The term regionalism is used in two different contexts, in politics and in linguistics. In the first case it is a political movement that opposes centralism and in the second it refers to the vocabulary of a region.
In the sphere of politics
Most countries have an administrative division in which the different areas or regions of the country are distributed. The political power of a nation normally has two dimensions, one relative to the country as a whole and the other related to the various departments or regions.
Sometimes there is a certain political tension between the centralist perspective and the regionalist perspective. Thus, when a region demands a higher level of self-government, we are faced with a regionalist approach.
As a general vision, regionalism maintains that the political and social reality of a region must be approached with local and not centralist criteria. In nations like Spain there are regionalist parties, nationalist parties, and centralist parties.
Examples of linguistic regionalisms in Spain
If we take as a reference the Spanish or Castilian that is spoken in Spain, it is a common language that is spoken in all the communities of the state. However, certain words are regionalisms because they are only used in the municipalities that make up a region.
In the Canary Islands there is a specific vocabulary that will hardly be understood by people from other communities or regions. Thus, a cambuyonero is a maritime merchant who works outside the law, a boy is a boy, a chop is a barbecue and a bus is a bus.
The autonomous community of Murcia also has its own terminology
The Murcian linguistic variety is called panocho. In this dialect variety of Spanish there are many unique words and expressions: an abruzaera is a rocking chair, agora means now, a Chinese is a pig, a moquero is a pocket handkerchief and resculllar is equivalent to slipping.
The Spanish spoken in Andalusia also has its own vocabulary. An apollardao is a person who is confused, a naughty person is one who has a dry character, a rogue is a picky person, someone is leveraged when they do not feel like doing anything and a place is crowded when it is completely full. It should be noted that some Andalusians are also used in other regions of Spain.
On the other hand, the specific vocabulary of this Spanish region has, in turn, some subdivisions, since Andalusia is made up of eight provinces and in each of them there is a unique terminology.
Photo: Fotolia - Jan Kranendonk
