July 2000: Multi-locale Languages: Chinese, French, and Spanish

In July 2000, the SimulTrans Localization Seminar Series featured a panel of speakers who addressed the topic of languages which are used in multiple locations.

Catherine Dove graduated with a Pre-Doctorate Degree in trilingual (English-French and Spanish-French) translation from French Translation College ESIT (Ecole Supérieure d'Interprètes et de Traducteurs de Paris) in 1992. Before coming to the States, Catherine worked for one year as a translator at the French Foreign Affairs Ministry in Paris. Catherine moved to the United States as a full-time French In-House Translator for SimulTrans where she worked for almost four years before becoming a freelance translation and localization expert. She has extensive expertise in client-server applications, software in Windows and Unix environments, technical manuals, and technical chronicles.

Chinese people refer to the language as "Chinese", but it is pronounced "zhong wen", and written (¥¥) Zhong (¥ ) means middle kingdom, or English, and wen (¥) means writing. So zhong wen means middle writing in Chinese using English.

Chinese variants are spoken by one-third of the world's population. 1.2 billion people speak Chinese in China, 22 million in Taiwan, 5 or 6 million in Hong Kong, and 5 million in Macaw. Singapore also has a significant Chinese speaking population.

However, people in Taiwan do not speak the same language as those in Mainland China or in San Francisco. Why?

Language is a product of its past history and the source of its future. But it is also a working system of communication in the community where it is used. When creating translations, the target language for a specific audience has country-to-country linguistic differences which must be taken into consideration.

You might find the United States surprising, but there are a lot of Chinese-speaking communities in the United States, particularly in California.

China has a population of 1.2 billion, which is one-sixth of the world population. There are 22 million people in Taiwan, and seven million in Hong Kong. Given their high population levels, these locales will be the focus of the discussion.

In "The Beginning" according to tradition, the concept of an iconified written language was introduced by a monk named Fu-Hsi (

) in East Asia about 7,000 years ago. Rick said that this is based on legend however; there appears to be no real record on the subject. While other civilizations also used character-based languages (for example Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and Mestopotamia Cuneiform), the Chinese language is the only one which has survived the trials of history and is still in use today.

The first rendition of such an iconified language was credited to the lingual sage Tsang-Hsiehm(

) , while the first organization of this written language into a viable communication medium was credited to officials serving the Chinese King Huang-Ti (

) in the 25th century BC. Originally the written language was used only by government officials and scribes for disseminating information throughout the kingdom.

The oldest surviving relic of this period dates back to 18th century BC. The characters in this relic are very different from their modern counterparts. For example, the ancient character for "Young Man" or "Lad" is the top character below, and the modern version is on the bottom:

This orthographic evolution is attributed to character simplification and the introduction of new writing instruments such as the bamboo pen, and the ink brush.

About 800 BC, the shape of Chinese characters was standardized and a corresponding catalogue for the characters was created. A sample of these characters is shown below.

The people named this new set of characters Ta-Chuan (

)or "Grand Seal" characters.

An interesting note is that these characters are also nicknamed "Tadpole Characters" Ko-Tou-Zhi. (

) This nickname was derived in the 2nd century BC when a series of books written in this ancient style were discovered in Confucius' old residence. Upon viewing its contents, an illiterate imperial prince immediately uttered that the characters were in fact ancient tadpole drawings. The character below is a good example of why he might have made the claim:

During the incessant civil strife of the late Eastern Chou Dynasty (770 - 256 BC), the literacy of the noble classes degenerated. This is evident from records where scribes who could not remember the correct character borrowed unrelated characters or else simply invented their own.

Characters created in this way were called "Odd Characters" or Chi-Zhi.(

) These new, faulty renderings were widely distributed throughout the land and are now an integral part of the Chinese language after centuries of usage.

In about 200 BC, the new emperor of China Chin-Shih-Huang (¥¥¥) initiated a massive purge of the noble class, because they opposed his rule. Many people were executed, and many books (historical, literature, philosophy, religion, etc.) were destroyed. Unfortunately, the result was that the first 2,000 years of recorded Chinese history were lost.

From this great purge, the Imperial officials instituted a new character standardization set. This new form, called "Small Seal Characters" or "Hsiao-Chuan" built upon the existing character set, but with simplified character shapes. Upon imperial decree, only characters from this new official set were permitted within the kingdom.

Chin-Shih-Huang has been much condemned for his amoral character and harsh rule. Nevertheless, the development of modern Chinese characters, and to a certain extent the Chinese socio-political consciousness which was encouraged by a common cultural-lingual medium, can be credited to him.

With the standardization of Chinese characters under Chin-Shih-Huang, a gradual expansion of the character set took place. Although the shape of existing characters was formally established, the creation of new characters was still uncontrolled.

Each region incorporated local idioms and individual flair into this creation process. The result was the creation of some new characters and thousands of duplicate ones. History indicates that about 3,300 characters were recorded circa 200 BC, but 900 years later nearly 40,000 characters were in use (4,000 words in common use, 2,000 words for names and places, and 34,000 duplicate words with almost no practical use).

Today, an average of 3,500 characters are used in Chinese newspapers and magazines. In Taiwan a slightly higher number might be used, perhaps around 4,000.

Since the mid 20th century, both the Communists on the Mainland (PRC) and the Nationalists on Taiwan (ROC) attempted to narrow down the character set to items used for daily communication and scientific-technical issues. Approximately 4,000 characters were identified for this purpose. The remaining tens-of-thousands of characters were relegated to special use in literature, classical Chinese, historical documents, and occasionally to provide a regional cultural style.

The 20th-century movement for language reform in China was the most ambitious program for language planning the world has ever seen.

The first goal was to simplify the characters of classical written Chinese, by cutting down on their number, and reducing the number of strokes it takes to write a character. These changes resulted in the "simplified Chinese" character set.

The second goal was to provide a single means of spoken communication throughout all of China, by popularizing the Beijing-based variety (Mandarin) which was chosen as the standard. At the time that this program was introduced, there were five official dialects, but thousands of other dialects were also in use. Obviously, this made communication difficult.

The third goal was to introduce a phonetic alphabet, which would gradually replace the Chinese characters in everyday use. This was very important, because otherwise it would be very difficult to work with computers, telegraph, facsimile machines, etc.

There have been moves to reform the language since as early as the 2nd century BC. But nothing has equaled the complexity of the present-day program.

Rick told a story to help explain why a standardized communication system was needed. In a restaurant one day, Rick sat with two other Chinese people, but they all spoke English. This was because one person was born and educated in Hong Kong, and so he writes English and Chinese, and speaks Cantonese, but doesn't understand Mandarin. Rick was born in Beijing, on the banks of the Yangtze River in South China. The third person came from close to Beijing in Northern China. Each spoke his own dialect, but the dialects sound so different they are almost like foreign languages. In order to understand each other, they all spoke English.

*Dialect*	*Where spoken*
Cantonese .	In the south, mainly Guangdong, southern Guangxi, Macau, Hong Kong.
Hakka	Widespread, especially between Fujian and Guangxi.
Hsiang (Hunan)	South central region, in Hunan
Kan	Shanxi and south-west Hebei.
Mandarin	A wide range of dialects in the northern, central, and western regions. North Mandarin, as found in Beijing, is the basis of the modern standard language.
Northern Min	Min (The north-west Fujian Pei.)
Southern Min	Min(The south-east, mainly in parts of Zhejiang, Nan) Fujian, Hainan Island and Taiwan
Wu	Parts of Anhui, Zhejians, and Jiangsu.

These divergent dialects illustrate why language reform was required. While the dialect selected as the standard is referred to as Mandarin in western societies, it is called Pu Tong Hua (¥¥¥) in China, which means "common language." In Taiwan they say Guo Yu (¥¥), which means "national language".

The cultivated literary language, recorded from around 1,500 BC, is the traditional unifying medium for all varieties of Chinese. It differs greatly from everyday speech, especially in its terse grammatical style and specialized literary vocabulary. It is now less widely used, because of the success of the current reform movement for written Chinese.

The first 5-character phrase "Tigers do not breed dogs" means roughly "like father, like son". The second phrase means "Calamities do not occur singly", which, is equivalent to "It never rains but it pours".

These examples illustrate the telegraphic style of the literary language. Mao Zedong was particularly adept at incorporating classical features like these proverbs into his political speeches.

The colloquial language or "Bai hua" is a simplified, vernacular style of writing, introduced by the literary reformer Hu Shih in 1917. His goal was to make the language more widely known to the public, and to permit the expression of new ideas. A style of writing which reflected everyday speech had been developed as early as the Sung dynasty, but had made little impact on the dominant literary language. However, the May Fourth Movement (which originated in political demonstrations on 4 May 1919 after the Paris Peace Conference) adopted Hu Shih's ideas, and Bai hua was recognized as the national language in 1922.

The common language or "Pu Tong Hua" was chosen as a standard for the whole of China, and widely propagated under this name after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The common language embodies the pronunciation of Beijing, the grammar of the Mandarin dialects, and the vocabulary of colloquial Chinese literature. In 1956, it became the medium of instruction in all schools, and a policy for promoting its use began. It is now the most widely used form of spoken Chinese, and is the normal written medium for almost all kinds of publication.

The phonetic method for spelling Chinese is called Pin yin. After several previous attempts to write Chinese using the letters of the Roman alphabet, this 58-symbol writing system was finally adopted in 1958. Its main aims are to facilitate the spread of the common language and the learning of Chinese characters. Pin-yin is now in widespread use. In the 1970s, for example, a new map of China was published using the Pin-yin alphabet, and a list of standard spellings for Chinese place names was compiled. New codes were devised for such diverse uses as telegraphy, flag signals, Braille, and sign language.

The future of the reform program is not entirely clear. It may be that pin-yin will ultimately supplant the general use of characters, or there may be a movement to preserve the traditional written language. New varieties of regional pronunciation are certain to develop within the common language. For example, Mao Zedong spoke it with a marked Hunan accent. This may lead to problems of intelligibility. And if Pu Tong Hua is to succeed as a popular means of communication, it needs to anticipate the potential conflict with local regional dialects (for example, whether local words should be used). Much will depend on how flexibly the authorities interpret the notion of "standard". They will need to respect popular usage (where there is a strong case for variety) while furthering the goal of national communication (which could lead to prescriptive linguistic rules).

The issue of why simplified Chinese is used in some areas, and traditional in others is primarily due to politics. The division took place when the People's Republic of China was formed, and the Nationalist Party moved to Taiwan in 1949. This move was called the Jiang Jie Shi (¥¥¥).

Since the reform took place before this political shift, it is not clear why traditional Chinese is used in Taiwan rather than simplified.

Simplified Chinese is officially used in the People's Republic of China, as well as in Singapore. (Singapore also uses the colloquial way of speaking from Mainland China.)

The majority of Chinese writing in the rest of the world uses the traditional Chinese character set. (For example Hong Kong, Macaw, and the California Bay Area all use traditional.)

Traditional and simplified Chinese refers to character sets, but language variants also have terminology differences. China has tended to lag behind the rest of the world technologically, while Taiwan has been a leader. Technical terms in the two areas are very different, and speakers may therefore have difficulty understanding each other.

Another reason for terminology differences is politics. The nationalists (Guo Min Dang or ¥¥¥) in Taiwan avoided emulating anything from the mainland, so that led to further differences.

All written terminology is influenced by oral speech. In Taiwan the term for computer is Dian Nao (¥¥) which means roughly "calculator" since computers calculate. But in mainland China they would say Ji Suan Ji (¥¥¥). Software in mainland China is called Ruan Jian (¥¥), while in Taiwan they say Dian Zon.

So the question is, are separate translations required for the variants? Rick was adamant that variants (simplified and traditional versions of Chinese) are definitely required.

Microsoft led the way with development of both traditional and simplified versions of Windows 95. This was seen as very big news in March of 1996, when the simplified Chinese version was released. This had a big impact because now translation of technical documents and software follow Microsoft's lead. There is probably no hope for a reunification of China or Taiwan. Until that time and unless further language reform occurs, there will always be a need for the two versions.

While there are many countries around the world where French is spoken, in a lot of these countries, the use of computers is very limited. When it comes to translation and localization, there are two basic variants to be concerned about. The first is French used in Europe, which includes France and its territories and also Belgium and Switzerland. The second variant is used in Canada (specifically the province of Quebec), and is called Canadian French. For Europe the variant is called Continental French.

In addition, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Laos, and Cambodia use French as their unofficial second language.

There are 59 million French-speaking people in France, and seven million French-speaking Canadians (about one-fourth of the population.) About half of the people in Belgium speak French, which equals approximately five million. There are seven million people in Switzerland who speak Italian, French, and English.

The history of the French Canadian variant is very simple. The French started colonizing Canada under Henry IV^th in the 17^th Century. A gentleman called Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608 and stimulated the arrival of French people in Canada.

Because of this history, Quebec is a French-speaking province, but it is still part of North America, and the language has been influenced by proximity to the U.S. This is why the language used in Quebec is not always the same as the language used in Continental Europe.

Unlike with Chinese, there is only one French language, but there are differences in colloquial forms, written forms and terminology.

The influence of North America on the colloquial language in Quebec is very strong. The variant has two major differences from European French. The first difference is that words are borrowed and adapted from English. The second difference is that Continental French words are also adapted.

Borrowed English Words?Here are three examples of words in French Canadian usage that are borrowed from the English language:

"Avoir un good time," which means to have a good time. In Continental French, one would say "S'amuser" or "S'amuser follement," "Bien s'amuser" but in Quebec "good time" has been integrated into their own colloquial language.

Another example would be "Être cheap" or "Faire cheap." This probably comes from "to be cheap", but in Continental Europe, the phrase would be "Être radin."

Canadians might say "Faire son show," which is very similar to the English "put on a show". In Continental French the phrase would be "Faire son (petit) numéro."

Adaptations from English?The French Canadian colloquial language not only borrows English words, it also adapts words from the English language. In other words, English terms are modified to be written the French way. For example, the phrase meaning "to be open" in French Canadian includes a modification of the English word "open". The phrase is "Être opène." An accent has been included, and an "e" added at the end. In Continental French this would be unacceptable, and the proper phrase would be " Avoir l'esprit ouvert."

Another example would be the French Canadian term "ne pas valoir cher la toune," which means inexpensive. "Toune" was actually adapted from the English word "tune". In Continental French a totally different expression would be used "Ne pas valoir cher." This example is interesting because it illustrates the use of the feminine article, where Continental French people would expect the masculine article to be used with the word "tune". In Quebec, every time they adapt an English word to be French-like, the issue of masculine and feminine arises. They have to make a decision which gender to use.

Adaptations from Continental French?In addition to using English words, the French Canadian colloquial language also uses words which were adapted from Continental French. One example would be the Canadian French phrase "Couper le sifflette à quelqu'un," which is to cut someone off. The word "sifflette" is derived from the French word "sifflet," but the Canadians changed it a little bit.

There are hundreds of these differences in the French Canadian colloquial language.

When it comes to the written form, the French Canadian language has evolved differently from Continental French. In Canada, they use old French words, which are no longer used in Europe. For example, French Canadians might say " présentement" meaning "presently", however, in France they would use the word "maintenant.". Other examples are the use of "canneberge" for cranberry instead of "airelle", or "bluet" for blueberry instead of "myrtille".

Some French words have been changed in Quebec for political correctness. Things that could be offensive in Continental French have been adapted to be more socially acceptable. One example is the word for inhabitants of the Arctic territories of North America and Greenland. Instead of using the French word "esquimaux," Canadian French people use the local native word "Inuit." This native word moves away from the connotation of the original term, which means "meat eaters."

Another distinction between the variants is the accent of capital letters. As you know, the French language has a number of accented characters, such as a, æ, ç, è, é, ê, etc. In both French variants the accents must be included for lower case letters, but accenting capital letters is only mandatory for French Canadian. In Continental French, it is recommended to use them, but there is no official rule that makes it mandatory.

This obviously raises issues during translation. For example, if you are translating software containing the string "overwrite file," in French Canadian you would have "Écraser le fichier" and you would need an accent on the uppercase E. In Continental French, some translators will choose to use the accent, others will choose not to include it.

There are many differences in terminology between the two French variants. For example, when translating "toll-free telephone number," for Canada you should use "numéro de téléphone sans frais," which is basically a literal translation. For France, the term used should be "numéro vert" which translates to "green number," but which means free. If you were to use "green number" in Canada, however, people would probably think you were referring to an ecology cause or a recycling program. They would have no concept of green as "free".

In Canada their are official translation standards, which is not the case with French in Continental Europe. For years, The Translation Bureau of the Secretary of State at the Federal Government has set the standard for translators and has published numerous glossaries, lexicons, and dictionaries. Since Canada is a bilingual country, all the documents issued by the federal government and all government services must be available to the public in two languages, French and English. Because of that, there is a body of existing translation that has been approved and that can't be changed.

For example the Canadian government has produced a CD-ROM terminology databank called Termium, and a publication on terminology, which is called the Terminology Update/L'actualité terminologique. They also publish periodic newsletters (called Terminogramme) and other reference materials which recommend terminology usage and accepted words. "The Office de la langue francaise," (the French language Bureau,) acts as the Quebec government's French language watchdog.

Government agencies also decide on terminology for new technologies. For example, they recently published a lexicon on the subject of information superhighways, and they created a term for BBS ("babillard électronique "), internet navigator ("internaute",) and cyberspace navigator ("cybernaute".)

Contrary to Continental French, companies and industries in Canada have spent a lot of money developing and publishing glossaries of terms for their industry. For example, Canadian National published a glossary on air brake pockets, "Lexique de poche des freins à air." CP Rail published the Vocabulary of Car Accounting, Car Service, and Freight Traffic. There is also the Canadian Electrical Code as published by the Canadian Standards Association. These are only a few examples of glossaries that have been created by companies in various industries.

Acronyms are popular in both Canada and Europe, but of course the ones chosen are different. In order to know which acronyms are being used in Quebec, you need to contact the government publishing agency, (Les publications du Québec) to get on their mailing list. Contact information for various agencies are listed later in the "French Canadian Terminology Sources" section of this summary.

Given all of these differences, is it necessary to create separate translations for Quebec and Europe? Can you adapt one variant when you translate or localize to another?

Software localization tends to be more straightforward from a linguistic point of view than translation of other items, because you are less likely to run into the colloquial language problems described earlier. (Colloquial language generally is not used in software.) The exception to this is computer games, which tend to use a lot of slang. Since slang is colloquial language, it is prone to problems. It's therefore a good idea to request that technical writers for the English product limit the amount of slang they use. Otherwise, you'll have problems trying to create a single French version that can work in the various locales.

If this is not possible and if the translated slang is drastically different in the two variants, you may have to consider shipping two different versions of the same game. These situations need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The first thing to do when starting a translation project is to determine what the target countries are. If a product is for Europe only, then you simply create a Continental French version of the product. If the product is for Canada only, you create a French Canadian version. If the product is for both areas, it gets a bit more complicated.

Obviously, the ideal approach would be to have a Continental French translation and a French Canadian version. That would be the perfect solution, but it's frequently not realistic. You might not have the time or budget for two different versions.

You can ship a single version to both, but you need to make some compromises. A good solution is to create a Continental French version of the software and then have it reviewed by a Canadian French linguist. The two linguists can work together to choose what would work for both.

To use the earlier example of the toll-free telephone number, the two linguists might be able to find a neutral solution such as "numéro de téléphone gratuit" Neither of the audiences would be 100% pleased with the compromise, but both would understand the meaning.

When it comes to the issue of accented capital characters, you should go ahead and include them. When you know up front that a product will be shipping to Canada and Europe, you can make the accented capital letters part of the requirements listed in instructions for your vendor or language suppliers.

With translation of non-software items, the issue tends to be a little more complex because there is a lot more variation of style. There are two types of translations which require different approaches.

The first type is technical translation, which includes medical documents. For technical translation, the approach is pretty much the same as for software localization. Translators may have to worry more about specific terminology created by the French Language Bureau, and in-house terminology created by many specific industries or companies.

As with software localization, the ideal approach would be to have two versions of the product. If this is not possible and you must ship the same version to Europe and Quebec, then you should have the translation reviewed by linguists from both areas so that they can agree upon terms ahead of time.

Legal and business translation must be handled differently from other technical translation. The problem is that since Canada is bilingual, the names of most Canadian institutions and laws already have official bilingual translations. Criminal law, for example, exists in equivalent English and French versions, which are prepared by the Federal government. If terminology is needed, it's available from the official language of the law, which is published in the bilingual version. When you translate for Quebec, you don't have much room for loose or interpretive translation. You have to abide by the existing translation.

Cultural differences also have an impact on business and legal translation. An example would be the concept of banks in French-speaking Europe, which are called "banques." In Quebec, banks are called "caisses populaires," which would correspond to the English term credit union.

In Quebec, business letters are more direct than in France. They go straight to the point in Canada, whereas in France they tend to be subtle. This means that letters need two different translations if they'll be going to Europe and Canada.

The conclusion for French variants is that since there is one language in Quebec and France, it is often possible to use the same version with adaptations. This is a lot easier in software localization than it is in other types of translation.

For information about terminology in Canada, you can contact the following agencies.

New-Brunwick publications – École de droit/ Centre de traduction et de terminologie juridiques

Lexiques anglais français de la Common Law
Tel. (506) 858-4145 or
FAX (506) 858-4534

50 Grosvenor Street
Tornonto, Ontario M7A 1N8
Tel. (416) 326-5300 or
FAX (416) 326-5317 or –8315.

Miria started out by describing her background. She is a native speaker of Spanish, and is originally from Bogotá.

Spanish is the most widely spoken romance language. Most speakers live in Central and South America, and 19 countries list it as its national language. Spain has a population of 39 million, and Mexico has 100 million. Argentina has 36 million people, and Chile 15 million.

There are other significant Spanish-speaking populations throughout the world that we should not overlook. There's a big market for U.S. Spanish, which is an opportunity for linguists, but there are also needs in Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, Balkan Countries and Israel.

The countries that use Spanish as their unofficial second language are the West Coast of Africa and equatorial Guinea.

Within the United States, you can find many Spanish-speaking people in Texas, New Mexico, California, and South Florida.

The Spanish used in Spain is frequently but inaccurately called "Castilian". The 10^th Century is when we find the first written records of recognizable Spanish. The Golden Age in the 17^th Century saw the development of the dialect known as Castilian. If you look in linguistic terminology reference guides, you will see that Castilian was a dialect from the area of Castile, and was based on the language spoken at that time. It's therefore not a good term for modern-day Spanish.

Where a person is from and how they feel about their traditions will dictate what they call the language they speak. If you look at a Spanish dictionary and see Diccionario de la lengua Espanola, you'll know that it was probably produced in Spain. Latin Americans call their language Castellano. People in Latin America may have some sensitivity about their Spanish heritage, which contributes to a desire for using the term Castellano rather than Espanola.

When asked what type of Spanish a client needs for a translation project, many people say "Just give me the best Spanish." Since Miria is from Bogotá, she could say with conviction that the version spoken there is the best one. Once it is explained that there is no "best", clients move on to request a "universal Spanish", which is also an impossible task.

You may have heard the term "Spanglish," to refer to Spanish used in the United States. Certain groups in the United States speak a mix of Spanish and English, and this is probably where the term came from. As an example, immigrants from Mexico might refer to a truck as La Troca. But if you were to say that they were speaking Spanglish, they are likely to feel offended. They may be self conscious about the mix of culture and educational opportunities. So "Spanglish" is definitely a term to avoid. You may have heard the term "Pocho," particularly in California, but it is also a term with negative connotations, and should be avoided.

Why do people care what the language is called? Everyone cares about where they came from. Cubans may have a different opinion of Spain than Argentines. Colonization, technology, and European heritage are very important drivers of a population's sensitivity to a variety of issues. Some countries (such as Argentina) may have strong ties to European culture. Other countries (such as Paraguay) have strong indigenous roots. Some Spanish-speaking nations are eager to assimilate American slang, while other nations take great pride in the purity of their language and resist incorporating new terms.

The bottom line is that when you are dealing with localization, globalization, or multi-cultural communication, you have to be sensitive to these issues. When referring to locale variants of Spanish, you need to be careful so that you don't accidentally offend anyone. The table below lists the best options.

*When referring to Spanish spoken:*	*Call it:*	*Don't Call it:*
Spain	Espanol, Iberian Spanish, or Peninsula Spanish	Castilian
Latin America	Castellano	Espanol
U.S.	U.S. Spanish	Spanglish Pocho

Most Spanish-speaking people understand other variants, unlike with languages such as Chinese. Spanish speakers from disparate areas recognize differences in a variety of ways. Pronunciation for example is something that is an immediate indicator.

There are a variety of pronunciation differences between variants. For example, people from Latin American nations pronounce "yo" like in yo-yo. In the Rio Plata, and in some parts of Chile however, they would say "jo".

Morphology is the structure of the language, and there are not many differences between Spanish variants. One notable difference however is that the second-person plural marker does not exist in Latin American Spanish. In Spain the familiar address is "tu," and there is also "vos," and "vosotros." There are two ways of saying second person. Latin American Spanish there is just the plural "ustedes." There's also a way of addressing "su" "vostera," which you wouldn't find in other parts of Latin America, and it's particularly marked in Argentina. Miria said that when she hears "vos," she immediately thinks of Argentina.

(Argentina is an interesting locale, because it has a strong Italian heritage. Many Argentinean people have Italian last names. It's a very proud linguistic heritage, and some of the best Spanish translators have received high levels of education in Argentina.)

The largest differences between Spanish variants are lexical, and this means that when possible you should definitely create different versions for different locales.

In some technical fields such as medicine and chemistry, the differences are not dramatic, however, the variations in computer science terminology are significant. For example, in Iberian Spanish, a computer is called "el ordenador" and in Castellano it would be "la computadora."

As Catherine suggested with French, it is best when supporting multiple locales to get the terminology agreed upon right up front and have linguists from each region working together to resolve differences.

In Latin America, Mexico, the Andean nations, and certain parts of Central Latin America, you will find a lot of indigenous terminology. Some of these terms simply don't exist anywhere else, so you may end up with untranslatable terms.

Language evolves, so you may see new interpretations of words. For example, "boda" was an old world word for "wedding", but now means "party held at home". Old world terminology for car is "carro", while the new world version is "automobile". In other nations they use "coche," but "coche" in Guatemala means a pig. So ordinary everyday words can vary in the extreme.

How is Mexican Spanish different from Iberian Spanish? Here are some interesting differences:

*English Term*	*Term used in Mexico*	*Term used in Spain*
Stove	Estufa	Cocina
Umbrella	Sombrilla	Paraguas
Jacket	Saco	Americana
Plumber	Plomero	Fontanero
Baker	Tahona	Panificadora

After five centuries of geographic separation, the lexicons vary most in areas of terms that have been introduced since the Conquest and colonization. This is in part why technological or scientific terms differ so much between variants.

Miria identified five major regional variations or dialects of Latin America. These dialect regions can be generally summarized as being highland areas and lowland areas.

Latin American Dialectical Region

Highland Area

Lowland Area

Mexico and the adjacent areas

Mexico, the Southwest U.S., Republic of Guatemala

The Caribbean areas

The Caribbean, including both Mexican coasts, Columbia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the half of Hispaniola known as Santo Domingo

The Andes

The highlands of Colombia through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, NW Argentina, and Northern Chile, except Lima

Chile

(Chile is divided in linguistic usage and accentuation

Rio Plata

Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. (This is probably the most disparate of all the Latin America regions in terms of vocabulary, inflection, lexicon, and manner of address. It's very distinct.)

The variants spoken in highland areas are more similar to each other than the dialects spoken in the lowland areas, and vice versa. Therefore, someone from an Andean nation, (such as Miria from Bogotá) would probably understand someone from Mexico more easily than someone from Argentina.

Central America is somewhat of a mixed zone, because it doesn't fit in either of these categories. It is influenced by Mexico from the north, but also by the Caribbean from the east.

The United States has substantial populations of Spanish speaking people. The states with the highest concentrations are listed below, in descending order:

Miami Florida also contains a very high population of Spanish speakers (1 million people).

If you are working on consumer publications or work for hospitals, court interpretations, legal documentation, etc., you have to be very careful because the population groups that are represented in New York are not the same as those in California. The Spanish spoken in these areas varies widely.

Further confusion occurs for places like New York or Miami. In these locations, there has been significant long-term integration, particularly from Cuba. In addition to the fact that these people have been in the U.S. for some time, many came during the first heavy wave of immigration from Cuba in the early sixties. The immigrants arriving at this time tended to be the most educated class of Cuban society. If you compare that group to the concentrated immigrant population in California, you will find that they are from a totally different socioeconomic and educational background. You can't expect to communicate with the Spanish-speaking Cuban-base in Miami the same way that you would with the newer Mexican populations in California.

*Iberian Spanish Version*	*San Marcos, Texas Version*	*Mora , New Mexico Version*	*Tucson, Arizona Version*	*San Jose, California Version*
Ben hamin (meaning "youngest child")	coyote	el nino	socoyote	bebi
Andadera (meaning "child's stroller")	andador	andanino	andadera careta	andadera and walker