Voseo

Not to be confused with vosotros, the second person plural familiar form for Spanish conjugations.

Voseo (Spanish pronunciation: [boˈseo]) is the use of the second person singular pronoun vos and/or its conjugational verb forms in many dialects of Spanish. In dialects that have it, it is used either instead of tú, or alongside it.

Vos is used extensively as the primary form of the second person singular in Rioplatense Spanish for Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia (east) , and in Paraguayan Spanish, for Paraguay.

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica also exhibit an extensive use of the vos pronoun through the Central American Spanish dialect. The pronoun is also widely used in Bolivia (east and north), though the media use tú more.

Vos had traditionally not been used in formal writing except in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. This gradually changed in Central America, where even the most prestigious media networks and press began to use the pronoun vos, reflecting the informal address in Spanish as opposed to the formal address of usted. This is particularly true in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and to a similar but lesser extent in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala; all of which speak in the Central American Spanish dialect. Nowadays it is very common to see billboards and other advertising media using voseo. In the dialect of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (known as Rioplatense Spanish), vos is also the standard form for use in television media.

Vos is present in other countries as a regionalism, for instance in the Maracucho Spanish of Zulia State, Venezuela (see Venezuelan Spanish), in the Azuero peninsula of Panama, in various departments in Colombia, and in parts of Ecuador (Sierra down to Esmeraldas). In Peru, voseo is present in some Andean regions and Cajamarca, but the younger generations have ceased to use it. It is also present in the Ladino dialect of Spanish, spoken by Sephardic Jews throughout Israel, Turkey, the Balkans, Morocco, Latin America and the United States.

Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugation of vos with tú as the subject pronoun (verbal voseo), as in the case of Chilean Spanish where this form coexist ordinary voseo.

History

Originally a second-person plural, Vos came to be used as a more polite second-person singular pronoun to be used among one's familiar friends. The following extract from a late 18th-century textbook is illustrative of usage at the time:

We seldom make use in Spanish of the second Person Singular or Plural, but when through a great familiarity among friends, or speaking to God, or a wife and husband to themselves, or a father and mother to their children, or to servants.

Examples.

O Dios, sois vos mi Padre verdadéro, O God, thou art my true Father; Tu eres un buen amígo, Thou art a good friend.

—Raymundo del Pueyo, A New Spanish Grammar, or the Elements of the Spanish Language

The standard formal way to address a person one was not on familiar terms with was to address such a person as vuestra merced ("your grace" originally abbreviated as v.m.) in the singular and vuestras mercedes in the plural. Because of the literal meaning of these forms, they were accompanied by a third-person verb form. Other formal forms of address included vuestra excelencia ("your excellence" abbreviated as ussencia) and vuestra señoria ("your lordship/ladyship" abbreviated as ussia). Today, both vos and tú are considered to be informal pronouns, with vos being somewhat synonymous with tú in regions where both are used. This was the situation when Castilian was brought to the Río de la Plata area (around Buenos Aires and Montevideo) and to Chile.

In time, vos lost currency in Spain but survived in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia (east), Uruguay, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and many other countries and regions in Latin America, while Vuestra merced evolved into usted (vuestra merced > usarced > usted, in fact, "usted" is still abbreviated as either Vd or Ud). Note that the term vosotros is a combined form of vos otros (meaning literally "you others"), while the term nosotros comes from nos otros ("us others"); otros was added to avoid confusion.

In the first half of the 19th century Chile the use of vos was equally strong in Chile than in Argentina. The current limitation of the use of vos in Chile is attributed to a campaign to erradicate it by the Chilean education system. The campaign was initiated by Andrés Bello who considered the use of vos a manifestation of lack of education.

Usage

Vos as a replacement for other forms of tú

The voseo pronoun is commonly used in Central America's Nicaragua. The signage reads: Nicaragua communicates with you, with vos replacing the tú pronoun.

The independent disjunctive pronoun ti is also replaced by vos. That is, vos is both nominative and the form to use after prepositions. Therefore para ti "for you" becomes para vos, etc.

The preposition-pronoun compound contigo "with you" becomes con vos.
The direct and indirect object form te remains the same, unlike in the case of vosotros, where it becomes os.

Nominative	Oblique			Reflexive
subject	direct object	indirect object	prepositional object	con + form	plain
vos	te	te	vos	con vos	te
usted	lo / la	le	usted	con usted	se
tú	te	te	ti	contigo	te
vosotros	os	os	vosotros	con vosotros	os

The possessive pronouns of vos also coincide with tú <tu(s), tuyo(s), tuya(s)> rather than with vosotros <vuestro(s), vuestra(s)>.

Conjugation with vos

All modern voseo declensions derive from Old Spanish second person plural -ades, -edes, -ides, and -odes (as in sodes, 'you are'). The 14th and 15th centuries saw an evolution of these declensions, with -ades originally giving -ais, -edes giving -es or -is, -ides giving -is, and -odes giving -ois. Soon analogous forms -as and -eis appeared. Hence the variety of forms the contemporary American voseo adopts, some varieties featuring a generalized monophthong (most of them), some a generalized diphthong (e.g. Venezuela), and some combining monophthongs and diphthongs, depending on the declension (e.g. Chile). In the most general, monophthongized, conjugation paradigm, a difference between voseo forms and respective tuteo forms is visible exclusively in the Present Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive, and, most of the time, in the Preterite. Below is a comparison table of the conjugation of several verbs for tú and for vos, and next to them the one for vosotros, the informal second person plural currently used only in Spain. The accented forms (vos and vosotros) and the infinitives are stressed on the last syllable; the tú forms are stressed on the penultimate one. Note the absence of diphthongization in the roots of poder and venir.

Verb	Tú 2. Sg.	Vos General	Tú / Vos Chile1,2	Vos Southeastern Cuba and Northeastern Colombia1	Vos Venezuela3 Panama4	Vosotros 2. Pl. in Spain	Vos Ladino	Ustedes 2. Pl. in America	Meaning
ser	eres	sos	erí(s) / soi	soi(s)	sois		sosh	son	you are
hablar	hablas	hablás	hablái(s)		habláis		favlásh	hablan	you speak
recordar	recuerdas	recordás	recordái(s)		recordáis		rekordásh	recuerdan	you remember
comer	comes	comés	comí(s)	coméi(s)	coméis		komésh	comen	you eat
poder	puedes	podés	podí(s)	podéi(s)	podéis		podésh	pueden	you can / may
vivir	vives	vivís		viví(s)	vivís		bivísh	viven	you live
venir	vienes	venís		vení(s)	venís		benísh	vienen	you come
1 Because of the general aspiration of the letter s, it is usually not pronounced, except in highly educated people. 2 In Colombia, the rest of the country that uses vos follows the General Conjugation. 3 In the state of Zulia 4 in Azuero

General conjugation is the one that is most widely accepted and used in various countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, parts of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, as well as Central American countries.

Some Uruguayan speakers combine the pronoun tú with the vos conjugation (for example, tú sabés). Conversely, speakers in some other places where both tú and vos are used combine vos with the tú conjugation (for example, vos sabes). This is a frequent occurrence in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero.

The verb forms employed with vos are also different in Chilean Spanish:
Chileans with voseo delete the final -s from the final diphthong -áis (and -ois): (vos/tú soi/erís; vos/tú estái).
In the case of the ending -ís (such as in comís, podís, vivís, erís, venís), the final -s is not totally dropped. Rather, in most cases, especially before a consonant, an aspiration similar to the h sound in English is still audible.

Both Chilean Spanish and Venezuelan Maracucho Spanish are notable in that they preserve the diphthongized plural verb forms in all tenses, as still used with vosotros in Spain. The same happens in the Azuero peninsula of Panama.

In Ladino, the -áis, -éis, -ís, & -ois endings are pronounced /aʃ/, /eʃ/, /iʃ/, & /oʃ/.

In Chile, it is much more usual to use tú + vos verb conjugation (tú sabís). The use of pronominal vos (vos sabís) is reserved for very informal situations and may even be considered vulgar in some cases.

Present Indicative

1. General conjugation

The final -R of the infinitive is replaced by an -S, and an acute accent is added to the final vowel (i.e. the one preceding the final -s) to keep the stress.

2. Chilean

• the -ar ending of the infinitive is replaced by -ái
• both -er and -ir are replaced by -ís, which sounds more like -íh.

3. Venezuelan (Zulian)

Practically the same ending as modern Spanish vosotros, yet with the final -S being aspirated so that

-áis, -éis, -ís sound like -áih, -éih, -íh (phonetically resembling Chilean).

VOSEO

Infinitive	Present Indicative
	General	Venezuelan1	Chilean
oir	oís
venir	venís
decir	decís
dormir	dormís
sentir	sentís
escribir	escribís
concluir	concluís
poder	podés	podéis	podís
querer	querés	queréis	querís
mover	movés	movéis	movís
saber	sabés	sabéis	sabís
pensar	pensás	pensáis	pensái
contar	contás	contáis	contái
jugar	jugás	jugáis	jugái
errar	errás	erráis	errái
ser	sos	sois	soi / erís
ir	vas	vais	vai
haber	has		hai
1 in Zulia; identical ending to modern vosotros

Unlike tú, which has many irregular forms, the only voseo verbs that are conjugated irregularly in the indicative present are ser, ir and haber. However, haber is seldom used in the indicative present since there's a strong tendency to use simple past instead of the combination of „haber + past participle“.

Affirmative imperative

Vos also differs in its affirmative imperative conjugation from both tú and vosotros. Specifically, the vos imperative is formed by dropping the final -r from the infinitive, but keeping the stress on the last syllable. The only verb that is irregular in this regard is ir; its vos imperative is not used, with andá *(the vos imperative of andar) being generally used instead.

Verb	Meaning	Tú	Vos	Vosotros
ser	"to be"	sé	sé	sed
estar	"to be"	está / estate	está / estate	estad
ir	"to go"	ve	id / ite *(andá / andate)	id
hablar	"to speak"	habla	hablá	hablad
callar	"to become silent"	calla	callá	callad
soltar	"to release/let go"	suelta	soltá	soltad
comer	"to eat"	come	comé	comed
mover	"to move"	mueve	mové	moved
venir	"to come"	ven	vení	venid
poner	"to put"	pon	poné	poned
salir	"to leave"	sal	salí	salid
tener	"to have"	ten	tené	tened
decir	"to say"	di	decí	decid
pedir	"to ask/order"	pide	pedí	pedid

Again, the conjugation tú has far more irregularities, whereas vos has only one irregular verb in the affirmative imperative.

In Chile, the general vos conjugation is not used in the affirmative imperative.

Subjunctive

Everywhere voseo is used, it is applied in the subjunctive, with the exception of Río de la Plata region, where the tú-conjugation is more common. For example, in Central America it is no mintás and in Chile is no mintái; however in Río de la Plata it is no mientas, just like in Spain or México. Real Academia Española models its voseo conjugation tables with Río de la Plata usage and therefore omits the subjunctive voseo. In this region, the vos-form in the subjunctive has not completely disappeared. It is still used to show emphasis or emotion.

Central America1 Bolivia	Río de la Plata region	Chile	Venezuela (Zulia) Panama (Azuero)	meaning
No quiero que mintás.	No quiero que mientas.	No quiero que mintái.	No quiero que mintáis.	I don't want you to lie.
No temás.	No temas.	No temái	No temáis.	Do not fear.
Que durmás bien	Que duermas bien.	Que durmái bien	Que durmáis bien.	Sleep well.
No te preocupés.	No te preocupes.	No te preocupís.	No te preocupéis.	Don't worry.
1including areas in Colombia with voseo, e.g. the Paisa Region.

Verbal Voseo & Pronominal Voseo

• Verbal voseo refers to the use of the verb conjugation of vos regardless of which pronoun is used.

Verbal voseo with a pronoun other than vos is widespread in Chile, in which case one would use the pronoun tú and the verb conjugation of vos at the same time. E.g.: „tú venís“, „tú escribís“, „tú podís“, „tú sabís“, „tú vai“, „tú estái“.

There are cases of a similar sort of verbal voseo in Uruguay where one would say for example „tú podés“, „tú sabés“, „tú hablás“.

• Pronominal voseo is the use of the pronoun vos regardless of verb conjugation.

Geographical distribution

Countries that feature voseo:

  spoken and written form

  primarily when spoken, but not in written form

  its use coexists when spoken with tuteo

  Spanish-speaking, voseo non-existent

Countries where voseo is predominant

Voseo used on a billboard in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The sign reads, "Do you want to change? Come to Claro."

Voseo on El Salvador Billboard "Order your cold one here!"

In South America

1. Argentina* (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is practically not used)
2. Paraguay* (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is practically not used)
3. Uruguay* (both pronoun+verb and pronoun "tú" + verb conjugated in the "vos" form.)

In Central America

1. Costa Rica (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is practically not used; usted is used when addressing unknown or acquaintance people, although in some areas of the country this treatment is extend to everyone)
2. Nicaragua (both pronominal and verbal voseo, the pronoun tú is seldom used)

* In Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, voseo is widespread used in most of the written language. In the rest of the countries, tú is common in formal language (media, correspondence, when addressing foreigners, etc.)

Countries where it is extensive, but not predominant

In South America

• Bolivia : in the Lowlands of Eastern Bolivia –with mestizo, Criollo and German descendants majority– (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and the Lowlands of La Paz) the voseo is used universally; while in the Highlands of Western Bolivia –with indigenous peoples majority– (Highlands of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba) tú is predominant but there still a strong use of the voseo, specially in verb forms.
• Chile : verbal voseo is spreading north- and southwards from the center, whereas the pronominal voseo is reserved only for very intimate situations or to offend someone. In addition, voseo in Chile is only used in informal situations; in every other situation, the normal tú or vos pronouns are used.

In Central America

• Honduras : a three-tiered system is used, that indicates the degree of respect or trust: usted, tú, vos. Usted expresses distance and respect; tú corresponds to an intermediate level, expressing familiarity, but not deep trust; vos remains the pronoun of maximum familiarity and solidarity, and also lack of respect.
• Guatemala : verbal voseo is totally spread in the country, but its use is rare in the upper economic class.
• El Salvador : a three-tiered system is used, that indicates the degree of respect or trust: usted, tú, vos. Usted expresses distance and respect; tú corresponds to an intermediate level, expressing familiarity, but not deep trust; vos remains the pronoun of maximum familiarity and solidarity, and also lack of respect.

Countries where 'voseo' occurs in some areas

In the following countries, voseo is used in certain areas:

• Colombia, in the departments
  • in the west (Pacific Coast)
    • Chocó
    • Valle del Cauca
    • Cauca
    • Nariño
  • in the center, primarily Paisa Region (Departments of Antioquia, Risaralda, Quindío, and Caldas).
  • in the (North) East
    • Norte de Santander - Ocaña Region
    • La Guajira
    • Cesar
• Ecuador in the Sierra, the center, and Esmeraldas
• Panama in the west along the border to Costa Rica and in the Azuero Peninsula.
• Venezuela in the northwest (primarily in Zulia State)
• Mexico, widely used in the countryside of the state of Chiapas, it is becoming rare in Yucatán, Tabasco and Quintana Roo. Mainly used by not enrolled-indigenous people.
• Peru, in some areas in the North and the South of the country. It is widely used in Arequipa.

Countries where vos is practically out of use

In the following countries, the use of vos has disappeared completely or survives only very marginally in daily speech

• Spain*
• Dominican Republic
• Puerto Rico
• Cuba**

* The pronoun can be he heard used in constituent parts of Castile, León and in Eastern Galicia; otherwise it is used only rhetorically or in old or liturgical writings.
#unused but interpreted as Usted.
**The use of the pronoun is vanishing and is now only heard of on the Eastern side of the country.

Attitudes

In some countries, the pronoun vos is used with family and friends (T-form), like tú in other varieties of Spanish, and contrasts with the respectful usted (V-form) which is used with strangers, elderly and people of higher socioeconomic status; appropriate usage varies by dialect. In Central America, vos can be used among those considered equals, while usted maintains its respectful usage. In Ladino, the pronoun usted is completely absent, so the use of vos with strangers and elders is the standard.

Voseo was long considered a reprehensible practice by prescriptivist grammarians (with the idea that only Castilian Spanish was good Spanish), but it is now regarded simply as a local variant.

See also

• Similar trends of personal pronouns in Portuguese
• Spanish dialects and varieties
• Spanish verbs
• T–V distinction#Romance languages

Sources

• Voseo Spanish Site dedicated to teaching Argentine Voseo usage
• (Spanish) Voseo at the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts (Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas). Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española) (2005).
• (Spanish) El voseo at Spanish Wikibooks.
• (Spanish) Norma Beatriz Carricaburo (2003). El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy - Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual.
• (Spanish) Hotta Hideo (2000). La estandarización y el regionalismo en el voseo del español argentino.
• (Spanish) Ángel Rosenblat (2000). El castellano en Venezuela.
• (Spanish) Luis Alberto Roca (2007). Breve historia del habla cruceña y su mestizaje.
• (Spanish) Antón Toursinov (2005). Formas pronominales de tratamiento en el español actual de Guatemala.
• (French) Le Voseo

Further reading

• Acevedo-Halvick, Ana. "Cortesía verbal (introducción)" Voces 1 (2006): 21-72.
• Almasov, Alexey. "'Vos' and 'Vosotros' as Formal Address in Modern Spanish." Hispania: A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese 57.2 (1974): 304-310.
• Alvar, Manuel. Manual de Dialectologia Hispanica: El Español de America. Barcelona : Editorial Ariel, 1996.
• Arrizabalaga, Carlos. "Noticias de la desaparicion del voseo en la costa norte del Peru." Linguistica Española Actual 23.2 (2001): 257-274.
• Baumel-Schreffler, Sandra. "The Voseo: Second Person Singular Pronouns in Guatemalan Speech." The Language Quarterly 33.1-2 (1995): 33-44.
• Benavides, Carlos. "La distribucion del voseo en Hispanoamerica." Hispania: A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese 86.3 (2003): 612-623.
• Blanco Botta, Ivonne. "El voseo en Cuba: Estudio sociolinguistico de una zona de la isla." Beitrage zur Romanischen Philologie 21.2 (1982): 291-304.
• Chart, Ira E. "The voseo and tuteo in America." Modern Language Forum 28.(1944): 17-24.
• Fontanella de Weinberg, Maria Beatriz. "La constitucion del paradigma pronominal de voseo." Thesaurus: Boletin del Instituto Caro y Cuervo 32.(1977): 227-241.
• King, Jeremy. "Societal Change and Language History in Cervantes' Entremeses: The Status of the Golden Age Vos." Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 29.1 (2009): 167-195.
• Lapesa, Rafael. "Las formas verbales de segunda persona y los origenes del 'voseo'." Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. 519-531. Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico por la Asociacion Internacional de Hispanistas, 1970.
• Lapesa, Rafael. Historia de la lengua española. Madrid : Gredos, 1981.
• Leon-Luporsi, Ana Emilia. Dinamica sociolinguistica e historica de 'vos' en el español peninsular. Diss. The University of Texas at Austin, 1994.
• Lipski, John. Latin American Spanish. New York : Longman, 1994.
• Ortiz, Martha D. "Voseo" in El Salvador. Diss. San Jose State University, 2000
• Pierris, Marta de. "El preludio del voseo en el español medieval." Romance Philology 31.(1977): 235-243.
• Pinkerton, Anne. "Observations on the Tú/Vos Option in Guatemalan Ladino Spanish." Hispania: A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese 69.3 (1986): 690-698.
• Primorac, Karen Johnson. "Tu, vos, and vuestra merced: Social and Stylistic Variation in Medieval Spanish." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 57.11 (1997): 4720-4721.
• Quilis, Antonio, and Matilde Graell Stanziola. "El voseo en Panama." Revista de Filologia Española 69.1-2 (1989): 173-178.
• Rey, Alberto. "Social Correlates of the Voseo of Managua, Nicaragua: Workplace, Street, and Party Domains." Hispanic Journal 18.1 (1997): 109-126.
• Rey, Alberto. "Social Correlates of the Voseo of Managua, Nicaragua: Workplace, Street, and Party Domains." Hispanic Journal 17.1 (1996): 113-127.
• Rey, Alberto. "Social Correlates of the Voseo of Managua: Family and Neighborhood Domains." Hispanic Journal 16.1 (1995): 39-53.
• Stevenson, Jeffrey Lee. "The Sociolinguistic Variables of Chilean Voseo." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 68.5 (2007): 1914-1915.
• Toursinov, Antón. "Stylistic variability of pronoun addresses in modern Spanish of Guatemala." Language and Literature 17(3). Tyumen State University (2002): 68-78
• Villegas, Francisco. "The Voseo in Costa Rican Spanish." Hispania: A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese 46.3 (1963): 612-615.
• Weeks, Patricia C.. El voseo en Chile: Factores historico-morfologicos que explican su aparicion y mantenimiento. Diss. State University of New York at Albany, 2005.