Culture of El Salvador
Encyclopedia
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
is much like any other country in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, or more specifically of Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
. The European influences are emphasized in the architecture of the colonial churches, museums and theaters throughout most of El Salvador. In addition, contemporary life in its cities has become similar to that of the rest of Latin America.
Costumes
In El Salvador, there are different types of costumes, of which the majority are used in religious or other festivals, although in some of the older towns they are still worn regularly. In female clothing it is common to see elements like a scapularScapular
The term scapular as used today refers to two specific, yet related, Christian Sacramentals, namely the monastic and devotional scapulars, although both forms may simply be referred to as "scapular"....
, a shawl
Shawl
A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, that is often folded to make a triangle but can also be triangular in shape...
, a cotton headscarf
Headscarf
Headscarves or head scarves are scarves covering most or all of the top of a woman's hair and her head. Headscarves may be worn for a variety of purposes, such as for warmth, for sanitation, for fashion or social distinction; with religious significance, to hide baldness, out of modesty, or other...
with different coloured adornments. These can be worn with a skirt and a blouse, or with a dress. The normal footwear is sandals. With male clothing, it is common to see a cotton suit or a cotton shirt worn with modern jeans
Jeans
Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...
, with sandals or boots, and a cowboy hat
Cowboy hat
The cowboy hat is a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat best known as the defining piece of attire for the North American cowboy. Today it is worn by many people, and is particularly associated with ranch workers in the western and southern United States, western Canada and northern Mexico, with...
. However, these are rural fashions and there can be many variations depending on the area.
Salvadorian food
Salvadorian dishes based on maize
- PupusaPupusaA pupusa is a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, hand-made corn tortilla that is usually filled with a blend of the following: cheese , cooked pork meat ground to a paste consistency...
: thick, hand-made corn tortillas filled with chicharron(pork), beans and cheeses. - Atol and tamaleTamaleA tamale — or more correctly tamal — is a traditional Latin American dish made of masa , which is steamed or boiled in a leaf wrapper. The wrapping is discarded before eating...
s of eloteEloteElote , is the Mexican name for corn on the cob. They are a popular street food in Mexico, although they are frequently served at home prepared in the same way . In Mexico, Chicago, and the southern U.S., it is customary to consume elotes on a stick, or by grasping the husk of the cob that has been...
(corn on the cob). - Atole shuco (a drink prepared from maize flour and other ingredients)
- Maize pasties with a filling of minced meat or vegetables.
- A dish known as "levantamuertos" which is a "consomméConsomméIn cooking, a consommé is a type of clear soup made from richly flavored stock or bouillon that has been clarified usually through a fining process involving egg protein. It usually requires an advanced knowledge of cooking and past experience to create a high quality consommé...
of garrobo" (a reptileReptileReptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
similar to an iguanaIguanaIguana is a herbivorous genus of lizard native to tropical areas of Central America and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his book Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena...
which measures some 50 cm in length). - Empanadas that are made of bananas and cream filling
Basic salvadorian food
A typical salvadorian meal can contain the following ingredients:- Vegetables: pulsesPulse (legume)A pulse is an annual leguminous crop yielding from one to twelve seeds of variable size, shape, and color within a pod. Pulses are used for food and animal feed. The term "pulse", as used by the Food and Agricultural Organization , is reserved for crops harvested solely for the dry seed...
and riceRiceRice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, cassavaCassavaCassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...
, potatoPotatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
, loroco etc. - MeatMeatMeat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
, poultryPoultryPoultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...
and fishFishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, - Dairy products: cheeseCheeseCheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
, butterButterButter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
, etc. - FruitFruitIn broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
.mangoes, coconuts,mamones, maranon - TortillaTortillaIn Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize...
s.
Languages
In El Salvador the official language is Central American SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. Less than one percent of the population speaks the Pipil language
Pipil language
Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest. It is on the verge of extinction in western El Salvador and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America...
, in places such as Izalco
Izalco
Izalco is a municipality in the Sonsonate department of El Salvador.Volcan Izalco is an icon of the country of El Salvador, a very young parasitic cone on the flank of Santa Ana volcano...
and several other towns. However there is no obligation academically or socially today to learn it, and the language is more commonly spoken by old people. Amongst the pre-Columbian languages that still exist common to places such as Izalco
Izalco
Izalco is a municipality in the Sonsonate department of El Salvador.Volcan Izalco is an icon of the country of El Salvador, a very young parasitic cone on the flank of Santa Ana volcano...
and Cacaopera
Cacaopera
Cacaopera is a municipality in the Morazán department of El Salvador.According to UNESCO:The community of Cacaopera is the sole surviving representative of an otherwise vanished ethnic group, variously referred to as Ulua, Matagalpa, or Cacaopera...
are Chortí, Xinca
Xinca language
The Xinca language is a Mesoamerican language spoken by the indigenous Xinca people from communities in the southern portion of Guatemala, near its border with El Salvador and in the mountainous region to the north...
, Lenca
Lenca language
The Lenca language is one of the indigenous Mesoamerican languages. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America in the early 16th century, it was spoken by the Lenca people in a region that incorporates northwestern and southwestern Honduras, and neighboring eastern El Salvador, east of...
and Poqomam
Poqomam language
Poqomam is a Mayan language, closely related to Poqomchi’. It is spoken by approximately 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala, the largest of which is in the Alta Verapaz department but which extend to El Salvador....
. English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is taught as a second language, and is commonly spoken by business people, as the country is developing through globalisation.
Salvadoran Spanish
Central American SpanishCentral American Spanish
Central American Spanish is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in Central America...
is spoken by the majority of the country's population. In El Salvador, the voseo
Voseo
Voseo is the use of the second person singular pronoun vos in many dialects of Spanish. In dialects that have it, it is used either instead of tú, or alongside it....
form of Spanish is dominant in both speech and publications. El Salvador is one out of two Central American nations that uses voseo Spanish as its written and spoken form. The same Spanish form is also seen in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, and coastal Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. The language and pronunciation varies depending on region. Some Salvadorans pronounce the word vos with a strong s sound at the end.
Sports
Estadio Cuscatlán
Monumental Estadio Cuscatlán is a football stadium located in San Salvador, El Salvador. It is the largest stadium in Central America with a capacity of 45,000...
in the capital San Salvador
San Salvador
The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...
is the largest stadium in Central America with a capacity of just over 45,000. The stadium is the home ground of the El Salvador national football team
El Salvador national football team
El Salvador's national football team represents El Salvador in international football and is sanctioned by the Federación Salvadoreña de Fútbol . In 1899, Santa Ana and San Salvador met for the first hosted football game in El Salvador...
as well as club teams Alianza FC and San Salvador F.C.
San Salvador F.C.
San Salvador Futbol Club was a professional football club located in San Salvador, El Salvador that participated in Primera División de Fútbol Profesional from 2002 to 2008...
.
The main football clubs in El Salvador play in the Primera División, which is made up of top ten clubs. Below the Primera División there exists a second level or Segunda División
Segunda División de Fútbol Salvadoreño
The Segunda División de Fútbol Salvadoreño is the second level of the El Salvador League System of football. Teams have a chance to gain promotion to the Primera División de Fútbol Profesional. The champions of the Apertura and Clausura play the direct promotion playoff every year. The winner of...
made up of 24 teams split into two groups of twelve. There is promotion and relegation between the two divisions at the end of each season.
Track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, handball
Team handball
Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball to throw it into the goal of the other team...
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
are also popular.
Religion
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
and Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
, have undergone an important growth since the 1970s. Today near 20% of the population belongs to one of these churches. Small communities of Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists also exist in some parts of the country.
Music
The music of El Salvador has a mixture of MayanMaya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
, Pipil and Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
influences. This music includes religious songs (mostly Roman Catholic) used to celebrate Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and other holidays, especially feast days of the saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s. Satirical and rural lyrical themes are common. Popular styles in modern El Salvador include cumbia
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
, and salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
.Popular music in El Salvador uses marimba tehpe'ch, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s, scrapers and gourd
Gourd
A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae. Gourd is occasionally used to describe crops like cucumbers, squash, luffas, and melons. The term 'gourd' however, can more specifically, refer to the plants of the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita or also to their hollow dried out shell...
s, as well more recently imported guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s and other instruments. Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n and Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
music has infiltrated the country, especially salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
and cumbia.