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In Cuba, the Spanish language has some different features than in other dialects.
Differences are most noted especially in the pronunciation of certain consonants, especially with relation to their syllabic position.
One of the most prominent features of Cuban Spanish is the aspiration of syllable-terminating S's, rendering the phoneme into .
Take for example, the following sentence:

★ ''Esos perros no tienen dueños.'' ("Those dogs do not have owners".)
Phonologically in Cuban Spanish, it would sound like:

★
Another instance of weak consonants in Cuban speech is the intervocalic (between two vowels) . The pronunciation of several prominent Spanish dialects has an approximant allophone in this position, represented by (similar to English ''th'' in ''the'').
In Cuban Spanish however, intervocalic is often deleted altogether (elision) if the resulting vowels can form a diphthong, as in many speakers of Andalusian Spanish and in fact much of the Spanish-speaking world. So the pronunciation of ''pescado'' and ''condado'', but not, for example, ''nadar'' or ''madera''.

★ Standard:

★ Cuban:
Another characteristic of Cuban Spanish is the use of the diminutive ''-ico'' and ''-ica'' instead of the standard ''-ito'' and ''-ita''. But this use is restricted to words with -t in the last syllable; for example:

★ '''plato''' (plate) becomes '''platico''' instead of ''platito''

★ '''cara''' (face) becomes '''carita''' however, just as in standard Spanish
This form is common to the Venezuelan, Cuban, Costa Rican and Colombian dialects. It is also common in Aragonese Spanish, from the region of Aragon in Spain.

Contents

Origins of Cuban Spanish

References

Origins of Cuban Spanish

Of all the regional variations of the Spanish language, traditional Cuban Spanish is most similar to, and originates largely from the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands. Cuba owes much of their speech patterns to the Canarian migration, which in the 19th and early 20th Century was heavy and continuous. There was also migrations of Galicians and Asturians as well, but they did not leave a mirror image on their accent on the Cuban accent like the Canarian people did. Also, Canarians emigrated to other parts of the Caribbean, such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, as well as South America like Venezuela, Paraguay, and Uruguay. They lent their speech patterns to some of those countries, but none as much as Cuba.
Much of the typical Cuban replacements for standard Spanish vocabulary stems from Canarian lexicon. For example, ''guagua'' ("bus") differs from standard Spanish ''autobús'' the former originated in the Canaries and is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn ("wah-wah!"). An example of Canarian usage for a Spanish word is the verb ''fajarse''^[1] ("to fight"). In standard Spanish the verb would be ''pelearse'', while ''fajar'' exists as a non-reflexive verb related to the hemming of a skirt.
Much of the vocabulary peculiar to Cuban Spanish comes from the different historic influences on the island. Some words are of African, Indian, and French in origin, as well peninsular Spanish influence outside of the Canary Islands.

References

1. ''fajar at ''Diccionario de la Real Academia Española''.

Another available reference is Post-Revolutionary Cuban Spanish: A Glossary of Social, Political, and Common Terms (Glosario de términos socio-políticos y autóctonos de actualidad (español-inglés)) by Jesus Núñez Romay. This book gives a good view of modern Cuban Spanish.