an element of culture in arequipa city is its spanish dialect which incorporates a distinctive rhythmic way of speaking, which usually elongates the last vowel of the final word in each sentence. a distinctive feature of this dialect is the "voseo", that is, the use in spanish language of the pronoun 'vos' to replace the use of 'tú' or 'usted' (all corresponding to the english 'you'). in peru, the voseo is sometimes heard only in rural areas except in arequipa, where that way of speaking is heard in both rural and urban areas. another dialect from the city surroundings, called "loncco", has been largely lost due to migration from other provinces and the standardization of spanish language by the media. however, there are contests in schools which promote the writing of poems in the loncco dialect.