by dialect. In Central America, vos can be used among those considered equals, while usted maintains its respectful usage. In Ladino, the pronoun usted is completely absent, so the use of vos with strangers and elders is the standard. Voseo was long considered a backwards or uneducated usage by prescriptivist grammarians. Many Central American intellectuals, themselves from nations, have condemned the usage of in the past. With the changing mentalities in the Hispanic world, and with the development of descriptive as opposed to prescriptive linguistics, it has become simply a local variant of Spanish. In some places it has become symbolically important and is pointed to with pride as a local defining characteristic. See also Similar trends of personal pronouns in Portuguese Spanish dialects and varieties Spanish verbs T–V distinction#Romance languages References Sources Díaz Collazos, Ana María. Desarrollo sociolingüístico del voseo en la región andina de Colombia. El voseo at Spanish Wikibooks Le Voseo Voseo Spanish Site dedicated to teaching Argentine Voseo usage Carricaburo. Norma Beatriz (2003). El voseo en la historia y en la lengua de hoy - Las fórmulas de tratamiento en el español actual Hotta. Hideo (2000). La estandarización y el regionalismo en el voseo del español argentino Roca, Luis Alberto (2007). Breve historia del habla cruceña y su mestizaje Rosenblat, Ángel (2000). El castellano en Venezuela Toursinov, Antón (2005). Formas pronominales de tratamiento en el español actual de Guatemala Spanish grammar Personal pronouns Second-person pronouns fr:Dialectologie de la langue espagnole#Voseo