‘I don’t speak bad Spanish but perfect Andalusian.’ It is one of the now legendary phrases that the Sevillian comedian Manu Sánchez shared with the public and that he resonated with a society tired of feeling attacked by the way he spoke. “We have to correct the accent because it is a poor accent,” he complained while listing a string of personalities born in the south who have marked the history of the country in their different areas. Among them, Federico García Lorca, one of the greatest authors that Spain has “exported” and of whom there is evidence that he had a lisp, as pointed out by Ángel Velasco, a member of the Andalusian Language Association. Could someone laugh at him for the way he talks or call him lazy and uneducated?
The accent has been a source of ridicule since time immemorial, there is evidence of this in some texts dating back to the 18th century, but it is an issue that, today, is already annoying for its citizens, who have been enraged so much mockery and so they make it known. At least, this is what is reflected in the latest survey published by CENTRA, the Center for Andalusian Studies, on the ‘Andalusian Identity’, where it is concluded that two out of every three inhabitants of the region are angry that their way of speaking is criticized. .
You just have to look around social networks to see this fatigue and find out about countless similar cases. An English teacher originally from Cádiz who cannot apply for a job at a language academy in Madrid due to his resignation; a Sevillian mother also living in the country’s capital who is ‘advised’ by a teacher to “speak normally” at her house so that her daughter does not have problems with the language; another nurse who is little more than congratulated because “you can’t notice her accent”… But, is Andalusian understood, not understood or does not want to be understood? Should it be hidden in certain contexts, softened or made to disappear?
“Who hasn’t understood Chiquito de la Calzada or Joaquín from Betis? Andalusian is not that it is not understood, it is that it is not wanted to be understood,” says Velasco, who refers to the “lack of exposure” of Andalusian speech in the media (even on Andalusian Radio Television) as well as criticizing which, when they appear, is associated with characters of low socio-educational level. “Andalusian is spoken by the chacha, not the doctor; It is spoken by the thief (like the Sevillian Paco Tous in ‘La Casa de Papel’), not the teacher of the series (the Algeciras-born Álvaro Morte who speaks standard Spanish)” because “it is not considered professional,” he explains every time he points out that there is not only a rejection of the accent itself but of everything Andalusian.
The “contempt” for Andalusian speech is a “historical pathology” derived from the “idiomatic supremacism of the standard language, which defends that we should all speak as in Madrid,” the Sevillian writer and RAE correspondent Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar tells this newspaper, who He describes this discrimination as “chilling racism.” “Andalusian speech is a variant of the avant-garde of Spanish” and is bothered by the “fear of central Castilian that the evolution of the language will pass through Andalusian, which is what has happened in Latin America.” “It is an aberration that they say that we speak badly. “We don’t speak badly, we speak differently,” he insists, “it has been recognized for a long time that we speak better due to the variety of the lexicon, but better or worse is subjective,” he points out.
The rejection of Andalusian languages ??has a more or less clear explanation: the Andalusian who emigrated from his land was poor, with little or no training, accepted unskilled jobs and had few prospects for change, which generated a certain disapproval. That is, he was considered a country bumpkin, who spoke differently and, therefore, badly.
But what is the Andalusian accent? For Antonio Narbona, emeritus professor of Spanish Language at the University of Seville and corresponding member of the RAE, there is not a single Andalusian accent but rather “a set of speeches with notable internal differences”, something “plural and heterogeneous”. So what traits are part of it? Is lisp (a receding practice), seseo (spoken by 95% of Spanish speakers and approximately a third of Andalusians), the opening of the vowels typical of Granada or Córdoba, the relaxed ch (the pisha of the people of Cadiz)? Is there a single accent that all Andalusians recognize themselves in?
“Why are unfounded ‘criticisms’ that affect a few phonetic phenomena so irritating?” Narbona asks. “The reasons, known, have more to do with marginalization, poverty and illiteracy than with a supposed ‘linguistic inferiority complex’. We don’t even agree about who speaks (not where it is spoken) ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the ‘best’ or ‘worst’ Spanish. Of course, the contempt of urban people towards ‘provincial’ or ‘rural’ people cannot justify any kind of ‘supremacism’ or imposition. All languages, without exception, live only in their varieties, and the speakers of each of these tend to ‘sweep in’ “she determines.
Narbona explains that “there is an unwritten rule” by which it is determined that “the Castilian of the central-northern peninsula is the prestige Castilian,” so he understands that, depending on what contexts, there is a tendency toward “a neutral accent so that diction does not clash” by altering or attenuating “certain articulatory features of pronunciation” in favor of communicative effectiveness, as occurs in the media. “In language, adaptation to the environment occurs because it is convenient, and it is legitimate,” he emphasizes. And this ‘adaptation’ does not refer exclusively to pronunciation.
Santiago del Rey, also a professor at the Hispalense University, delves into this aspect, explaining that the way of speaking “not only the accent intervenes, but also the selection of the lexicon, the construction of the speech, the speed of elocution, the gestures and even the silences”, and refers to the fact that, “if he is an educated speaker, as the majority of Andalusians are today, he will adopt the linguistic behavior that best suits him to achieve his objectives.”
Del Rey makes a distinction between a formal and informal context, and considers that each person, consequently with their way of thinking and in the exercise of their freedom, “must adapt their speech to the different communicative situations” taking into account the “image that you want to project” and being aware of “the benefits/harms that a certain way of speaking can bring to another user depending on the context.”
What is undeniable is that the cliché of the illiterate Andalusian who does not know how to speak persists today, and the media, especially television, has its share of responsibility in this perception. The character of the ‘funny Andalusian’ continues to be projected through series, films or programs, which helps to perpetuate this image.
On the other hand, the fact that public radio and television tend to use neutral Spanish does not work in favor of eradicating these prejudices either. The Andalusian Language Association insists on the need for all Andalusian languages ??to be reflected in a medium like Canal Sur, although, as the writer Rodríguez Almodóvar points out, the channel “has never allowed or encouraged the use of Andalusian”, which which has caused “many professionals to hide it” so as not to “limit” their careers, he indicates. Del Rey, for his part, points out the impossibility of projecting in the media an Andalusian with which all citizens of the region feel identified.
The lack of variety is accepted, in most cases with resignation, by many professionals who are swallowed up by this spiral so as not to condition their careers, something that happens even in regional public television despite the fact that making room for different languages ??is a demand from the majority of the audience, according to surveys carried out by the Audiovisual Council of Andalusia. “I try to hide my accent so as not to be left out of the system,” says Rocío (not her real name), a professional in the media who assures that “I keep my way of speaking for my safe circle, although I feel like I am gradually giving up my identity.”
‘My accent is my DNA’, said the Huelva artist Manuel Carrasco in one of his songs where he claimed and defended his roots. Alejandro Sanz also did it at the time, who, without being Andalusian, considers himself from Cádiz because the Cádiz native is born wherever he wants. When the Madrid native was asked to relax his accent, denying his origins, he responded with a ‘Partial Heart’ that broke the mold and made it very clear that speeches are there to be practiced and, above all, to be respected. Like these artists, many others and from all fields.
They said “No” when they asked them to soften their tone and ended up championing, even without intending to, a cause: the defense of Andalusian. But… will the day come when these clichés are buried?
To the question: ‘When they criticize the Andalusian accent, does it provoke any feeling or emotion?’, 65.8% of the 1,200 respondents in this study carried out by CENTRA (Center for Andalusian Studies) say they feel anger; 14.7% are indifferent and 2.7% feel ashamed. To the question: ‘In general, when Andalusia is spoken of badly somewhere (in the media, TV programs…) what feeling or emotion does it produce in you?’, 62% get angry; 11.0% are indifferent and 6.3% are proud.
These are the data extracted from the study in which the Andalusian Cis analyzed, a few days before the celebration of Andalusia Day, the degree of identification of Andalusians with the symbols, the feeling of belonging to the territory and the perception of the image of community.
According to this study, the sample considers that when the community is spoken ill of in the media it is due to “ignorance” and “envy.” Similarly, 41% of respondents affirm that they “like” when they hear someone speaking with an Andalusian accent in a video or advertisement, a percentage that rises to 43.7% when someone presents a program with an Andalusian accent.
Likewise, 73.1% of respondents say they feel “very proud” of being Andalusian, and 17.2% “fairly proud.”
