Page 316 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

314 CONTEXTS Language
Language

Spanish is the national and official language of Panama and the first
language of more than two million of the population. A recorded thirteen
other first languages are spoken across the country, including English, which
is used by many black Afro-Antilleans (see p.44) – though outside Panama
City and the touristy areas of Bocas del Toro and Boquete, it’s not widely
spoken. Learning at least the basics of Spanish will make your travels
considerably easier and reap countless rewards in terms of reception and
understanding of people and places.

Pronunciation and word stress
In Spanish, each word is pronounced as written according to the following guide:

A somewhere between the “A” sound of “back” and LL sounds like an English Y; tortilla is pronounced
that of “father” “torTIya”.
E as in “get” N is as in English, unless there is a “~” over it, when it
I as in “police” becomes like the N in “onion”; mañana is pronounced
O as in “hot” “maNYAna”.
U as in “rule” QU is pronounced like an English “K” as in “kick”.
C is soft before E and I, otherwise hard; cerca is R is rolled, RR doubly so.
pronounced “SERka”. V sounds like a cross between B and V, vino almost
G works the same way – a guttural “H” sound (like becoming “beano”.
the “ch” in “loch”) before E or I, a hard G elsewhere; X is a soft “SH”, so that Xela becomes “SHEla”; between
gigante is pronounced “HiGANte”. vowels it has an “H” sound – México is pronounced
H is always silent. “ME-hi-ko”.
J is the same sound as a guttural “G”; jamón is Z is the same as a soft C; cerveza is pronounced
pronounced “ham ON”. “serVEsa”.
Getting the word stress right makes a big difference: PAgo means “I pay”,
paGÓ she/he paid. The rule is simple: if a word ends in a vowel, “s” or “n”, the stress is
on the syllable before last. If it ends in any other consonant, the stress is on the last
syllable. Exceptions are marked with an accent on the vowel of the stressed syllable.
Latin American Spanish lacks the lisp common in Spain, where cerveza is often
pronounced “therVEtha”. One feature of the speech of many Panamanians which
makes understanding more difficult is the aspiration of the “S” sound at the end of a
syllable or word, such that the word cascada is pronounced more like “cahcada”. Also,
words containing a “ch” such as muchacho may sound more like “mushasho”. Generally
the Spanish of indigenous Panamanians is easiest to understand.

Formal and informal address
For English-speakers one of the most difficult things to get to grips with is the
distinction between formal and informal address. Generally speaking, the third-
person usted indicates respect and is used in business, for people you don’t know
and for those older than you. Second-person tú is for children, friends and
contemporaries in less formal settings. (Remember also that in Latin America
the second-person plural – vosotros – is never used, so “you” plural will always
be ustedes.)

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