Language
Most Ecuadorians speak Spanish, though many speak Amerindian languages such as Kichwa, the Ecuadorian dialect of Quechua. Other Amerindian languages spoken in Ecuador include Awapit (spoken by the Awá), A'ingae (spoken by the Cofan), Shuar Chicham (spoken by the Shuar), Achuar-Shiwiar (spoken by the Achuar and the Shiwiar), Cha'palaachi (spoken by the Chachi), Tsa'fiki (spoken by the Tsáchila), Paicoca (spoken by the Siona and Secoya), and Wao Tededeo (spoken by the Waorani).
Though most features of Ecuadorian Spanish are those universal to the Spanish-speaking world, there are several idiosyncrasies.
Costeños tend to speak more quickly and louder than serranos, and most of them do so in a very informal way. A common term costeños call one another is mijo, a contraction of the phrase mi hijo ("my son"). Several such terms are derived in consequence of their rapid speech, and they also employ intricate linguistic humor and jokes that are difficult to translate or even understand in the other regions. Furthermore, each province has a different variety of accent, with different specific terms.
Serranos usually speak softly, and very respectfully. They are traditionally seen as more conservative, and use a number of Kichwa-derived terms in their everyday speech, which is often puzzling to other regions. A widely known example is the word guagua, which means "child" in Kichwa. Their speech is influenced by their Incan Amerindian roots, and can be seen as a variant of other Andean accents.
Whistling, yelling, or yawning to get someone's attention is considered rude, yet is practiced informally.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Ecuador
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Strange goings on! Jones did it slowly, deliberately, in the bathroom, with a knife, at midnight. What he did was butter a piece of toast. We are too familiar with the language of action to notice at first an anomaly: the ‘it’ of ‘Jones did it slowly, deliberately,...’ seems to refer to some entity, presumably an action, that is then characterized in a number of ways.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)
“Now stamp the Lord’s Prayer on a grain of rice,
A Bible-leaved of all the written woods
Strip to this tree: a rocking alphabet,
Genesis in the root, the scarecrow word,
And one light’s language in the book of trees.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)