In
Spanish dialectology, the realization of
coronal fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveolar ('), or, less commonly, the presence of only a denti-alveolar that is similar to (').
While an
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
attributes the presence of the dental fricative to a Spanish king with a lisp, the various realizations of these coronal fricatives are actually a result of historical processes that date to the 15th century.
Origins
Castilian 'lisp'
A persistent
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
claims that the prevalence of the sound in Spanish can be traced to a Spanish king who spoke with a
lisp
A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.
Types
* A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...
, and whose pronunciation spread by
prestige borrowing to the rest of the population. This myth has been discredited by scholars.
[See for instanc]
Linguist List
an
traces the origins of the legend to a chronicle of
Pero López de Ayala
Don Pero (or Pedro) López de Ayala (1332–1407) was a Castilian statesman, historian, poet, chronicler, chancellor, and courtier.
Life
Pero López de Ayala was born in 1332 at Vitoria, County of Alava, Kingdom of Castile, as the son of Fer ...
which says that
Peter of Castile
Peter ( es, Pedro; 30 August 133423 March 1369), called the Cruel () or the Just (), was King of Castile and León from 1350 to 1369. Peter was the last ruler of the main branch of the House of Ivrea. He was excommunicated by Pope Urban V for ...
"lisped a little" (). However, Peter reigned in the 14th century and the sound began to develop in the 16th century (see
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
). Moreover, a true
lisp
A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.
Types
* A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...
would not give rise to the systematic distinction between and that characterizes Standard Peninsular pronunciation. For example, a lisp would lead one to pronounce ('I feel') and ('hundred') the same (as ) whereas in standard peninsular Spanish they are pronounced and .
For native speakers of varieties, in which is absent, the presence of this phoneme in speakers of European Spanish does not appear strange. However, learners of Spanish in North America, where people are more familiar with pronunciation, may misinterpret it as lisping. The misnomer "Castilian lisp" is used occasionally to refer to this aspect of Peninsular pronunciation (in both and varieties).
Historical evolution
In the 15th century, Spanish had developed a large number of
sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s: seven by some accounts, eight by others (depending on whether and are considered contrasting), more than any current dialect. During the 16th and early 17th centuries these phonemes merged differently as they evolved into those of the different modern dialects. There were four pairs of
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
versus
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
sibilants:
dental/
alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* ...
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s vs. (spelled or vs. ); dental/alveolar
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s (spelled when intervocalic, otherwise) vs. (intervocalic only, spelled );
postalveolar affricates (spelled ) vs. ; and postalveolar fricatives (spelled ) vs. . Both and were spelled
before or , and elsewhere. It is likely that deaffricated and merged with before the year 1500. The main difference between the prestige dialect of north central Spain and dialects to the south (such as
Andalusian Spanish
The Andalusian dialects of Spanish ( es, andaluz, , ) are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varietie ...
) was that, in the north, the dental/alveolar continuants were more retracted than the affricates (the former pair can be represented as and and the latter as and ), keeping their phonemic distinction, while in the south they were homorganic. The first step away from that system was the deaffrication of in the first quarter of the 16th century. Because of a differing
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
, this still contrasted with in the prestige dialect of north central Spain, though it was a complete merger for southern dialects.
The second step was the
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...
of voiced sibilants. In the north, and were lost, but remained contrastive with its new pronunciation , because there had been no voiceless previously. This sound contrasted with two acoustically similar sounds: dentoalveolar and apicoalveolar . By 1600, , too, had deaffricated and merged with the earlier that had already developed from . Subsequent changes to the sound system of Spanish retained the contrasts while enhancing the segments by increasing articulatory distance amongst their rather subtle acoustic contrasts, an appropriate step due to the high productivity of these phonemes in differentiating frequently used
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...
s. The dentoalveolar one was moved "forward" to interdental , losing its former sibilance in the process (which increased its acoustic distance to the remaining sibilant ), and the prepalatal one was moved "backward" to
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
also losing its former sibilance. All in all resulting in the three-way distinction found in modern Standard Peninsular pronunciation:
In the south, the devoicing process and deaffrication of gave rise to new fricatives that were indistinguishable from the existing ones. The process of increasing articulatory distance still applied, however, and retracted to in the south just as it did in the north. In a number of areas (particularly the southernmost provinces like
Cádiz
Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia.
Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...
) developed into a non-sibilant apico-dental , perceptually similar to the interdental used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic /. In areas (particularly in the westernmost provinces like
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
and
Huelva
Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The rias ...
), the resulting phoneme developed a predorsal alveolar realization (like English ), perceptually similar to the apicoalveolar used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic . This variety was the pronunciation that most impacted Latin America, as many emigrants to the Americas were from Andalusian and Canarian ports. In addition, several generations of Spanish speakers had lived and grown in the Americas before appeared in Castilian.
The development of the sibilants in
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
(which split off from Castilian and other Peninsular varieties in the 15th century) was more conservative, resulting in a system closer to that of
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
.
Distinction
Distinction ( es, distinción) refers to the differentiated pronunciation of the two Spanish phonemes written and or (only before or , the so-called
"soft" ):
# represents a
voiceless alveolar sibilant
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at leas ...
(either
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
as in English, or
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
);
# and soft represent a
voiceless dental fricative
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
(the in ''think'').
By the early 1700s the six sibilant phonemes of medieval Spanish had all merged into three phonemes in the dialects with this distinction and two phonemes elsewhere, but spelling still reflected the older pronunciation system. From 1726 to 1815 the RAE reformed spelling, resulting in a modern Spanish orthography which reflects the system with distinction. This distinction is universal in Central and Northern parts of Spain, except for some bilingual speakers of
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
and
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, according to . Thus, in Spanish the choice between the spellings , , , , and , , , , is determined by the pronunciation in most of Spain, unlike English, where it is often done according to
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
or orthographic
conventions (although in English, soft c is always and never like s is, as with 'rise' vs. 'rice').
In most of Spain, this distinction is between an apical and a dental . That said, in most regions of Andalusia which distinguish and , the distinction involves a
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
. According to , the distinction between a laminal and is native to most of
Almería
Almería (, , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, located in Andalusia. It is the capital of the province of the same name. It lies on southeastern Iberia on the Mediterranean Sea. Caliph Abd al-Rahman III founded the city in 955. The city gr ...
, eastern
Granada
Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...
, most of
Jaén, and northern
Huelva
Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The rias ...
, while the distinction between an apical and , as found in the rest of Peninsular Spanish, is native to the very northeastern regions of Almería, Granada and Jaén, to northern
Córdoba, not including the provincial capital, and to a small region of northern Huelva.
Lack of distinction
![Ceceo-seseo-distinción en el español de Europa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Ceceo-seseo-distinci%C3%B3n_en_el_espa%C3%B1ol_de_Europa.png)
In many other Spanish-speaking regions and countries, however, the phonemic distinction between and does not exist. These varieties of Spanish are sometimes said to exhibit ('neutralization') as opposed to .
Seseo
is a lack of distinction between
/s/ and
/θ/ with both being realized as . For example, the words ('house') and ('hunt') would be pronounced with the same sound. This can result in ambiguity but can usually be interpreted depending on the context of which the sentence is spoken. is the most widespread pronunciation among Spanish speakers worldwide and occurs in nearly all speakers in
Hispanic America
The region known as Hispanic America (in Spanish called ''Hispanoamérica'' or ''América Hispana'') and historically as Spanish America (''América Española'') is the portion of the Americas comprising the Spanish-speaking countries of North, ...
. While it is a minority pronunciation in Spain itself, is considered standard in all varieties of
Latin American Spanish
The different varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from each other as well as from those varieties spoken in the Iberian peninsula, collectively known as Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in ...
. It coexists with and in parts of Spain (e.g. in the Canary Islands, much of Andalusia, historically in southern
Murcia
Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...
and western
Badajoz
Badajoz (; formerly written ''Badajos'' in English) is the capital of the Province of Badajoz in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. It is situated close to the Portuguese border, on the left bank of the river Guadiana. The population ...
). Traditional dialect atlases (e.g., ) show one variant or another used in adjacent regions. In Spain, is considered "more socially acceptable or perhaps 'less substandard' than ". The following table gives an example of the three pronunciation patterns discussed so far:
Ceceo
is a phenomenon found in a few dialects of southern Spain in which and are not distinguished and there is only one coronal fricative phoneme realized as the
voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
, a sibilant sounding somewhat like , but not identical. is found primarily in some varieties of
Andalusian Spanish
The Andalusian dialects of Spanish ( es, andaluz, , ) are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varietie ...
, and historically in two villages of southeastern Murcia. That said, Hualde reports that there is some evidence of the phenomenon in parts of Central America. A publication of the
University of Oviedo
The University of Oviedo ( es, Universidad de Oviedo, Asturian: ''Universidá d'Uviéu'') is a public university in Asturias (Spain). It is the only university in the region. It has three campus and research centres, located in Oviedo, Gijón ...
also notes that can be found in Argentina and Chile. Other linguists have noticed the use of in parts of Puerto Rico, Honduras, and Venezuela. A similar sound characterized as a "voiceless apico-or corono-post-dental slit fricative" has been observed in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela; In these places, ceceo is a largely rural pronunciation and is often
stigmatized
Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, rac ...
.
In
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
, some speakers use a -like fricative in the syllable instead of the usual glottal , , or phonetic zero, rendering 'all' (plural) as , more usually pronounced or (the latter homophonous with ' 'all' (singular)). Salvadoran Spanish occasionally weakens, but almost never completely deletes, in
onset
Onset may refer to:
*Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound
*Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States
**Onset Island (Massachusetts), a small island located at the western end of the Cape Cod Canal
*Interonset interval, ...
positions, and this allophone is more common in onset positions than
coda
Coda or CODA may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* Movie coda, a post-credits scene
* ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television
*''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
ones. According to , this is the result of a gestural undershoot. It is on an acoustic continuum between and , representing an intermediate degree of lenition. identifies this with the of Andalusian and other dialects.
Ceseo or seceo
Many speakers of and dialects in Spain show
sociolinguistic variation in usage. In some cases, this variation may arise when a or speaker more or less consciously attempts to use in response to sociolinguistic pressure (
hypercorrection
In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...
). However, as, for instance, in the case of the variation between the standard velar nasal and alveolar pronunciation of the nasal in ''-ing'' in English (''walking'' versus ''walkin''), the switching may be entirely unconscious. It is perhaps evidence of the saliency of three-way variation that inconsistent use has elicited evaluative comments by some traditional Spanish dialectologists. For instance, discussed it as "sporadic or chaotic switching
etween and and the use of intermediate sounds impossible to determine with precision". proposes the synonymous terms and to refer to these "mixed" patterns, and notes surprise at a speaker who produced all four possible pronunciations of ''Zaragoza'' within the space of a few minutes. In fact, sociolinguistic variation is typically highly structured in terms of how often each variant will appear given various social and linguistic independent variables. The Spanish spoken by the inhabitants of the Canary Islands is exclusively , but exclusive is quite rare in mainland Spain – even in areas, such as Seville, listed as being majority .
See also
*
History of the Spanish language
The language known today as Spanish is derived from a dialect of spoken Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans after their occupation of the peninsula that started in the late 3rd century BC. Influenced by the peninsul ...
*
Spanish dialects and varieties
*
Spanish phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system ...
*
Yeísmo
''Yeísmo'' (; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ) and its merger into the phoneme (written ), u ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*{{cite book
, last=Penny
, first=Ralph
, title=A History of the Spanish Language
, year=2002
, edition=2nd
, publisher=Cambridge University Press
, location=Cambridge
, isbn=978-0-521-01184-6
External links
* Articles o
''seseo''an
''ceceo''in the ''Diccionario panhispánico de dudas'' of the
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
An explanation of the development of Mediæval Spanish sibilants in Castile and Andalusia.
Spanish dialects
Fricative consonants
Spanish phonology
Sound laws