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Spanish is the most-widely spoken language in Ecuador, though great variations are present depending on several factors, the most important one being the geographical region where it is spoken. The three main regional variants are: * Equatorial Pacific Spanish or Equatorial Coastal Spanish * Andean Spanish * Amazonic Spanish Other sociolinguistic factors that influence in the way of speaking are the ethnic or social class of the speaker, and whether the speaker lives in an urban or rural area. Since the Coast and the Highlands are the most populous areas, these are the country's most widely used dialects, despite being quite different from each other. For instance, there are many idioms specific to each region or province, and others that are used and understood nationwide. == Pacific Coast == This Spanish variant is classified within the Equatorial Spanish dialect, which extends from the south Pacific coastal Colombia to the northern coast of Peru, crossing the Ecuadorian seacoast. The influential linguistic center of this dialectal region is the port city of Guayaquil. The most remarkable feature of this variant, is the aspiration of the letter "s" at the end of words or when preceded by another consonant, often being pronounced as a smooth English "h". Likewise, letter "j" is not pronounced as strongly as in other variants but rather smoothly and aspirated . These features are shared with the Caribbean and Canary Islands dialects of Spanish. Thus, this dialect set the ''phonemical axis of accentual-tonal transition'' throughout the American varieties of Spanish, which extends geographically from the northern semi-low intonation of Central American and the Caribbean dialects (since only the European variants of Spanish are particularly low-pitched) to the sharp high intonation characteristic of the lands located south, typical of Peru, Chile and Argentina. Therefore, the variant of Spanish spoken in the Ecuadorian coast and its neighboring western Andean plains, shares lots of features of both Caribbean dialects of northern Colombia and Venezuela, as well as some southern features of the Peruvian seaboard, making identification of this dialect difficult to the ears of an outsider. In addition, this variant has incorporated into its lexicon a number of words shared with other dialects of Ecuador which are understood only within the country . These words come mostly from the Andean Spanish dialects of Ecuador, with strong influences from Quichua (Northern Quechua), although the Quechua language had no historical presence in the Ecuadorian coast. This is the case of the Quechua-origin word "ñaño" (brother) which is widespread throughout the country. * ''Guayaquil'' accent: One of the most outstanding accents of the region is the one from the city of Guayaquil, the largest city in the country. Being an important large city that has grown demographically through immigration, both national and international, many dialectal variations may be found mainly associated with social class, ethnicity and schooling level. In general, the "s" sound is dropped or aspirated when it is at the end of the syllables while women tend to overpronounce the letter "s" by saying a deaf elongated sound, especially in the beginning of the syllables. Among the higher-schooled classes, the tendency is to correct the accent towards a more standard Spanish, as well as to incorporate foreign words -especially from English- into its lexicon. Amongst the lower-schooled people, other variations may be found. There is a group of people who tend to share their intonation with the coastal farmers (known as "''montubio''"). Another group of people tend to have a stronger intonation, which is generally known as "street language" featured by pronouncing letter "s" as an English "sh" , in addition to a series of words in their lexicon that are not always understood by other speakers in the region. *''Montubio'' accent: This the dialect spoken by the local peasants of the rural areas of the Guayas, Los Rios and Manabi provinces, known as ''montubio''. They tend to emphasize the first syllable of most words and to pronounce both the "s" and the "z" like the sound (like ''th'' in ''th''ink). This phonological type is called ''ceceo'' which is also common in some Andalusian Spanish dialects; while some montubios do not to pronounce the "s" at all at the end of the words. *''Esmeraldas'' accent: The province of Esmeraldas, on the other hand, presents a very different variant noticeable to the rest of the region, with a strong African component, which closely resembles the accent spoken in the bordering coastal region of Colombia (known there as "Chocoano" dialect). Since this region has a majority of people of African origin, this dialect tends to be a little stronger, featuring both lexical and intonation differences. *''Manabi'' accent: The accent spoken in the province of Manabí is somewhat similar to the dialect spoken in Guayaquil, though slight variations in intonation and lexicon make it distinct and easily identifiable as a separate variety within the Ecuadorian coastal dialect. Other regions in the Coast tend to speak a very similar dialect to the one spoken in the city of Guayaquil, due to its influence, specially in urban areas. Slight local variations may be found however. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spanish language in Ecuador」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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