mexican here ;I’ll try to explain as good as I get it:
They are at least 4 spanish accents
-Spaniard Spanish (Castellano)
-Mexican Spanish
-Caribbean Spanish
-South American Spanish
Then, depending on the region/country they are some accents that are more distinguish than others:
Cuba and Puerto Rico have a thicker caribbean accent than Panama or Costa Rica. Same happens with Argentina and Bolivia’s accent.
As a Mexican I found that Colombia, Chile, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela and Ecuador to have a more “Neutral” Spanish, this is a thinner accent and a relaxed lexicon.
It’s like the way the rest of the world accepts that most television has a sort of standarised American accent.
Yes, that IS an accent, and ‘standard Spanish’ is no exception. It’s also a fairly universally understandable one (which is the point) and people from rural Nicaragua, who have vowels that to my ear, all blend into the consonants in some sort of overcooked soup that is maybe comprehensible if I have subtitles under it; these people can also make out the standardised dialect.
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