The Dominican Republic is a multilingual nation with several languages spoken in the country. However, the Spanish language is by far the most widely spoken language. It is also the official language. Though there are various dialects within the country, the official Spanish dialect spoken is the Dominican Spanish. Dominican Spanish is a member of the Caribbean Spanish originating from the Andalusian and Canarian dialects of Southern Spain. It has several words borrowed from different languages such as Arawak language.

The five most commonly spoken languages in the Dominican Republic are Dominican Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Samana English. Dominican Spanish is spoken by about 80% of the people.

Mostly, the letter “s” is normally dropped off in the Dominican Spanish words. For example, in the phrases and words such "donde tu esta?" is "donde tu ta?" and "mosquitos" is "mosquito." Some common phrases such as “quapo” may mean “angry” in the Dominican Spanish but “handsome” in Spanish. In some areas, the letter “l” takes the sound after “e” is articulated as an “r.”

Some of the minority languages spoken in the Dominican Republic include English and French. Other languages spoke include Chinese and Arabic.

This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018

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