Spanish dialects (was: Immediateness)

Carlos Thompson wrote:

>In Northen Colombia the great Caribean dialect is spoken, with a lot of
>branches.  A non-familiarised person won't easilly distinguish betwen a
>Cuban or a _barranquillero_, much the way a non-familiarised won't
>distinguish a _porteno_ from a _uruguayo_ or from someone from Rosario.
*I* certainly won't distinguish a _porteno_ from an _uruguayo_ or a
_rosarino_, except in a very long conversation... I imagine I could tell
apart an _uruguayo_ because of certain unfamiliar words; for the most part
_uruguayos_ (especially from Montevideo) talk the same way as _portenos_
(formally 'bonaerenses', from Buenos Aires). Portenos do have a certain
different tone from rosarinos... particularly, they don't drop the final -s
so much as we rosarinos do. Indeed they sometimes add it where it doesn't
belong. If you hear someone saying

_?Vistes?_  or _Te enojastes_

instead of

_?Viste?_  and _Te enojaste_
('Did you see?' and 'You got angry')

then you're surely dealing with a porteno.

The main differences between Rioplatense and the other Argentine dialects
are tonal. The people in the Northeastern provinces (called the
Mesopotamia) and the ones in the province of Cordoba (in the geommetrical
centre of the country) each have a distinct 'music'. The Mesopotamic accent
I cannot describe it or imitate it. The Cordobes accent is characterized by
lengthening some vowels (mostly the ones right before the main stress, I
think) and adding a rising intonation.