by Alfredo Oropeza
Since I was a small child I have loved music. It didn’t matter what kind of music it was or where it came from; if it was something that sounded interesting to me and had good rhythm, I would play it. Thanks to the Spanish linguistics class that I took at Chico State, I have learned new things about the music I love.
For instance, now that I have studied the varieties of Spanish spoken throughout the world, I can differentiate between a Caribbean and an Argentinean singer. It fascinates me how I have been able to combine something that I’ve learned in a linguistics class with the pastime that I love so much: listening to music.
We started our linguistics class by studying what would be considered the typical pronunciation of an educated speaker from Mexico City. With that as a foundation, we moved on to compare other ” Spanishes” with that standard variety. For my final project, I decided to do something with music. I chose three of my favorite bands from three different countries, and I compared pronunciation and other characteristics with the Spanish of one of my favorite groups from Mexico City.