Many people are often asking about the differences between the Spanish in Spain and Latin America. And that´s right, there are differences between the varieties of the Spanish language but it´s important to mention that all Spanish-speakers can understand each other, whether they are from Cuzco, La Habana or Madrid.
There are differences between the spoken Spanish in Spain and Latin America; there are also some differences even within the regions of Spain.
Why does this difference exist?
When Spaniards were conquering the world they brought a language in changing process with them.
This is known by some linguists as “colonial lag” in order to describe a situation where the language spoken in colonies wasn´t updated to the language spoken in the original country. This process occurred not only with vocabulary but also with some grammar.
The most common examples of these differences are the “Voseo”, which is mainly used in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Originally “Vos” (singular you) was the second plural person in old Spanish but people there stopped using it from 1850.
Other good example is “Ustedes” (plural you) which is commonly used in Latin America but not in Spain. Spaniards could understand it but for them this is more formal, that´s why “Vosotros” is used instead of “Ustedes”.
The hardest differences to understand are vocabulary and pronunciation, both two change depending on country, region or village. Some examples of vocabulary are the word pen which is “Bolígrafo” in Spain but “Lapicero” in Peru and Chile and “Pluma” in Mexico and “Droguería” in Spain for Drug store which is “Farmacia” in Peru. There are also some differences even within the same country, for example in Lima, a baby can be called a “Bebé” but in the Peruvian Highlands can be a “Huahua”.
Regarding pronunciation, in many countries from Central America, the “S” is not totally pronounced, in Argentina and Uruguay the double “L” is pronounced as “Sh” and the most considerable difference is in Spain which is the “Ceceo” mainly on “Z” and sometimes on “S”, this comes from medieval Spanish.
Not all changes in the Spanish language are logical but it´s the same in any other language´s orthography.