Talk:Spanish phonology

b/v as a voiced labiodental fricative (ie English v)

Perhaps we should include the fact that some native speakers, perhaps in an attempt to be "educated", pronounce both the b and the v in Spanish as a voiced labiodental fricative (English v). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.246.153.217 (talk) 04:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

If we can find a reliable source that says so, I don't see why not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It all depends on the dialect you're speaking about and mostly if the speaker had learned another mother language at the same time which does distinguish between the two sounds. But for standard spanish there is no distinction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.174.167.23 (talk) 06:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, /b/-/v/ distinction is widespread in Paraguay, so it probably could be said that it is a part of Paraguayan Standard Spanish. Peter238 (talk) 13:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Trapezium vowel diagram

Hi, can someone add a trapezium to the vowel diagram, please? Thanks. --Kjoonlee 02:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a toughie. The Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet has a chart with formant values, but it's not the typical trapezium and I'm not sure how to convert it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

If you post the table, I'll see what I can do. Maybe the table will work just as well, with some work. --Kjoonlee 06:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ahh?

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:00, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter Ladefoged has tiny vowel trapeziums for Spanish, Japanese, and Danish in his 1975 work A course in phonetics. If anyone has that work and would like to scan it, we may be in business here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:40, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 05:29, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Diphthongs from Hiatus

Bowen & Stockwell (1955) say (p 237) "In normal transition, two unstressed vowels are [v̆v]" with the first being shorter than the second and gives the following examples.

[ĕa] /beatiˈtud/ beatitud ('beatitude')

[ăe] /maesˈtrita/ maestrita ('little teacher')

[ĕo] /leoˈnes/ leonés ('Leonese')

[ŏe] /poeˈtisa/ poetisa ('poetess')

[ăo] /aoˈrita/ ahorita ('right away')

[ŏa] /toaˈʝita/ toallita ('little towel')

Does that mean that Martínez-Celdrán et al (2003) are incorrect in transcribing maestro as [mae̯stɾo]? Bowen & Stockwell also seem to transcribe /iw/ and /uj/ where Martínez-Celdrán et al as well as Sparkman (1943) and Harris (1969) have transcribed or implied /ju/ and /wi/ respectively. Sparkman also cites Navarro Tomás (p 64) in pointing that ui is [uj] northern Spain (meaning it is [wi] elsewhere).

I'm not really sure what sort of generalization to make/accept in regards to the process of Spanish diphthongization. Any Thoughts? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If the work by Martínez-Celdrán you are referring to is Castilian Spanish, in this article the authors explicitly state that they are studying formal pronunciation of Spanish. Other authors might rather be speaking of everyday speech. In some parts of the Spanish-speaking world differences between formal and informal pronunciation can get strikingly large. --Jotamar (talk) 22:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

True, but I'm wondering if Martínez-Celdrán et al might be incorrect in their transcription of maestro, not that they're describing a hyperformal variety. It seems fishy to me. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the diphthongs from hiatus, but /uj/ or /ui̯/ is definitely a diphthong in Spanish as in the word "muy" ('very') /mui̯/ which I have never heard pronounced with a rising diphthong /mwi/. –Jmolina116 (talk) 22:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In my understanding of the Spanish dialects covered, muy is the only word where ui/uy represents /uj/. Otherwise (fuimos, cuidado, etc) it is /wi/. This could be something that varies or varied in different Spanish dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 19:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Onslaught of unconstructive edits

It has occurred to me that the recent series of reversions and counterreversions might seem like an edit war between two uncompromising editors. If it were simply an issue of sources, I would be willing to mark certain statements with {{fact}}. However, the anon editor has shown on this page and others to be deliberately dishonest in attributing sources. Here are some examples:

• at voiced labiodental fricative, they attempted to add Spanish as an example by citing Martínez-Celdrán et al (2003). However, this source does not mention [v] as an allophone of /f/
• at voiced velar fricative, they added Spanish, again citing Martínez-Celdrán et al though the source specifically states that they're approximants.
• Here at Spanish phonology, they again falsely attributed Martínez-Celdrán et al to /f/ -> [v]
• Also here, in this string of edits, they
  • falsely attributed Martínez-Celdrán et al to a claim about dialectal variation,
  • changed the Andalusian allophone of /as/ from [æ̞] to [ɑ] (despite what the source says).

This false attribution is enough for me to do blind reverts and to not trust any anon editor who behaves like the series of IP addresses who have been adding and re-adding these and other edits. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There are so many mistakes on this article

Since when this is necessary to know:

| opaco || /oˈpako/ || 'opaque' || opacidad || /opaθiˈdad/ || 'opacity' |-

| sueco || /ˈsweko/ || 'Swedish' || suecia || /ˈsweθja/ || 'Sweden' |-

| belga || /ˈbelga/ || 'Belgium' || bélgico || /ˈbelxiko/ || 'Belgian' |-

| análogo || /aˈnalogo/ || 'analogous' || analogía || /analoˈxia/ || 'analogy' |}

Even, that Spanish is wrong; belga is Belgian and Bélgica is Belgium.

I see very uncompleted this article. Spanish has got a lot of allophones, which should be included in parenthese on the Spanish sounds chart. They are real sounds, although they are not distinguishable, they are articulated by the Spanish speakers. It is unfair how other languages as German, French, etc. specify loan sounds from other languages on their phonology articles, and you see such a poor information about the Spanish language. 84.120.160.122 (talk) 17:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I made an error in this table. I'm sorry if you feel the table is not "necessary." I don't see it as any more unnecessary than other parts of the article.

Because there are so many allophones (most of which require diacritics), the table might get too cluttered with such sounds. Is there perhaps a way of distinguishing major vs minor allophones so that we might include such a handful? Otherwise, IMHO the article's prose does a pretty decent job of covering allophones.

Also, I'm not familiar with Spanish loanword phonology. If the German and French phonology articles have info on that it's probably because editors have found published articles that say something about it. If we find anything, we can certainly include it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:03, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions for improving the article

I suggest to modify the Spanish consonant table.

• /θ/ (Spain except the Canary Islands, and some Andalusian dialects) - /s/ (the rest of the speakers).
• Merging /ʝ/(-/j/-/ʒ/) and /ʎ/ into one phoneme (yeísmo). Metropolitan areas in Spain /ʝ/~[ɟʝ], Argentina and Uruguay /ʒ/ (or /ʃ/)~[dʒ], the rest of the countries alternate between /ʝ/~[ɟʝ] and /j/~[dʒ].

As it is now, the article looks a bit disorganised. If this article is about an in-depth explanation about the Spanish phonology, it should include all/or most allophones. JAuMeh** (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I do see the benefit to indicating that /θ/ and /ʎ/ are dialectal but, as I've said before, we don't need to indicate all allophones on the table and I happen to think it's better that we stick it to phonemes. Trying to put as many allophones on the table and pidgeonholing descriptions of their distribution to superscript notes may work for Dutch, but not for Spanish. The table shouldn't be exhaustive and information shouldn't be given in table-only format.

Otherwise, most everything you mention is in the article is already present; the only things I spot that you mention aren't already in the article is the appearance of of [ʃ], which I haven't yet found any sourcing for.

How is it too disorganized? How do you recommend we reorganize it? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

stops

Per this article, the voiced stops in club de fútbol are all frics. Are they really? Also, I would expect some assimilation in fútbol, with the tb maybe [db]. kwami (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It's really difficult to predict how a Spanish speaker will utter that sentence, as it includes 2 foreign consonants, the 'b' in club and the 't' in fútbol; in practice I think you would get a very wide array of different pronunciations. --Jotamar (talk) 23:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd transcribe club de fútbol [kluβ̞ ð̞e̞ ˈfut̪β̞o̞l], though my transcription is pretty standard-centric. It's kind of strange that these sounds are really more often approximants but are transcribed phonemically as voiced stops. Perhaps it's typographical constraints that keep us from seeing them as prototypically approximants that are "fortified" (rather than being stops that are lenited) in certain positions. I've never heard of Spanish assimilating voicing for stops across syllable boundaries, but I wouldn't be too surprised. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The /b/ wouldn't be fortified by the adjacent /t/? kwami (talk) 06:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It might be. Fortification doesn't occur after liquids (unless they're homorganic), nor does it seem to occur after fricatives (e.g. desde). But now that you mention it, [ˈfut̪bo̞l] sounds more correct. Is that sort of cluster common in Spanish? It could be the case that fortification also occurs after other stops but that this only occurs in loanwords. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Allophones in brackets and dialectal variation charts

Many other articles of phonology add them, and these sounds are articulated by the Spanish speakers.

Spanish is a global language, it has got several major dialects juts as GA, RP, AE, etc. In the English phonology article it is well explained in different charts the variation of the vowels and diphthongs from dialect to dialect. In Spanish occurs a lot of alternation in the pronunciation from the major dialects to the major dialects (mainly consonant changes, but also vowels openings, and vowels nasalitasion, which is common in Southern Spain, Caribbean, Venezuela, Argentina... ) mainly the pronunciation of "s", which could be articulated in many ways (/h/, /s/, /silent with vowel opening/). In Spain the zones that drop "s" are Andalusia, Murcia, Extremadura, South Castile-La Mancha, South Valencian Community, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla. In South America this is common as well in Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Caribbean coast of Colombia, Panama, Chile, and Argentina. This should be highlighted on the article. It is remarkable that here it is added a sound /θ/ which is only articulated by less than 30 millions of people of all the speakers of Spanish, and it forgets about the /ʒ/ articulation of ll/y which is articulated by more people than articulates /θ/. Argentinians, Uruguayans and Paraguayans cannot see their sound there represented? It is as fear /θ/ as /ʒ/. And Spanish from northern Spain is a main dialect as well, as Argentinian-Paraguayan-Uruguayan.

The charts could be based in "the innovative pronunciation of Spanish" (Southern Spain, the Canary Islands, Venezuelan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican Republica, Panama, Argentina), and "the conservative pronunciation of Spanish" (Northern Spanish dialect, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia...). And a better way would be getting based on this map, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Variedades_principales_del_espa%C3%B1ol.png

Americans and Australians would not be very happy in the case they do not represent their vowel pronunciation on the English phonological article, and it would only have the Receive Pronunciation, which is far less used than the GA. Just the same happens with Spanish. Spanish as well has got different patterns and ways of pronunciation based on this map, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Variedades_principales_del_espa%C3%B1ol.png

I would be glad to help the improvement of this article.

84.120.141.138 (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Have you read the article or did you stop at the consonant chart? What you are asking for is present in the article. It's not in the chart because the chart is of vowel phonemes. — Ƶ§œš¹ b>[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course I have read it, and to my point of view it is just the Spanish spoken in Spain by not all the population there, around 30 million people. If you have heard speakers from many places you would notice what I am trying to say, and this article doesn't show very good the allophones, which ARE real sounds articulated when people speak.

There are other pattern dialects aside the one shown here on this table of consonants. For those speakers from Andalusia, Canary Islands, Murcia, Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic, blah, blah, blah... If these dialects drop "s" or turn it into /h/, won't exist other sounds, as /θ/, /z/, /ð/ (not /ð̞/).

Also lacks some explantion about vowels. Mid-vowels /e̞/ and /o̞/ might close and open to close-mid [e - o] and open-mid [ɛ - ɔ]. And it should be said that mid-vowels /e̞/ and /o̞/ are instable and could tend to be pronounced [e - o] and [ɛ - ɔ]. Many dictionaries differences following a rule of Tomás Navarro Tomás. [Spanish] Las vocales medias /e/ y /o/ presentan unos alófonos algo abiertos y cerrados, muy aproximados a [ɛ] y [o], en las siguientes posiciones:

En contacto con el sonido de doble erre ("rr") /r/, como en "perro", "torre", "remo", "roca". Cuando van precediendo al sonido /x/, como en "teja", "hoja". Cuando van formando parte de un diptongo decreciente, como en "peine", "boina". Además, el alófono abierto de /o/ se produce en toda sílaba que se encuentre trabada por consonante y el alófono abierto de /e/ aparece cuando se haya trabado por cualquier consonante que no sea /d/, /m/ y /n/: "pelma", "pesca", "pez", "costa", "olmo". El fonema /a/ presenta tres variedades alofónicas:

Una variedad palatal, cuando precede a consonantes palatales, como en "malla", "facha", "despacho". Otra variante velarizada se produce cuando precede a las vocales /o/, /u/ o a las consonantes /l/, /x/: "ahora", "pausa", "palma", "maja". Una variante media, que se realiza en los contornos no expresados en los párrafos anteriores: "caro", "compás", "sultán". 84.120.141.138 (talk) 06:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Just comparing, the English phonology article adds /x/ in brackets, a sound I have hardly heard in English. There are sounds which are not allophones that are dialectal in Spanish, as the Scottish /x/... How many people pronounce an /x/ sound? The 5 million people that inhabits Scotland?! What about Spanish? /ʒ/, /h/, /ŋ/ etc ???!! Argentinian /ʒ/? Argentinian-Venezuelan-Andalusian-Cuban-Chilean-etc /h/? /ŋ/?? Andalusian-Caribbean-Venezuela... These are sounds as the /x/ in English. And the vowels opening in Andalusian and Murcian Spanish?

If you add /x/ in English, why in Spanish it cannot be added dialectal sounds?!

The English phonology article adds /x/ on the consonant table in brackets, and with a number clarifies it. It says:

Consonant phonemes of English Bilabial Labio-

dental Dental Alveolar Post- alveolar2 Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal1 m n ŋ Plosive p b t d k ɡ Affricate tʃ dʒ Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ (x)3 h Approximant ɹ1, 2, 5 j w4 Lateral l1, 6

3. The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is dialectal, occurring largely in Scottish English. In other dialects, words with these sounds are pronounced with /k/.

Not only the English phonology article, the French one adds /ʎ/ and /ŋ/. /ʎ/ is dialectal... It's got to be very dialectal as I have never heared it. And /ŋ/, because it appears in words as "camping", "parking". These words also exist in Spanish, and the sound is very common in Andalusian Spanish and Caribbean Spanish.

Those sounds appears on the main consonant chart of French

What that article says:

IPA chart French consonants

Labial Dental/ Alveolar Palato- alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular plain lab. Nasal m n ɲ ŋ1 Plosive p b t d k ɡ Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ ʁ2 Approximant3 j4 ɥ w Lateral l (ʎ)4

1. The velar nasal /ŋ/ is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words in final position such as parking or camping.[1] People who have difficulty with this sound replace it with a prenasalized [ŋɡ] sequence instead of a single consonant [ŋ].[citation needed] This sequence also appears almost systematically where there is a possible liaison with the initial vowel of a word pronounced just after it.[citation needed]

3. /ʎ/ has merged with /j/ in a number of dialects (including the standard). This accounts for the appearance of [j] in the syllable coda and minimal pairs like ail [aj] ('garlic') vs haï [ai] ('hated').[4]

Why is not fear to add real sounds to the Spanish consonant chart, whereas other languages add loanwords sounds and almost non-existent sounds as /ʎ/ (I have never EVER heard this sound in French!!)and /ŋ/ in French and /x/ in English.

The thing is... The Spanish phonology article lacks of order, lacks of sounds and a better explanation of the mutation of sounds in the pronunciation of Spanish.

84.120.141.138 (talk) 07:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It takes a bit to chisel through your prose, so if you could cut to the point in future posts, it would help.

One thing this article does not fall short on is explaining allophones or the phonetics of consonants. I can see reasoning behind enclosing θ and ʎ in parentheses since, as you point out, this is done at English phonology and other places in Wikipedia.

I'm pleased that you've gotten information about vowel allophony. It's from Manual de pronunciación española, right? Could you tell me what page (or pages) you're quoting from? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

http://liceu.uab.cat/~joaquim/phonetics/fon_esp/fonetica_espanol_segmental.html#fonemas_esp

http://revistas.ucm.es/fll/0212999x/articulos/RFRM9090110075A.PDF

Spanish main dialects, and Spanish spoken in the media: http://www.colmex.mx/academicos/cell/ravila/docs/Pronunciacion.pdf

Would you please check these links? These ones contain a lot of information about the Spanish phonology and phonetics:

http://liceu.uab.cat/~joaquim/phonetics/fon_esp/variacion_fonetica_espanol.html

http://liceu.uab.cat/~joaquim/phonetics/fon_esp/IPA_vow_sp.html

http://liceu.uab.cat/~joaquim/phonetics/fon_esp/fonetica_espanol_segmental.html#fonemas_esp

The sentence "Las estrellas parecen espejos" and "los dos" can be pronounced

• Traditional Castilian Spanish [las e̞sˈtɾe̞ʎas paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n e̞sˈpe̞xo̞s] / [lo̞z do̞s]
• Eastern Andalusian Spanish-Murcian-Southern Castile-La Mancha [læ̞ ɛˈtɾe̞ʝæ̞ paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n ɛˈpe̞xɔ] / [lɔ dɔ]
• Western Andalusian Spanish [las/lah ɛ̞ʰˈtɾe̞ʝaʰ paˈɾe̞θẽ̞ŋ ɛ̞ʰˈpe̞hɔ̞ʰ] / [lɔ̞ʰ dɔ̞ʰ] (the "s" in las, followed by a vowel can be pronounced [s] or [h], depending on the speaker]
• Canarian Spanish [las/lah e̞hˈtɾe̞ʝah paˈɾe̞θẽ̞ŋ ehˈpe̞ho̞h] / [lo̞h do̞h] (the "s" in las, followed by a vowel can be pronounced [s] or [h], depending on the speaker)
• Mexican Spanish [las e̞sˈtɾe̞ʝas paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n e̞sˈpe̞xo̞s] / [lo̞z do̞s] (Mexican Spanish relaxes unstress vowels)
• Colombian Spanish [las e̞sˈtɾe̞ʝas paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n e̞sˈpe̞xo̞s] / [lo̞z do̞s]
• Venezuelan-Caribbean Spanish [lah e̞hˈtɾe̞ʝah paˈɾe̞θẽ̞ŋ e̞hˈpe̞ho̞h] / [lo̞h do̞h]
• Argentinian Spanish [las ɛ̞ʰˈtɾe̞ʒas paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n ɛ̞ʰˈpe̞xo̞s] / [lɔ̞ʰ do̞s]
• Chilean Spanish [las ɛ̞ʰˈtɾe̞ʝaʰ paˈɾe̞θẽ̞n ɛ̞ʰˈpe̞xɔ̞ʰ] / [lɔ̞ʰ dɔ̞ʰ]

Bolivian Spanish: http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/aih/pdf/06/aih_06_1_090.pdf

(/ʃ/) could be added as well, there are common English loan words, plus other, which are pronounced with /ʃ/ as show, fashion, flash, squash... 84.120.141.138 (talk) 21:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Those are some nice finds. My Spanish isn't too hot, so it might take me a while to understand them. It seems that liceu.uab.es is connected to Joaquim Llisterri and the links you've provided from that site look like thorough summaries of what different sources say. The Almeida, Ávila, and Gordon pieces all look scholarly and shouldn't be too hard to cite if they provide useful information.

It seems that the different pronunciations of a particular Spanish utterence might be better suited for Spanish dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

If you need any help with anything, you can ask me :)

I think it is important, at least in Spanish to cite the main dialects on the phonology article. As English cites Received Pronunciation, General American, General Australian... I know there is just a(n) RAE. But the reality is more decentralised. Couldn't the phonology table be based at least on the four main dialects; Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Caribbean Spanish, and Southern Cone Spanish? And if this article cannot add all the Spanish allophones, can these be added on the "IPA transcription for Spanish" article?

There are two ways to spell words // and [], in a phonological way, which is only based on the proper phonemes, does not show what people may pronounce in Spanish.

This is kind of difficult to see where all these sounds fit good. And I think it is more real, at least for the Spanish language to use phonetics [] rather than pure phonology which do not show what is the real pronunciation of the sound.

Another thing, this article says: Caribbean dialects, as well as those of Panama and of the Atlantic coast off Colombia, exhibit a form of simplification of coda consonants. It should be added, this feature is also done in Andalusia, Murcia, Extremadura, South Castile-La Mancha, Canary Islands, and also in Venezuela. ven pronounced /bẽ/. However Andalusian phonology is more complex and they drop more sounds or mutate them.

Final /d/ or more real [ð̞], is common to be silent in most of the Spanish speaking countries. Nowadays it is dropped most of the times, Madrid or usted are correctly pronounced [ma'ð̞ri] and [us'te̞], and [ma'ð̞rið̞] and [us'te̞ð̞], other possible pronunciations are [ma'ð̞riθ] and [us'te̞θ], and [ma'ð̞rit] and [us'te̞t]. <http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca/Foro-preguntas/ARCHIVO-Foro/d%20final%20de%20palabra.htm

It is totally wrong that you have put those sounds in brakets... Those are real sounds.

It is not fear the point of writing phonology articles, does it follows the same pattern in all of them? As, as far I can see it says unlogical things, as in the French one including /ʎ/ and the English one including /x/ a sound only pronounced in Scotland. So, in Spanish can we include the sounds in Andalusia, which forms the Kingdom of Spain as much as Scotland forms the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I don't see logic on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.199.233 (talk) 16:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

84.120.141.138 (talk) 06:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand. The parentheses simply mean that the phonemes don't appear in all dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

What is what you dont understand? You include a sound that appear only in one dialect in English, the /x/ sound for the word loch, in Scotish English... So following this pattern you should include for Spanish /h/,

/ʰ/, /ʒ/, /ŋ/, etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.199.233 (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

You're confusing phonemes and allophones. [h] is an allophone of /s/ in coda position for a number of dialects and [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar consonants and, in some dialects, in coda position. These aren't separate phonemes, but contextual variants. Similarly [h] and [ʒ] aren't separate phonemes, they're the same phoneme as /x/ and /ʝ/, respectively, with different phonetic properties. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Am I correct in understanding that Ávila is saying (page 10) that varieties that have /θ/ don’t have /ʃ/ and vice versa? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Consonant allophones

The article is not *useful* for my purpose of quickly finding a summary with dialect (how about 2 dialects ??) differentiation of allophones. It appears to lack simple tables or lists of simple examples for consonant sounds. Since I am trying to learn these I am not able to write the article; those who can - please do. I can go read Martínez-Celdrán for in-depth phonemics. Thanks ! Netrapt (talk) 03:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, at least the explanation about the sounds' changing (consonant mutation, from voiceless to voiced) should be better explained and clearer - [z]~/s/, [ð]~/θ/, [v]~/f/, [χ]~/x/, [β̞]~/b/, [ð̞]~/d/, [ɣ̞]~/g/, etc. - It is good the table of the "N" archiphoneme and its allophones in Spanish. The rest of the allophones are sounds as well and they should be included on a table for a better view. 84.120.141.138 (talk) 06:31, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Netrapt, I'm really confused here. This article isn't useful to you because it doesn't summarize how dialects differ phonetically in a simple table? What makes you think that this is what this article should set out to do? What sort of "examples for consonant sounds" table are you looking for? There are three in the article already.

There are seven tables on the article right now. I'm open to what other tables people have in mind, but a blanket list of allophones is not a characteristic of a quality phonology article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

A little problem here....

I have read through this, and thing like nasal vowels,/θ/,[z],[v],[χ], are purely dialectal and should be noted as such. Also, germination occurs in phrases such as "son nuevos" in some dialects, instead of [ˈsõ̞ ˈnwe̞βo̞s]. Does any one else see this problem? Is this not Spanish phonology and not purely mainstream European Spanish phonology? ₭øμt̪ũ (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Right now it kinda is mainstream European Spanish phonology (as is expalined in the beginning of the article. Statements about other dialects should be sourced. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:33, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

So shouldn't references from other dialects be removed? And should separate pages for other dialects be made? I also think the page should be renamed to "European Spanish phonology" if it only shows the phonology of European Spanish. Maybe in the same sense that English does, one page for European Spanish, and another for Mexican Spanish( Most widespread Spanish). But, doing so, you would have to include the sub-dialects of Mexican Spanish. — ₭øμt̪ũ (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

You should include in this article the pronunciation of the main dialects of the Spanish language.

As in the English phonology article, it is so well explained the vowel alternation among American English (GA), British English (RP), Australian English... In Spanish occurs alternation in consonants, from Mexico to Argentina, and from Castile to Andalusia and the Spanish speaking countries in the Caribbean. Why can I only see the pattern from Castile, and not the most spoken pattern as the Mexico one? Or just any other pattern than this one. Mexican Spanish tends to drop vowels, whereas other dialects tend to drop consonants and open vowels, etc.

Yes, these sounds /θ/,[z],[v],[χ] are from Castilian Spanish. However these sounds are not present in dialects where /s/, /x/, and /θ/ are dropped (S-dropping dialects)

Moreover [z] and [v] are sounds from Mexican Spanish, inland Colombian Spanish, in addition to Castilian Spanish. But these sounds are not pronounced in the Spanish Caribbean dialects, Southern Spain and the Canary Islands, most of Argentina and Uruguay.

All Spanish dialects nasalise vowels when they are in contact with nasals, however this has got a point of controversy as there are dialects that may drop the nasal consonants or pronounce the nasal as velar (Southern Spain and the Canary Islands, Caribbean Spanish, coast of Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica) and the rest of dialects would pronounced the nasal consonants as it is, plus the nasal vowel.

Mexican Spanish, tends to drop vowels and pronounce all the consonants, this dialect does not drop /s/, /x/... They use [z], [v] but not /θ/~[ð] (it is not the same than [ð̞])... In fact, "durazno" is pronounced [du'ɾazno̞]. Yes the "z" is [z]. "Asno" is pronounced as ['azno̞]. In Castilian (Northern and Central Spain), "durazno" would be pronounced [du'ɾaðno̞] and "asno" the same than in Mexico, ['azno̞]. In Andalusian, and the rest of the s-dropping dialects could be, ['ahno], ['anno] and ['æ̞no] In Mexican Spanish they reduce vowels, to complete omission. Trastos [tɾasts]. 86.177.205.131 (talk) 14:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

What sub-dialect of Mexican Spanish are you referring to? I have never heard [v] in it, and I thought it was nonexistent in any dialect of Spanish( except for uneducated Spanish in the U.S.) But I have heard of the voicing of s before a nasal( from my mothers side), but its not existent in all. ₭øμt̪ũ 23:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

/v/ doesn't exist in Spanish, only by some educated and bilingual people who might use it in Spanish; the sound /v/ exists in Alicante, Valencia, Castellón and the Balearic Islands by bilingual speakers. Most people who speak catalan/valencian in these places pronounce /v/ in Spanish. There are also educated Spanish speakers from Spain and South America who pronounce /v/ and not /b/, however this is not standard as Spanish lacks of this sound.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialecto_churro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balearic#See_also

What I was talking about is [v], as "an allophone of /f/", (do not get confused with /v/, the phoneme). [v] or a voiced /f/, exists in Spanish, the /f/ as /s/, needs to be in contact with a voiced consonant to be pronounced as [v] and [z]. ['davne̞] Dafne, [av'ɣ˕ano̞] afgano; asno ['azno]. These sounds are allophones. I've listened to so many singers who use /v/ all the time without pronouncing it as /b/. And I have met very educated South Americans, as Venezuelans, and Chilians who pronounce "v" as /v/ and not /b/. The s-voicing [z] doesn't exist in the dialects that drop consonants and mainly "s" (so obvious). So, if your dialect doesn't drop consonants and you pronounce /s/ you might also pronounce [z].

Another thing, in Spain the English word "pub" is pronounced /paf/, yes with an /f/. But, "club" is pronounced /klub/. So, in Spain the sentence "el pub de Marta" would be pronounced [e̞l pav ð̞e̞ 'maɾta] It is also remarkable the pronunciation of the word "ovni", which i've heard so many times ['o̞vni], yes with [v]. And also, but much less ['o̞β̞ni].

This is a never ending story. The Spanish phonology article doesn't show the main differences amongst the main Spanish dialects as the English one does. You can see on the English phonology article how the British pronounce, and also how do the Americans and the Australians. Americans use an r-coloured vowel whereas British drops "r"... Well very similar in Spanish, but the letter is not "r" but "s". So, what about the Spanish phonology article?!?! An Andalusian would pronounce different from a Castilian as an America would from a British... And what about the Mexican, Argentinian. This article continues to be so poor and deficient. You include on the English phonology article the /x/ for a sound it only appears in Scotland. Is it the most spoken English accent in the world? I don't get why you can say on the English phonology article /x/ exists for only a word "loch" where most of the speakers pronounce it with /k/ at the end. And you cannot say real information about the main Spanish dialects on this article.

The English phonology article includes sounds from the Scottish English /x/, and the Spanish one doesn't even include sounds from South America, or even allophones properly so that people can see the REAL pronunciation because you don't allow it, even though there are loads of sources with more information to put on here. The French phonology article includes /ʎ/ (dialectal) and /ŋ/ (loan from English)...

Anyway, this is Wikipedia :)

92.4.203.3 (talk) 01:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

We have some sourced information on dialectal differences. As the article's primary contributor to its present state, I can say that of the resources I've had access, there is more attention on Standard Spanish. This is one of the reasons this article focuses on Standard Spanish. This can change in the future, but all information should be sourced.

What phonemes are missing in the chart? There's no reason to put allophones. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Consonants in parentheses are phonemes of Standard Spanish but absent in many dialects, especially those in Latin America".

The /ʎ/ sound does exist in Latin America, it is common in Paraguay, Bolivia and some parts of Peru and Colombia. So that sentence is wrong. 149.254.58.41 (talk) 00:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The sentence is technically correct as it isn't saying that /ʎ/ is completely absent in Latin America. How should it be worded to be less confusing? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be better said, "Consonants in parentheses are phonemes of Standard Spanish but absent in many dialects". without referring to Latin America. In Spain itself there are zones where /ʎ/ and /θ/ don't exist; as the Canary Islands, many zones of Andalusia, etc. There are zones in Spain where /θ/ doesn't exist but exists /ʎ/, this occurs in the South of Alicante, some parts of Galicia. Also, there are zones where /ʎ/ doesn't exist but /θ/ exists, many parts of Andalusia. Another thing is that /ʎ/ doesn't exist in some metropolitan areas of Spain. It exists though in the second largest city of Spain, Barcelona. 92.3.132.146 (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

this is a map that shows the distribution of /ʎ/ as a separate phoneme and this shows that of /θ/. The absence of these phonemes is especially prevalent outside of Northern Spain and not mentioning it would be a removal of important information. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, only /θ/ exists in Spain, and I think it does in Equatorial Guinea as well, I don't know that much about it. However /ʎ/ is still common in few countries of South America, mainly in Bolivia and Paraguay. So, you can say that sentence if you refer to /θ/. 92.3.132.146 (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

But the sentence doesn't say that the consonants are completely absent from Latin America. It says that they're rarer there, which is true for both consonants. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there are phonemes missing

I think that /w/ and /j/ (written hi- and hu- plus vowel)are phonemes, for example:

Huevo (egg) /weβ̞o/

Hielo (ice) /jelo/

Maybe in most dialects hie- and ye- are homophones, but in Argentinean Spanish and many others, there is s distinction between hie- and ye-, for example: Hielo (ice) is pronounced /jelo/ and Yelo is pronounced /ʃelo/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuuagso (talk • contribs) 19:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The article actually deals with this. This phonemic w, which differs from a nonsyllabic u, is represented as [w̝] in the article (though I have seen it argued that it is an underlyingly labialized velar plosive /ɡʷ/). The phonemic j that differs from non-syllabic i is represented as [ʝ], though, as you imply, its realization differs from dialect to dialect. The latter is widespread and is even in the consonant chart but the distribution of the former is less clear without further sourcing.

Another thing, the orthographic representation of /ʝ/, is not limited to <hi> before vowels. It's also represented by <y> before vowels as in yendo and yo. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

/ɛ̝/ = /e̞/ and /ɔ̝/ = /o̞/

For a better view, and for contrasting with the mid-close vowels, /e/ and /o/, and the mid-open vowels, /ɛ/ and /ɔ/. The Spanish vowels "e" and "o" are real mid vowels, it should be added for people to see the Spanish vowels are somehow higher than /e/ and somehow lower than /ɛ/. Same for "o". 86.177.200.58 (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what the diacritic is for. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeh I know! But both sounds /ɛ̝/ and /ɔ̝/ are just the same as /e̞/ and /o̞/, and to specify so the readers can contrast and compare the Spanish (and Romanian) mid vowels with the close-mid vowels /e/-/o/ and open-mid vowels /ɛ/-/ɔ/ that are used by the rest of the major Romance languages (Portuguese, French, Catalan, Italanian) /e/-/o/ and /ɛ/-/ɔ/.

So, for a better understanding; /ɛ̝/ = /e̞/ and /ɔ̝/ = /o̞/ in Spanish and Romanian.

86.177.200.58 (talk) 10:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

If they're the same, why would both make it easier to understand? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Because it is a mid vowel!! Both are synonymous, the same, equal sounds!! /ɛ̝/ = /e̞/ and /ɔ̝/ = /o̞/, something in between [e] and [ɛ] and [o] and [ɔ].

Let me tell you the English "r" is an approximant /ɹ/ for most of the English speakers. Currently, it is transcribed as /r/ (this is a rolled "r", coronal trill. The "r" pronunciation found in Spanish or Scottish English). Why is it /r/ and not /ɹ/?! It is so obvious, so one can understand it better. So, i am arguing about two equal sounds and not about something that is totally different.

/r/, /ɹ/, /ʀ/,/ʁ/ ([ʁ̝]: uvular fricative and [ʁ̝] uvular approximant).

Why are you so reluctant?

86.179.19.18 (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Let me see if I get your argument correctly. Right now, the article transcribes the Spanish mid vowels as [e̞] and [o̞], using the symbols for close-mid vowels with a lowering diacritic to indicate that they are mid. You're arguing that we should, in tandem, also use [ɛ̝] and [ɔ̝]--that is, the symbols for open-mid vowels with a raising diacritic that indicates they are mid--to represent the same vowels.

You're saying that this would help illustrate that they are mid vowels, but the diacritic serves that purpose already. Adding the other vowels would just make it more confusing. In addition, I've never seen the open-mid vowels used to represent the mid vowels of Spanish unless a source is talking about actual open-mid allophones. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Honestly it is more confusing transcribing in English /ɹ/ as /r/ and no one complains (there is no relation between /ɹ/ and /r/ as equal sounds). Yes, i know what diacritics are for. And it would be just for contrasting with other Romance languages where they differenciate between close-mid vowels and mid-open vowels. In Spanish, "e" and "o" are in between /e/ and /ɛ/ & /o/ and /ɔ/, so a lowered /e̞/ and /o̞/ are just the same as a raised /ɛ̝/ and /ɔ̝/, synonymous mid vowels :)

86.180.91.251 (talk) 13:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there is some relation between the different rhotic consonants as our article on rhotic consonant perhaps could do a better job at. More importantly, though, linguistics sources commonly use "r" for the English rhotic because it's easier typographically. Similarly, though you are right that using the close-mid vowels and open-mid vowel are just as accurate, the former is much more common in sources on Spanish. Perhaps it is for the same reason (typographical constraints).

By the way, there's a discussion here about creating articles for truly mid vowels akin to the articles close-mid front unrounded vowel and open-mid front unrounded vowel. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. So at the moment as there is not a single IPA symbol for /ɛ̝/ - /e̞/ and /ɔ̝/ - /o̞/, we could use them in some explation for contrasting until these sounds get unified on a single symbol. It would be good, as well, to mention; the Spanish mid vowels are in between /e/ and /ɛ/ & /o/ and /ɔ/. :D

86.182.14.142 (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Standard Spanish

I quote from above:

As the article's primary contributor to its present state, I can say that of the resources I've had access, there is more attention on Standard Spanish. This is one of the reasons this article focuses on Standard Spanish. [...] — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There is not just one Standard Spanish. Every country has its Standard Spanish, and this article focuses on Standard Spanish from Spain. Not even Real Academia Española is so ethnocentric.

Por su carácter de lengua supranacional, hablada en más de veinte países, el español constituye, en realidad, un conjunto de normas diversas, que comparten, no obstante, una amplia base común http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/

167.107.191.217 (talk) 17:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If focusing on Standard Peninsular Spanish is ethnocentric, then the body of research used for this article reflects academic ethnocentricity. I don't think either is true, but it doesn't really matter. Complaining that a page such as this has POV problems won't fix them if we don't bring additional (pluricentric?) sources to our contributions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (quoted above) is pluralistic (if nor perfect at that). See for example http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=seseo I'm very surprised to see in your user page that you are American: I thought that only in Europe was held the vision that peninsular Spanish is the only variant to be taught to foreigners. Americans normally teach many variants, or if only one is used, they typically choose the one from Mexico (the country with more Spanish speakers) and not the one from Spain. 167.107.191.217 (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

How will that dictionary help? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Spanish Dictionaries With IPA Support

It would be nice to have a link to any Spanish dictionary which has actual support to show the user the Spanish phonology in IPA. Unfortunately I am not aware of such a dictionary. All dictionaries I know (rae.es, EUDict, SpanishDict) do not have this. SpanishDict actually does but only a (subjective) non-IPA version e.g. denunciar [day-noon-the-ar’]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tobiaswunner (talk • contribs) 15:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

'Gran diccionario español-portugués' (Espasa) has IPA-indicated pronunciation of Spanish. It can be found online with free of charge: Gran diccionario español-portugués (Espasa) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Martens (talk • contribs) 20:46, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Venían

These dropped consonants do appear when additional suffixation occurs (compases [komˈpase] 'beats', venían [beˈnian] 'they were coming', comeremos [koˈmeɾemo] 'we will eat').

What is dropped in [beˈnian]? --Error (talk) 21:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ven [bẽ], venían [beˈnian]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Font problems

Under "Phonetic notes", at the end of the third paragraph, the phonemic renditions of "ley" and "leyes" unfortunately look like lowercase versions of "LEL" and "LELES". Wiki's sans-serif font makes it impossible to distinguish between the uppercase vowel "I" and lowercase "L". The footnoted apology seems like an inadequate response to the problem. Can Wikipedia access a serifed font? What other solutions are available? Kotabatubara (talk) 20:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The Classic skin uses a serifed font, if you can accept a personal solution. --Error (talk) 21:16, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The Classic skin is available at the preferences page that I linked, section appearance. It will work for you but not for people with other skins such as the default one. --Error (talk) 14:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Epenthetic /e/

So, I was talking with a friend about Spanish, and I decided to come here in search of an explanation for the epenthetic /e/ in words like estados or Esteban. Instead of information that tells us 'why' Spanish speakers decided to insert an /e/ in front of otherwise word-initial /s/, I find this: "Because of these phonotactic constraints, an epenthetic /e/ is inserted before word-initial cluster beginning with /s/ (e.g. escribir 'to write') but not word-internally (transcribir 'to transcribe'),[66] thereby moving the initial /s/ to a separate syllable." That is not an explanation, it's a reification of the data couched in terms of a phonological analysis. If one unpacks the statement, what we're saying is "Spanish speakers insert /e/ in front of word-initial /s/," but that is not an explanation that I can imagine native Spanish speakers assenting to. The History of Spanish article has nothing really to say about it, and as my linguistic interests lie in other areas I'm not exactly the person to deal with it. It definitely is something that needs fixing. Duke Atreides (talk) 21:58, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

What sort of 'explanation' are you looking for? What is the 'explanation' for the English aspiration of tore ([tʰɔɹ]) but not store ([stɔɹ])? In French, neither tort nor store has an aspirated t. Why? And what explanation do you think English speakers would assent to? (Since most of them are completely unaware of this.) --Macrakis (talk) 22:25, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A real explanation, that's what. "Spanish speakers insert /e/ in front of word-initial /s/ because /s/ cannot be word-initial," is what the article says right now. Well yes, Wikipedia authors, thank you for telling me that Spanish does not permit word-initial /s/. "Spanish speakers insert /e/ in front of word-initial /s/ because of [insert relevant historical sound changes]" would be an explanation. You ask something pretty irrelevant; the [tʰ]/[t] alternation is allophonic. The Spanish [e]/∅ alternation is presumably not allophonic; I can't imagine a reasonable grammar of Spanish giving /steban/ as the underlying form of "Esteban". How is an L1 learner of Spanish to generalize the [e] out of the underlying form?

Duke Atreides (talk) 00:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, /e/ epenthesis does appear to be productive and obligatory (so there is no e/∅ alternation in those environments): I have a Spanish colleague who systematically inserts it in English words like 'storage', 'Steven', etc., so I wouldn't be shocked by an analysis that postulated underlying /steban/. How do L1 learners pick up phonotactic constraints? I don't know. They surely don't pick them up from the historical sound changes, even if some of the historical sound changes are reflected in synchronic phonological processes. And in general they can't explain them ("explanation that...native...speakers assent to"). I see on your page that you are studying linguistics. Perhaps there are theories I don't know about which would explain this sort of thing -- and I'd be happy to learn about them. --Macrakis (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me rephrase my criticisms. As it stands, we have an article that gives a reification trying to mask itself as an explanation. It essentially says that Spanish does things this way because Spanish does things this way. Now, I'm fine with the assertion "Spanish does things this way." The "explanation" though, is a little bizarre. Using the principle of maximum onset seems to be an actual explanation, and you can say something like "historically, /e/ was epenthesized before word-initial /s/, and thanks to cross-linguistic syllabification processes all other cases of syllable initial /s/ were moved into the coda of the preceding syllable." It explains the state of modern Spanish with more than a "just because," and explains the productivity of the cross-linguistic alternation of e/∅.

Duke Atreides (talk) 03:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

So how does that adverb "historically" explain the epenthesis? And "cross-linguistic syllabification processes" doesn't seem like much of an explanation either. But hey, if that's the way linguists explain these things, let's find a reliable source and add it to the article. --Macrakis (talk) 10:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

A historical explanation accounts for the structure of the modern language without resorting to the structure of the modern language. It tells us how we got to where we are.

As far as cross-linguistic syllabification goes, languages across the world exhibit a very clear tendency of assigning as many consonants as can be word-initial to the onset of a syllable. Anything left-over is then in the coda of the preceding syllable. It's a stronger effect in some languages than in others, but it predicts syllabifications like /trans.cri.bir/ given that no Spanish word starts with /sC/.

Duke Atreides (talk) 19:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Macrakis on this. It is apparent that a historical process occurred in Spanish to create the present phonotactic constraints, but we need reliable sources that go into detail on this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) There was a Romance-wide change that occurred in Proto-Romance and added short /i/ onto the beginning of all clusters of /s/+consonant. The /i/ was lowered to mid-high /e/ in Western Romance (the ancestors of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese) by the standard Western Romance vowel changes. This /e/ was later deleted in Italian; this is why Italian now has a prefix s- meaning "un", from Latin ex- (Romance es-). Now why was this the case? Why do any historical changes occur, and why do they occur in some places but not others? There aren't really good answers for this. There are general tendencies (e.g. bilabial /ɸ/ tends to become labiodental /f/ because the latter is a lot more prominent) but no way to predict when certain changes happen. Why did Old French have an extremely heavy stress accent but now French has basically no accent at all? Why did Middle French delete almost all final consonants but now French heavily favors closed consonant-final monosyllables? Why have vowels been so stable but consonants so unstable in the last 2000 years or so of Spanish, and why is it precisely the opposite in English? Benwing (talk) 07:53, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't the Italian /e/ raised to /i/ (as /e/ is generally in pre-tonic syllables, if I remember right) before being deleted? The realisation of in Svizzera as /inisvittsera/ still preserves a trace of the epenthetic or rather prothetic vowel then. (Hm, I thought I'd read this interesting little factoid in Wikipedia, but I can't find it again. Weird.) Oh, and why do you count Italian as Western Romance? Tuscan may have the Western Romance vowel system (but not all of the characteristic other changes, such as /kt/ > /jt/), but some of the other Italian dialects don't, and even Tuscan is not normally counted as Western Romance as it is south of the La Spezia–Rimini line. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, here it is: Romance languages#Prosthesis. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

detailed phonology

There used to be a very detailed description of allophones etc. in this article. Where is it?--90.179.235.249 (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It's in the article. Have you read it? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

We need a basic version of this

While the actual phonology is an interesting topic, there is nothing on this page that would give someone the basics. Spanish pronunciation links here, but when the average person searches for that, they just want to know how to pronounce a word. A phonemically correct pronunciation is simple to explain, and can be sourced from nearly any Spanish/English dictionary.

While Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and thus the current content is suitable, it is a general purpose encyclopedia. If at all possible, each article needs to be made where a layman can get a basic idea of the subject. This appears to be written for phonologists.

It won't take much: just that basic list of the closest English representations of the Spanish phonemes. While there are some esoteric dialects of English, it is fairly simple to get one that works for 90% of speakers. And the remaining 10% with a different dialect usually at least know about the dialect of the other 90%, so they would also be helped.

Finally, I could see this being part of the introduction, or a separate article. Pronunciation and phonology are not typically used to mean the same thing, so a basic article at Spanish pronunciation that links to this one for more information would be useful.

Then again, it could pretty much be a table, like the one used in Wikipedia:IPA for Spanish. Heck, if that were a proper encyclopedia article, I'd just make Spanish pronunciation redirect there, since that's what the average person will want to know. — trlkly 17:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done Benwing (talk) 01:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

IPA-ify this article please

This article uses non-IPA pronunciation symbols, namely [s̠ s̄ θ̦ θ^ṣ]. It would be nice if these were corrected to proper IPA symbols. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 06:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes that would indeed be nice, but there simply aren't any unambiguous IPA symbols for these sounds. In particular, there are no IPA diacritics for tongue shape characteristics. The first symbol above is in fact IPA, and the others are quoted from the original literature. The IPA is sorely lacking when it comes to sibilants, which is why even the phonetics bible "The Sounds of the World's Languages" uses ad-hoc symbols like [ṣ] [ŝ]. Benwing (talk) 07:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The first one is an IPA symbol - it is [s], the symbol for a voiceless alveolar sibilant fricative, combined with the diacritic symbolising retraction. Therefore, [s̠] is a voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant fricative, articulated between "normal" [s] and [ʃ]. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 20:25, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

allophones of <r>

I see now that Martinez-Celdran et al are claiming that trilled r occurs syllable-finally. Maybe, possibly, in highly exaggerated formal speech like you might hear from radio announcers, but hardly in normal circumstances. Most sources claim that trilled r only occurs initially, when written <rr> or after /l/, /n/ and /s/ (and in these latter circumstances it's somewhat questionable; citing from memory, one source said that a normal trilled r is something like 3-5 taps while after /l/, /n/, /s/ it's only 1-2 taps; also, the Spanish-Portuguese dictionary link that someone else gave has a tap in Israel -- as well as, of course, syllable-finally in words such as carta and amor).

I'll have to go see what Martinez-Celdran et al actually say, but if they don't qualify what they say about r, I'd take a great deal else of what they say with a lot of salt as well. Benwing (talk) 03:27, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

1–2 contacts would still be a trill. You can have a one-contact trill. — kwami (talk) 08:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Isn't a one-contact trill simply a tap? Peter238 (talk) 11:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I've never thought of it, but it's really interesting. The strongest /r/ would be "rr" ("perro"), word initial "r" ("ruido"), and postconsonantal syllable-initial "r" ("Enrique", "Israel"). The "r" before /l/ or /n/ is halfway between the mentioned /r/ and /ɾ/, while before /s/ it's even softer, but still not fully /ɾ/. At least that's my take on my native Mexican Spanish.--200.57.197.151 (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Merge

I don't think we need a separate Spanish pronunciation article that is, in essence, a content fork that repeats WP:IPA for Spanish and duplicates the format that this article was in before the large bulky tables were converted into actual prose. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

A user requested an easier version of the Spanish phonology article. I did copy it from WP:IPA for Spanish but I meant to get around to reorganizing it by letter, which I just did. This now expresses something rather different from WP:IPA for Spanish, in that it specifically indicates how to pronounce written Spanish, which WP:IPA for Spanish doesn't do very well. Benwing (talk) 17:57, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not quite what the user asked for anyway, but it still shouldn't be a separate article. That table can easily be put into Spanish orthography. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:57, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the merging, this looks like a copy of WP:IPA for Spanish. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 19:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done I have merged the content that was at the Spanish pronunciation fork to Spanish orthography. This way, the novel display of information is maintained in article space (though I tweaked it a little). I think the addition of the table makes the Spanish orthography page look more like Irish orthography, which I have found useful in the past. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 20:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Voiceless bilabial fricative

The article currently states: A common pronunciation of /f/ in nonstandard speech is the voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ], so that fuera is pronounced [ˈɸweɾa] rather than [ˈfweɾa]. Are [f] and [ɸ] in free variation or is there a condition?

The example currently used could be taken as indicating that [ɸ] occurs only before bilabial constrictions such as [w], which would make a lot of sense phonetically. (Or perhaps [ɸ] was historically an allophone of */h/ before liquids and glides, and its retention in this position is an archaism, while /f/ is a later reintroduction from Latin, with which [ɸ] was subsequently merged? Just wild speculation.)

Moreover, I've noticed that Voiceless bilabial fricative#Occurrence lists an additional source of this sound, namely as an allophone of /b/ after [h] as an allophone of /s/, not only the devoicing of [β̞] (or the phoneme /b/) in syllabic coda position. Perhaps this might also merit mention? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that it's a free variant. If there's a condition, the source used didn't go into it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 19:16, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Slim"

"Even in formal speech, /m/ is disallowed in word-final position, so a word such as Islam is regularly rendered as /isˈlan/."

"Slim is pronounced /es'lim/". These two statements conflict. Should the article explain? TomS TDotO (talk) 11:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

No, that was an oversight. The article Carlos Slim transcribes it with an [m], but it's in the fuller name that follows Slim with Helú. So far, I haven't seen any sources talking about alternations between [m] and [n] with suffixation. I've fixed the transcription (not the translation, as I said in the edit summary). Do you think it would be a good idea to transcribe both Slim and Islam in phonetic brackets just to be safe? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 13:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

That might be in Spain, but in Mexico (and I would think most of Latin America), final /m/ is used: /'kar.los es'lim/ and /el is'lam/.--200.57.197.151 (talk) 16:33, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Confusing comment about /ʃ/

The article says: The phoneme /ʃ/ only occurs in loanwords, in many dialects there is a tendency to substitute it for /tʃ/ or /s/.

This is a comma splice and that makes the meaning unclear. Does this mean that the dialects use /tʃ/ or /s/ instead of /ʃ/ (the erroneous sense of "substitute" as a synonym for "replace"), or /ʃ/ instead of /tʃ/ or /s/ (the correct meaning of "substitute")? The comment about loanwords would suggest it is the former, but the second part of the sentence suggests it is the latter. Using "replace ... with ..." or "use ... instead of ..." (and resolving the comma splice) would make the meaning clearer. — 146.179.8.172 (talk) 14:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the former. A better way to word it would be "The phoneme /ʃ/ only occurs in loanwords; many speakers have difficulty with this sound, tending to replace it with /tʃ/ or /s/."

Incidentally, there are dialects that have de-affricated /tʃ/. I assume that these are the speakers who don't replace /ʃ/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 15:11, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Phonotactics: Spanish syllable

There is an example given: Examples of maximal codas: instalar /ins.taˈlar/, perspectiva /pers.pekˈti.ba/

I was under the assumption that Spanish can't have s in syllable final position unless there is a vowel before it. For example, you have goles "goals" but you don't have *gols. Shouldn't it be per.spek.ti.ba? 190.237.91.214 (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

That may be true (can't think of any counter examples) but Spanish also can't have /sp/ or /st/ in the syllable onset. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 18:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

In loanwords from Classical Latin, groups of more than 1 consonant in coda can appear, especially ns, ks and rs. All of them are considered tautosyllabic. Jotamar (talk) 16:58, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Enlace/Encadenamiento

Not mentioned in this article, nor on its own elsewhere, is the phenomenon of enlace. Is this an oversight or has it been determined that this doesn't exist in the wikiworld? 71.87.23.22 (talk) 16:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It certainly should be included, in the Phonotactics section, I guess. Your link looks good, but a more academic source would be better. Jotamar (talk) 13:59, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Lenition of initial /b/ in Latin American Spanish

Hello. I've noticed that more often than not, word-initial /b/ is realized as an approximant [β̞], rather than a plosive [b]. The environment I'm talking about is word-initial after a pause (as in vamos or Victoria), not word-initial immediately after a word ending with a vowel. I've noticed that in Mexican and Argentinian accents, but it's probably more widespread than that. Does anyone have a source to back that up? Peter238 (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Hola. Lenition is not uniform, it varies according to speaker/dialect. For example, many Andeans don't lenite final /b, d, g/, some people use more friction than others, and others tend to eliminate these sounds.

Regarding initial /b/ lenition, I think you're right. It probably can occur in some accents, including Peninsular Spanish. In Southern Peninsular/some colloquial urban accents in Spain initial /b/ can be elided in this case (vamos [ˈɑ̟mɔ] or [ˈɑ̟mo̞]), so I wouldn't doubt it could also be pronounced with [β̞], [β] or [β̝]. Also some educated speakers may use [v] (especially in singing) and distinguish b/v. I have listened to some Eurovision singers from Spain that feature this (D'Nash I love you mi vida, Ruth Lorenzo Dancing in the rain, etc.). Another group that use fricatives is La Oreja de Van Gogh.

I haven't found anything about initial /b/ lenition. However I found this:

There has been much debate regarding the appropriate designation for the approximant allophones [β ð ɣ] (in the document I found are not represented with the under tack). Traditional accounts have employed the term fricative (Navarro-Tomás, 1999 [1918]), however acoustic analyses have demonstrated that across many varieties of Spanish the production of these allophones is best characterized by the approximation of two articulators resulting in airflow ranging from more turbulent (as in the case of fricatives) to non-turbulent (as in the case of vowels) (Ladefoged, 1975; Catford, 1977; Martínez-Celdrán, 1985). The term approximant has thus been widely adopted to cover the range of realizations documented for these allophones.

This explanation and Quilis (1981) proves the under tack is not the right symbol/diacritic to represent these consonants in all Spanish dialects as this article suggests/suggested (without my co-operation this article would only term them as simple approximants). And proves the term approximant is just a convention. Shouldn't this be better explained? — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 01:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a place in the article where phonetic details of what-we-might-as-well-keep-calling-approximants are. That would be a good place to add more details on them. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:20, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Aeusoes1. Dialectal variation about /b, d, g/ lenition (like the Andean and North-Central Peninsular systems/patterns) could be included in the dialect section. Concerning the b/v distinction found in some dialects and in cultivated speakers, do you think it's worthy to mention something? — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 04:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You seem to know the appropriate sources, so why not? Go ahead. Thanks for the response. Regarding the /v/ thing... there may be speakers that distinguish it from /b/ in singing, but honestly - I've never heard that. What's really interesting is that some speakers use [v] instead of the lenited allophone [β] in singing, probably to sound more clear. It's probably akin to British singers using [oʊ] in singing, rather than [əʊ ~ əʉ ~ əɨ] (although [oʊ] is perfectly standard in Multicultural London English). Here's one singer that does that: [1] (he also voices /s/ in a nonstandard way (vayas [ˈvajaz])). The Mexican band RBD also does that (my cousing has tortured me enough with their songs for me to know that). Peter238 (talk) 06:52, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't get why you removed your reply here but thanks anyway, especially for the document describing [v] in Cuban Spanish. Peter238 (talk) 15:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Son nuevos ([sõⁿn] / [sõnː] vs *[sõ.n])

I've seen you (Aeusoes1) have reverted my editions. Does Saporta (1956) mention nasals are fully omitted in this case? IMO no one in Standard Castilian omits /n/, not even when there are two /nn/. What can you say about this? Regards — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 08:00, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Does the original transcription from the source you added include diacritics on the vowels? If it doesn't, I understand [ⁿ] is also omitted. Or perhaps there's a typo mistake.— Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 08:11, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Also, does Saporta include a full nasal/nasalized vowel? I think [õ] (like in Portuguese bom), instead of [õN], is totally wrong and unacceptable in the Standard. Phonetic nasalisation can occur in Spanish but it's not as exaggerated as in Portuguese, this transcription ([sõ(.n)]) suggests son is pronounced like bom — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 08:29, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
I think we should be consistent with the treatment of nasals in Standard Castilian, if you ignore /n/ you're being ambiguous and incorrect among some groups. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 09:27, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

One of your edit summaries reads as follows: It's a nasal release, no one in Standard Spanish fully omits /n/. This can also be represented with a lengthened/geminated /n/ ([n:] / [nn]). It is not a nasal release, which is the release of a stop consonant into a nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as [tⁿ] in English catnip [ˈkætⁿnɪp]. Peter238 (talk) 10:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

In Spanish/Iberian transcriptions these symbols have traditionally been used for this purpose. In Portuguese and Occitan I've seen they also use/used [ⁿ]. In some English dictionaries [ⁿ] is used for nasalisation. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 11:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just pointing out that it's not a nasal release. Peter238 (talk) 11:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a connection between a nasal release and nasalisation tbh, but if experts confuse these symbols there might be a relation — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 11:30, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

All you need to do is read nasal release and nasalization. That's not necessarily confusing the symbols, it's just using them in a way that is non-IPA. Peter238 (talk) 11:35, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, but most articles here are written in an English perspective. Why is this not IPA? Barbosa & Albano (2004:230) analyze the nasalized monophthongs of São Paulo Brazilian Portuguese as phonetically nasalized before an archiphoneme /N/ or a heterosyllabic nasal consonant.

Word	IPA	Gloss
cinto	[sĩⁿtʊ]	'belt'
sento	[sẽⁿtʊ]	'I sit'
santo	[sɐ̃ⁿtʊ]	'saint'
sondo	[sõⁿdʊ]	'I probe'
sunto	[sũⁿtʊ]	'summed up'

— Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 11:49, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

This is not an issue of English perspective/non-English perspective. I don't think you're reading my messages carefully. I'm talking about the official IPA usage of the [ⁿ] sign, which signifies exclusively nasal release, which applies only to stop consonants. The answer to "why is this not IPA" (or rather "why is this not official IPA") has already been given - re-read my messages, nasal release and nasalization. I'm not saying using [ⁿ] for things other than nasal release is "wrong" or "bad", I'm saying it's not a part of the official IPA. I don't care how people use that sign. Peter238 (talk) 12:00, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I understand the official meaning of ⁿ... We have different views and conceptions, so I rather carry on with the things I really care about. Goodbye for now :) — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 12:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Goodbye, but most what I said is not my view. It's simply stating a fact. Peter238 (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Diacritics

Hi I've just noticed a user (Peter238) has unanimously deleted all the diacritics without previous notice stating that they're useless, I would like to know why this has been decided? IMO I don't think this is accurate and right to do without discussion, especially because using diacritics is not a mistake — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 04:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you, Jaume. Those diacritics seem to be one of several transcription conventions appropriate for narrow transcription. Maybe he can articulate his thinking a little more here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I have noticed also Peter238 is trying to mess some of my editions, for example he copied the consonant chart we created and agreed to display on the Catalan article and changed it for a crappy one. That action and others give me the feeling he wants to obstruct the progression of the Catalans/Valencians and that's not fear, I want the best for the Polish and all the nations, he should also wish me the best for mine and stop interfering in a bad or authoritarian way — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 08:07, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

@JaumeR and Aeusoes1: Fine, keep the diacritics (of course they're not a mistake), but why would you want to keep the lowering diacritic under the mid vowels though?

• They don't contrast with close-mid or even open-mid vowels.
• Hardly any language has their /e, o/ or /ɛ, ɔ/ exactly in their cardinal positions.
• The diacriticless [e, o] are easier to type for the editors, and we want consistency in our transcriptions.

When did I touch the Catalan consonant chart? (you should take it to the appropriate talk page by the way)

That action and others give me the feeling he wants to obstruct the progression of the Catalans/Valencians As far as I know, I can't want something that I don't even think about (and therefore, by definition, have nothing against). I'm also not sure how strongly does the progression of the Catalans/Valencians relate to a couple of articles on English (not even Catalan or Spanish) Wikipedia. You should stop looking for conspiracy theories here, go read David Icke or something. He's far more entertaining than I am.

Fine, I'll use the talk pages more, but you should also remember about WP:BOLD and WP:GF.

The removal of these diacritics is not "interfering in a bad or authoritarian way". This and some other parts of your message probably have to do with lots of edits that I performed on Valencian.

I won't comment on the message you deleted (as I probably shouldn't) - we all lose our shit sometimes, myself included. I guess I had it coming (karma's a bitch). Peter238 (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I apologise Peter238, I really thought it was you who changed it. I didn't see it properly at first. Regarding the rest about the threat to my culture you didn't seem friendly in the manner you contested my editions but I suppose you're right to do so if you don't believe my statements. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 13:18, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep them for precision and because there are dedicated pages for these vowels. Additionally, you could add other diacritics in other contexts if you wanted. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 13:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

No problem, but maybe it was me after all. I remember editing some articles about the phonology of Catalan about two years ago (May or June 2014). Either way, you can dig that up (that is if you want to do that) and we can discuss that on the relevant talk page (it was probably on Catalan phonology).

You can still link to the pages about [e̞, o̞] while what is displayed is [e, o] (like this: [e, o]). Also, what are the other diacritics you'd like to see added here? Peter238 (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't you. I think it was a robot or something who did it.

You could display [e, o] only if they were close mid, and [e̞, o̞] were allophones as Llisterri suggests [2]. He also states unstressed vowels are shorter and can move towards the centre of the trapezium (particularly in spontaneous elocutions). — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 03:13, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Interesting link, thanks, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say by "you could display [e, o] only if they were close mid". Llisterri states that Spanish /e, o/ have two allophones: close-mid [e, o] and open-mid (not mid) [e̞, o̞] (it's not a wrong transcription, but it's less ambiguous to write simply [ɛ, ɔ]). Peter238 (talk) 18:08, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I meant you could use [e, o] (as indicated in that doc) if you support Llisterri's analysis. I think his analysis could be right for Standard peninsular spoken by Catalanics.

In my opinion he uses [e̞, o̞] instead of [ɛ, ɔ] because they're allophones and Spanish doesn't contrast /ɛ ~ e/ and /ɔ ~ o/ like most Romance languages do. I would say in some Romance varieties /ɛ, ɔ/ may sound closer to [e̞, o̞]. In others /ɛ, ɔ/ approach to /a/ — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 07:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Consonant phonemes table headers differ between the different Phonology articles

I was comparing the consonant tables from the phonology articles of Spanish, English and Japanese and noticed they have different headers for the same sounds, which I find confusing. For instance, /p/ is "Labial Stop" here, "Bilabial Stop" in English phonology, and "Bilabial Plosive" in Japanese phonology. Is there any reason why the categories' names aren't standardized? (I just got started learning IPA, sorry if I'm missing something) - Aekorus (talk) 19:25, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

You're right, we should standardise that. I think we chose labial here because /f/ can be either labiodental or bilabial. However, perhaps we should change it to labiodental because no one recommends the bilabial pronunciation of /f/. The headers should say the same than the article's title (i.e. you should use bilabial stop rather than bilabial plosive), however in certain special cases you can use an alternative header, like Valencian Country instead of Valencian Community. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 08:52, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I changed plosive for stop in the Japanese article — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 09:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Is labial used here for aesthetics (i.e. to save space), is it because /f/ can have two pronunciations, or is it both reasons? — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 09:25, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

"Labial" is used in consonant tables so that labiodental consonants like /f/ can be placed in the same column as bilabial consonants like /p/. This makes the table more compact. Labial is a wider category that includes both labiodental and bilabial. The table here in Spanish phonology says "labial" because Spanish has both bilabial and labiodental consonants, but the table in Japanese phonology says "bilabial" because Japanese has no labiodental consonants, only bilabial.

This is similar to how Standard German phonology has a "palatal" column, which includes both palato-alveolars like /tʃ/ and true palatals like /j/. "Palatal" can be used as a wider category that includes postalveolars, palato-alveolars, alveolo-palatals, and front velars.

Using "labial" and "palatal" as wider categories makes the tables more compact. The other option is to make bilabial a separate column from labiodental, and postalveolar a separate column from palatal, as is done in English phonology. I like having a more compact table, but I'm sure others will disagree. — Eru·tuon 11:40, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for the replies. Although merging the categories makes it difficult to compare the tables at a glance I can see how keeping them compact is desirable too. - Aekorus (talk) 12:49, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Continuants

In the Consonants section, the table for phonemes has a Continuants row. All of the sounds in that row are fricatives. There are no approximants. Why doesn't it just say Fricatives? Mechanic1c (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Phonetically, the non-plosive allophones of /b, d, g, ʝ/ vary between fricatives and approximants. Peter238 (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

We need to list more allophones

Hello.

• I'm pretty sure that at least some speakers have a laminal alveolar variant of [ð] after /s/ (as in no tenías derecho [no‿teˈni.az‿ð̠eˈɾet͡ʃo] 'you had no right').
• Don't speakers of the European variety (at least those with uvular /x/ in most/all positions) have a more-uvular-than-usual [ɣ]? I'm pretty sure that words such as jugo have a uvular approximant for those speakers ([ˈχuʁ̞o]).
• Instead of post-palatalizing /x/, at least some speakers with a uvular /x/ seem to pretty strongly mid-centralize /i/ following /x/ to [ɪ] (or even [ɘ]?) while keeping /x/ uvular in words such as Jimena ([χɪˈmena]) as pronounced by e.g. Lola Merino in Corazón salvaje. This may be idiolectal though...
• The same [ɪ]-type allophone can be heard (again, idiolectally? I'm not sure...) in the /ni/ sequence, e.g. in the word niño [ˈnɪɲo] as pronounced by e.g. Zully Montero in Perro amor (she also seems to be doing the same with her /j/, as in nieto ([ˈnɪ̯eto], instead of [ˈni̯eto] (= [ˈnjeto]))).

Any thoughts (or, even better, sources)? Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:27, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree we should list more allophones (for now), since some of the allophones you added are contested by many scholars and modern analyses (see "An acoustic and statistical analysis of Spanish mid-vowel allophones"). Also, I'd suggest to simplify the info you copied from Navarro Tomás' proposal (1918) I discussed on a different talk page, and take into account the statements of Catalan scholars (e.g. Recasens) that contrast Catalan and Castilian — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 00:28, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Ok, but that's vowels - what about the first two allophones?

Also, I'm not sure what's there to shorten about Navarro Tomás's interpretation of allophones. It's good that it's exhaustive.

You'd also need provide me a link to the discussion you're referring to and full names of the sources you're talking about. Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:25, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

The first might be possible in some accents perhaps. The second sound is part of the Galician gheada, isn't it? Or is it the fricative variant of [ɰ]?

It's not accurate to have an exhaustive description of an old and contested source such as Navarro Tomás.

It's probably on IPA for Spanish, I'll have a look later on.

Additionally, I agree with your proposal to avoid using diacritics in general transcriptions of Spanish (e.g. when transcribing a singer or a place), but I don't agree to avoid using them when contrasting with other languages/dialects in certain pages (e.g. Linguistic features of Spanish as spoken by Catalan speakers) or in phonology or dialects articles. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 02:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Nope, it's a voiced uvular approximant. Variants used in gheada are to a large extent voiceless, and are proper fricatives.

All I can propose is hiding it in the 'collapse' template. NT's description of Spanish allophones is quite widely cited (AFAIK), and we have Martínez Celdrán's contrary opinion at the bottom.

See [3] to understand why we shouldn't use the "lowered" diacritic for the approximants and mid vowels. It's not something I want, it's just a reasonable and "standard" thing to do. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not too sure if there is a uvular variant for [ɰ], so I can't confirm you its existence. Some speakers use a uvular approximant for /r/, perhaps these speakers can neutralize /g/ and /r/, but I'm not too sure about this either. I'm more aware of the Japanese r and the /l/ and /ɾ/ neutralization found in other speakers.

Hiding it is not what I'd recommend to do, but you could do that if you want. IMO Tomás Navarro proposal is not very accurate and has many mistakes (for instance, "Valencia" is not pronounced frequently with a close mid front vowel, but with a mid front (or near front) vowel: [bɑ̈ˈlẽ̞n̟θjɐ] (note prenasalization (ⁿ) and/or (full) nasalization (~) can substitute /N/)... Furthermore, I'd say the question about five or eleven vowel allophones is not very objective, since it's possible to find other allophones (e.g. nasalized and centralized vowels).

I think it's ok to avoid those symbols in a dictionary and general transcriptions, however it's not in a phonology article, or in pages about dialects and accents. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 16:10, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

He doesn't differentiate close-mid vowels from the mid vowels (so that his "close-mid" can be taken to be "higher than open-mid, but not closer than close-mid", but that's my interpretation), nor front vowels from the near-front ones.

I'll change "five or eleven allophones?" to "exact number of allophones". The nasalized vowels are, quite clearly, not counted (they're dealt with above), whereas the centralized vowels would need a citation before we could even put them in the article.

What are your arguments for that? My arguments against that, along with relevant sources, can be found here. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:05, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• Those allophones are certainly not as high as (proper) open-mid (unless a speaker is fluent in another language or speaks a dialect like Murcian). Personal interpretations about symbols without following a specific (sourced) description or criteria should be deleted.

• Those arguments might be valid for a dictionary or guide (such as Help:IPA for Spanish) but not for a phonology article. Using diacritics is common to represent sounds that don't have specific symbols (see the English dialects). Therefore if a sound that requires diacritics is widely used (e.g. Spanish mid vowels) I'd recommend to use it only in explanatory pages (such as Spanish phonology, Murcian Spanish, etc.) but I would advise against its usage in other general guides and transcription keys. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 03:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@JaumeR: Stop ignoring the links I provide. Read, carefully, both [4] (who uses the terms media-cerrada and semicerrada, it's dishonest of you to call that my interpretation, 'close-mid' is a direct translation from the source) and [5] (where I explain in detail why we shouldn't use diacritics on /e, o, a/, along with multiple sources), then reply to my previous message. Mr KEBAB (talk) 09:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I provided the first link before you started talking here, I'm aware of its meaning .. And while the author uses the term semiabierta it uses a lowering diacritic (instead the specific symbol for open-mid vowels) which implies it is not as open as in other languages that use the same label (e.g. Catalan, Portuguese and Italian).

I don't agree with your solution to avoid diacritics on a phonology article. As I say it is good for a dictionary, a quick guide or in general transcriptions, but not here... Your explanation and sources provided are just meant for the purposes I mention. Most Spanish universities, scholars (e.g. Llisterri) and elucidatory texts and manuals use diacritics... — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 10:24, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

You mean the Llisterri one? The other one is my post.

"And while the author uses the term semiabierta it uses a lowering diacritic (...) which implies it is not as open as in other languages that use the same label" - And why are you sure of that? He also writes [a] for the open central, [a̟] for the open front and [a̠] for the open back vowel, which, in standard IPA, are written [ä, a, ɑ]. Because of that, you can't be actually sure that [e̞, o̞] represent mid, not open-mid vowels. According to Llisterri's labels, they are open-mid, and that's what we have to go along with.

Also, here's a quote from Relative articulation#Raised and lowered vowels: Lowering, on the other hand, means that the vowel is more open, toward the bottom of the chart. For example, [e̞] represents a vowel somewhere between cardinal [e] and [ɛ], or may even be [ɛ].

"I don't agree with your solution to avoid diacritics on a phonology article." - so you haven't actually read my post on Wiktionary and checked the sources I provided, because you're just repeating "I don't agree, I don't agree". Care to actually read [6], section Vowels, and follow the sources (the majority of them are available offline)? (Redacted) For the Handbook of the IPA, see [7]. For the translation from Nowikow (2012), see Help talk:IPA for Spanish/Archive 2#e is wrong, as the link I posted on Wiktionary doesn't work anymore (the discussion was archived).

Most Spanish universities, scholars (e.g. Llisterri) and elucidatory texts and manuals use diacritics - I don't believe you. Please provide an exact list of books that do so and, again, actually read my post on Wiktionary.

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I meant Llisterri :)

I certainly have read them, and I think they're not an excuse for not using diacritics on this page like you're trying to impose, that's why I keep repeating myself because you don't read properly what I say... btw you also keep repeating yourself, and your way of talking is ugly and perhaps disgusting. Moreover you keep getting involved in matters like Catalonia and the Valencian Country (like Peter) and you actually say you don't lie and don't support fascist attitudes, but you certainly do, because by supporting a user who's done canvassing (right after I mentioned it) tells what type of person you are, and btw I'm not a liar, I'm way too honest and funny that's why I am a beloved person among the people that knows me. I must say and add the way you followed my steps in the past was the same than Peter, so if you are his reincarnation you must truly be a liar like he was (see the sounds of the Tuscan gorgia)

I think you should use the symbols+diacritics he uses for the mid vowels, I speak Castilian and Catalan (like him) and I can see a difference in their height, so he used the diacritics for that reason. With respect to the /a/ vowel... I'm not too sure yet why he uses those diacritics but there might be a reason, like tradition or something.

I don't have access to my uni papers when I studied Spanish, however when I can access them and the right time arrives I'll provide all the users with the sources and info I know. However for now this blog[8] proves they're used. I'd like to clarify I never meant to generalise with most scholars, but i'd say if they studied Spanish they must've used diacritics at some point, like Llisterri, Borrego Nieto, Gómez Asensio, Martínez Celdrán, etc. Btw your old and master source (Navarro Tomás) is a big fan of diacritics and odd symbols, he loves them and uses them all thorough his work. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 12:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

(I must add there are several sources that points the open-mid symbols could be used in broad transcriptions, just like <ɟ> is used for [ɟʝ], but since this guide was using a narrow transcription and KEBAB and Peter had tried to impose their way, I avoided to mention this. However this doesn't mean I don't support to use them in certain broader transcriptions.) — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 13:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

/ʃ/ is a phoneme in some Spanish dialects

I am a native speaker of Spanish from Argentina. Here the prevalent pronunciation of Spanish is that of the Rioplatense Spanish where you have the phoneme /ʃ/ for the sound realization of "ll-" or beginning-of-syllable "y-" and the corresponding allophone /ʒ/. Thus /ʃ/ is not an allophone of /ʎ/ itself, but a dialectal phoneme, as stated in the Spanish article for Spanish Phonology ( https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonolog%C3%ADa_del_espa%C3%B1ol#Sonidos_conson.C3.A1nticos ) where you can check the consideration of /ʃ/ as a variant phoneme. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetucu (talk • contribs) 03:11, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm just going to repeat: you don't understand what an allophone is. This is partially shown by the fact that you wrote "the corresponding allophone /ʒ/", which is incorrect notation - allophones must be written between square brackets, so [ʒ]. Again, please go read phoneme and allophone.

I've just visited es:Fonología del español#Sonidos consonánticos and (Redacted) it says:

• "Los alófonos precedidos de asterisco * no aparecen en todas las variedades de español, y por tanto solo aparecen en algunos dialectos de español." (In the table, [ʃ] is preceded with ⟨*⟩.)
• "El sonido *[ʃ] es la articulación usual de /ʝ/ en español rioplatense (...)" (it says: [ʃ] is the usual realization of /ʝ/ in Rioplatense Spanish. Also note the square brackets around ⟨ʃ⟩ which denote an allophone.)

Also remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:56, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Kebab is correct about the role of [ʃ] in Spanish. If we add it along with the other phonemes of Spanish, then we will be misleadingly saying that there is a phoneme /ʃ/ that is separate from /ʝ/ or /ʎ/, rather than the actual situation, which is that [ʃ] is a regional pronunciation of existing phonemes in other dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:13, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Class Assignment

I really liked how many sources were used in this article. Plus, it was very specific in that it described the various sounds and sound combinations in the Spanish language, but also had a huge list of notes and references discussing even more sound phrases and certain words and their pronunciations. I also found the use of visuals helpful as well. This made for a very interesting read, and describes Spanish phonology very thoroughly. --Sakuragalaxxy (talk) 08:51, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. I'm sure a lot of editors appreciate your kinds words. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:24, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Undertack?

Anybody know what undertack means? Kortoso (talk) 21:01, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Corrected and wiki-linked.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

"Diphthongs"

None of the so called 'falling diphthongs' are diphthongs, those are just sequences of a consonant (/j/ or /w/) and a vowel, and these can only be considered diphthongs if one does phonology based on orthography. There is no diphthong on English words like 'web' or 'yet' either, so I don't see why these are considered as such on this page.

On the other 'diphthongs' occurring in fast speech in words with sequences of /CeV, CoV, CaV/, these are semi-approximants as well (which aren't vowels either). When it comes to 'triphthongs', /wai/,/wei/ only have diphthongs after a consonant.

Real diphthongs could be added /ia/ in 'día', /io/ in 'navío' or 'tío', /ui/ in 'cocuy' (/koˈkui/), /ua/ in 'grúa' or 'púa', /uo/ in 'búho', /ao/ in 'caos'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.44.66.135 (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

The determination can be language-dependent and is motivated in Spanish by a number of factors. One of those is the alternations between the [i] and [j], as in amplío [amˈpli.o] ('I extend') vs. amplió [amˈpljo] ('he extended'). Phonotactic patterns also are part of this, with the number and type of consonants allowed in a consonant cluster becomes more complicated if we consider [j] to be a consonant in words like amplió. There are also phonetic considerations, as the second paragraph at Spanish phonology#Consonants explains. [j] is shorter than other consonants of Spanish.

Most of the "real diphthongs" you have identified are bisyllabic and therefore can't be diphthongs, with the exception of [ui̯] and [ao], both of which the article covers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:08, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

But [j] is not a vowel by a mile, it's just a consonant. There is no such thing as behaving as a vowel when this has been always described as a consonant, notwithstanding that it traditionally gets confused with vowels by laymen, and Spanish has no magical capabilities of breaking the real phonetic behavior of consonants. Your decision on whether to classify just those two as diphthongs (these aren't mentioned in the list, by the way, it only has /wi/ in 'buitre' which once again doesn't really count) seems to be based on the absence of accent mark on those works (while 'muy' can pronounced with a diphthong [ˈmui] or without [ˈmwi],), since the syllable structure of a word like 'caos' is essentially the same as that 'búho' or any of those words, there is no hiatus between the two vowels, despite what traditional teaching about this keeps saying. Spanish description of what constitutes as diphthong is unfortunately too based on the orthographical representation of the language rather than how the language itself sounds like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.44.66.135 (talk) 04:30, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

You observations are in line with Luciano Canepari's, though he occasionally uses the term phonetic diphthong to distinguish it from phonemes like English /eɪ/ which may be realized as a (phonetic) diphthong or as a monophthong. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

You might want to read our articles on semivowel and approximant consonant. I'm not sure what you mean by "Spanish has no magical capabilities of breaking the real phonetic behavior of consonants" but it sounds like you're ignoring the phonetic information I gave you and saying that there is some platonic ideal of [j]. If you're going to ignore my points and provide no sourcing to back up your claims about phonetics and phonology in general and Spanish specifically, there's not much point in discussing this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:54, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I've read those articles. I don't see the justification for considering /ˈjV/ a diphthong owing to morphological alternations with /ˈiV/. If you admit consonants like /j/ or /w/ as possible members of a diphthong, you also would have to accept other sequences of /CV/ as diphthongs. Citing Canepari's website (http://www.canipa.net/doku.php?id=en:faq#why_aren_t_sequences_such_as_je_ja_wo_wa_proper_phonetic_diphthongs) here:

19. Why aren't sequences such as [je, ja, wo, wa] proper phonetic diphthongs?

Simply because, by definition, a diphthong is a sequence of two vowel sounds not separated by an increase in stress. Instead, [j] and [w] are consonant sounds, just like [m, l, p, s]. And nobody considers sequences like [ma, la, pa, sa] as diphthongs.

If you want me to source, in regards to Spanish and Italiamn I can cite him again when in his section about Spanish in his book Handbook of Pronunciation (2005), page 23, page 233 and page 126 & 127 of the same book (on imgur because pasting it here would make this too clumsy): https://imgur.com/a/JCPGTWy

And yeah, thanks for bringing it up, I'm in agreement with Canepari on this subject, @LiliCharlie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.44.66.135 (talk) 02:32, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

What would you call [i̯] [u̯]? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 04:23, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Approximants. The exception I can think of is when those symbols are used to represent the second element of diphthongs, like in 'cocuy' /koˈkui/ where the phone is rather a vowel, especially when it's done in transcriptions of this language. On the approximant consonant article, I noticed one slight problem regarding, the "abyecto" and "abierto" near minimal pair differ, other than in the consonant checking the second syllable, in that the first consonant in the second syllable of 'abyecto' is a semi-constrictive [ʝ˕] or a 'stronger' consonant going up to stop and stop-strictive (affricate) realizations usually with a palatal point of articulation, while pronunciations with simple [j] are rather dialectal (also noted by LC). Abierto is pretty much /abjeɾto/ where the /-bjeɾ-/ is a single syllable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.44.66.135 (talk) 05:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Very often, ⟨i̯⟩ and ⟨j⟩ are used interchangeably. I'm pretty certain that's the case here for both prevocalic and postvocalic semivowels. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:47, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The latter usage (after vowels) is often imprecise however, since in the majority of cases there aren't approximants in those positions but actual vowels, like in /aire/ which definitely has no [j] consonant after the /a/, but a simple vocoid [i]. Even if it's excused in phonemic transcriptions, in phonetic ones it's worse for accurately representing languages when that situation happens. Anyways, I'm probably going to be adding those diphthongs in my first post to the list tomorrow and mentioning them in the section as well. @LiliCharlie, what I find interesting is that for English at least it's harder to find much literature talking about some supposed diphthongs in words like 'web' or 'yet' compared to, say, Romance languages (probably owing in part to orthographic differences as well), in any case they should be mentioned as what they are, rather than be included as diphthongs in texts trying to treat this subject accurately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.44.66.135 (talk) 06:26, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Saying that the English words web and yet do not contain diphthongs while the Spanish words Huelva and hierba/yerba do is indeed a source of confusion. — Please also note that the English /w/ and /j/ can easily be prolonged without turning the approximant contoids into vocoids, as in a hesitant way of saying w-w-w-well or y-y-y-yes. (BTW, simple vs. geminate /w/ and /j/ are used contrastively in Standard Arabic; Italian speakers who realize intervocalic /ʎ/ as central (=non-lateral) [j(ː)j] show a similar pattern.) It is therefore not sufficient to argue with sound length alone. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 09:44, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

It is not a big deal for scientists to say: "The word XYZ has been used in a number of different ways. I'm using it here in sense A and not in sense B." Without such definitions scientific writing becomes ambiguous and immediately loses its scientific value.

We should also state in which sense the term diphthong is used here, and that it is not the sense that excludes the sounds of English you and we. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:10, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Clarification: /t d/ vs. /θ/ in syllable coda

So, the article says there is no phonemic contrast between voiced and voiceless obstruents in the coda position, right? And voiceless obstruents become voiced before other voiced consonants. But what about in the word-final position before a pause? The article is vague about that. Do /t d/ and /θ/ merge in that position, too? I'm not a Spanish speaker myself and I'm in the Western Hemisphere anyway, so practically all the Spanish I hear locally has no /θ/ whatsoever (only /s/), but I find the topic of Spanish phonotactics as a whole rather fascinating. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:38, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm talking about what's mentioned in Spanish phonology#Obstruents. Earlier I repeated a detail from that section in another section, Spanish phonology#Phonotactics, but another editor reverted the edit. And this is symptomatic of the central problem—the information provided in the article does not seem clear enough. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:07, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that the information was stated elsewhere (and with a citation). I think I have a copy of that source at home, so I'll check it. I suspect that the issue is different word-finally, but we can see what the source says. It would probably help to get a more recent source, too. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:49, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

From my point of view, Spanish phonotactics proper only allows for these consonants in coda position: /n, s, ɾ, l, θ, x/, and even fewer for many dialects. All other consonants and consonant combinations in coda are loaned phonology, so to speak. Therefore discussing about voiced/voiceless distinction in coda doesn't make much sense to me. However, unfortunately most authors don't make this proper/loaned phonology distinction, so ... whatever. --Jotamar (talk) 18:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

That's probably generally true (though syllable-final /x/ may also be included the list of consonants appearing only in loanwords), but there are exceptions. Salud comes to mind. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like I don't have a copy of the cited source, but I did a quick Google Scholar source and found this 2003 work. I haven't had the time to really dive into it, but there's this helpful gem on page 8:

"When it comes to codas, however, the options are considerably more limited. So much so, as a matter of fact, that some have gone so far as to say that only five consonantal phonemes (Six if we include, as Alba does, the dental fricative /θ/, which continues to be used in parts of Spain)—/D/, /s/, /n/, /l/, and /R/—can occupy this position (Alba 1998, Núñez Cedeño and Morales-Front 1999)."

He also says on the next page that obstruents in word-internal codas are rare (except for /s/) and "Those that do occur undergo almost complete neutralization of voicing and continuancy (D'Introno et al. 1995)." Similarly, word-final obstruents are rare (except for /s/ and /d/) and are generally found in loanwords.

We can mine this source for more information, but this is just from a cursory look at the introduction chapter. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:10, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

In Spain at least, nobody really pronounces final d's, except in very emphatic speech. --Jotamar (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

How come the final "d" in "ciudad", "verdad" and "hablad" is loaned phonology? In Mexico City most people pronounce both final "d" and final "t", and distinguish between them. We say "carnet" and "caset" (cassette). I know some people that devoice final "d" ("ciudat"), but I think most people here don't. Besides, I cannot find just one example with an /x/ coda. --200.57.197.151 (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Article Overly Long and Lengthy

Much the allophony is needles in any phonology article. that's a given in any language. Otherwise, this 'd be titled "spanish phonetics". Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 11:13, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

It would be a bit strange to have a separate article on a language's phonetics, given the close relationship that phonetics has with phonology. Both are in the scope of the articles titled "XX phonology." If there were a better name given this scope, we'd use it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:30, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

When we say "the phonology of language ____", "phonology" there means not the distribution and variation of phonemes as juxtaposed to phonetics but the sound system of the language as a whole, including both phonetics and phonemics. See e.g. [9]. Nardog (talk) 04:55, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Can we have a dedicated Wikipedia article on the coda simplification in Spanish spoken around the world?

I noticed that syllable- or word-final dropping of /s/ in Spanish-speaking Latin America, Iberian Peninsula, and Africa (Canary Islands) are prevalent, along with YouTube clips on so-called "how to speak Spanish like a native". And there is also word-final dropping of /ɾ/ in some speeches. These days, I noticed that this information is well-expressed in many Wikipedia articles pertaining to Spanish dialects. I think all of theses should be addressed in a new separate article. I'm not a Spanish speaker myself, so I'm requesting this. Thank you. --Komitsuki (talk) 10:40, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if that would warrant a whole article. Perhaps you could draft something in sandbox and we can go from there. If we decide not to do a full article, content that you draft might still be relevant here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:44, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Insertion of velar stop between /s/ and /r/

I've noticed that when /s/ is followed by /r/, speakers insert a velar stop in between the two sounds. For example <tienes razón> /ˌtje.nes.raˈson/ is pronounced [ˌtje̞.nes.g̥raˈson] and <ruidos raros> /ˌrwi.ðosˈra.ɾos/ is pronounced [ˌrwi.ðosˈkra.ɾos]. I am, by no means, an expert Spanish and linguistics, so I was wondering if someone could explain this to me, and if I'm not just hearing things, then I could add it to the article. User.name.here (talk) 21:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that a source that discusses this phenomenon might have an explanation as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

That must be peculiar to a regional dialect. --Jotamar (talk) 17:59, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not a fluent speaker of Spanish, but I am learning. I don't live around many native speakers. I do, however, listen to Spanish music. I have heard this phenomenon in songs by Ricky Martin (a Puerto Rican) and Maluma (a Colombian Paisano), which is why I don't think it's dialectal, but like I said before, I'm not an expert, so I could be wrong. User.name.here (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

@User.name.here: Aren't you just mishearing s-aspiration? A speaker that exhibits it would say [ˌtjeneɦ‿raˈson] ([ˌtjeneɦ‿raˈθon] in Spain) and [ˌrwiðoɦˈraɾoh] (or, perhaps, [ˌrwiðoɦˈraɾos] since this is variable). Spanish doesn't have phonemic glottal consonants, but /x/ is glottal for millions of speakers and there may be allophonic overlap between it and the aspirated allophones of /s/ in the syllable coda. There's additional complication in that aspirated /s/ can be actually velar [x] before /k/.

I've never heard of the phenomenon you're describing. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:09, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Kbb2: No, I'm sure it's not s-aspiration. Thanks for your help though! Also, here's a link to a song where I'm hearing the phenomenon I described: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iOe6dI2JhgU. I'm hearing (or mishearing) the phenomenon at approximately 1:18 in the video. User.name.here (talk) 19:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@User.name.here: It's a normal [z], perhaps with reduced friction. It sounds like a cross between English [z] and the fricative allophone of /ð/ (as in within). I'd transcribe tienes razón as pronounced (sung) by Martin as [ˌtjenez‿raˈson]. I don't hear any stops before /r/.

I've heard this used in parts of Argentina for /s/ in syllable coda. Instead of being aspirated, the friction is reduced and they sound somewhat lisped (but in a different manner than the English or European Spanish /θ/). In Argentina, this allophone is in a free variation with the aspirated [h] (and [ɦ] before voiced consonants, such as /r/ or /n/).

There's another allophone that can be used (e.g. in Mexico), which is a kind of a voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ]. It's used specifically before the trilled /r/, and can be thought of as a fricative onset of the trill. Speakers with this allophone would pronounce tienes razón as [ˌtjeneʐ‿raˈson]. Both count as allophones of /s/ and may be used in other countries, which wouldn't be that strange. In some other areas, the retroflex fricative itself is the realization of /r/. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I assume what User.name.here is hearing as [k] is a devoiced part of the beginning of [r]. I perceive both the end of /s/ and the beginning of /r/ to be devoiced, with the result that the first contact of the trill sounds like a voiceless plosive. Nardog (talk) 07:57, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nardog: Then what is an underlying sequence of /s/ and /r/ may be actually [zz̥t̞r̥r] (with the extra-short diacritic implied on every single symbol) in Martin's pronunciation. There may be a slight epenthetic stop between /s/ and /r/, but it's alveolar. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 22:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help, I understand the pronunciation now! User.name.here (talk) 04:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible allophony of [β] and [w]?

The voiced bilabial approximant and the voiced labio-velar approximant are certainly very similar sounds. They could easily merge and they are in fact allophones of each other in some languages, e.g. Flemish Dutch. Regarding Spanish, I also think that the functional load of the distinction is very low. The only minimal pairs I can think of right now would be words with initial hu- + vowel, but these are pronounced /ɡw-/ in some accents. So at least for these latter accents, is the distinction relevant at all? (I'm not an expert on Spanish, I'm just wondering.) 90.186.72.23 (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

AFAIK, there's not much risk of the two merging in Spanish. You might be interested in Ohala & Lorentz's "The Story of [w]: An Exercise in the Phonetic Explanation for Sound Patterns" (1977), cited in the article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I've never heard [w] in that context. It has a velar counterpart not present in the plosive allophone of /b/ and, AFAICS, requires a more precise articulation than the bilabial approximant (compare [xaˈβon] and *[xaˈwon] for jabón). In careful pronunciation this /b/ can be turned into a plosive: [xaˈbon]. Remember that the difference between [xaˈβon] and *[xaˈwon] is nothing more than velarization. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:05, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

la madre [la ˈmaðɾe] ('the mother') vs. las madres [læ̞ː ˈmæ̞ːðɾɛː] ('the mothers')

Why would the first vowel in "madre(s)" would change in plural if there is no change in its surroundings? It doesn't make sense.

--200.57.197.151 (talk) 16:08, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It assimilates to the frontness of the first vowel (apparently, /a/ becomes more front instead of more open, which it can't become as it's already an open vowel). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 06:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It is a type of vowel harmony. --Jotamar (talk) 00:25, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

[s̄]

In section "Realization of /s/" the notation [s̄] is used several times to represent a voiceless apico-dental grooved frivative. Though ⟨s̄⟩ is characterized as an "ad hoc symbol" I believe this is an unfortunate choice because in IPA, the macron above a segmental symbol is used for a different purpose: It denotes a mid level tone. (This is not the place to discuss whether voiceless sounds can carry tone.) As there is no single IPA diacritic to turn a dental slit fricative [θ] into a grooved one, the notation [s̺̪] or simply [s̪] with the diacritics for (apical and) dental seem to be the appropriate IPA notations. Both ⟨s̺̪⟩ and ⟨s̪⟩ display fine in my browser, but this is certainly not a requirement as long as the symbols are the correct ones. — Also note that slit [θ] and grooved [s̺̪]/[s̪] don't seem to contrast in any Spanish dialect ("It occurs only in dialects with ceceo."), and that the IPA symbol ⟨θ⟩ doesn't necessarily denote a slit fricative, but is defined as any pulmonic dental fricative, so we might as well use ⟨θ⟩ throughout and explain the occurrence of two phones in words. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 09:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea of using ⟨θ⟩. Outside of whatever sourcing that parses the phonetic distinction between [θ] and Spanish's voiceless apico-dental grooved frivative, the overwhelming tendency is to use ⟨θ⟩ for the sound of Spanish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Phonemic transcription

I'm not saying that my (reverted) version of the phonemic transcription in the text is the only possible one. But user:Nardog's one is untenable. Syllabification, a key phonological feature, is shattered with things such as fuˈeɾte. We could write /'fueɾ.te/ or perhaps /'fweɾ.te/, but certailnly not /fuˈeɾte/. Even worse is the fact that apparently the aforementioned user thinks that disyllabic words always have phonological stress, and that monosyllabic words never have it. This simply reflects ignorance about the Spanish language. Lexical stress and syntactic stress diverge only in set phrases. I'm not going to revert for the moment, but the section as it stands now is simply wrong. --Jotamar (talk) 14:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

If I'm to understand correctly, you object to e.g. viento being transcribed phonemically as /biˈento/ because phonetically that word is two syllables ([ˈβjento]) and the phonemic transcription makes it look like three. However, if we were to take your suggestion, this would be transcribed phonemically as /ˈbiento/, which seems also untenable to me. Take a look at discutían just a few words later; we transcribe this as /diskuˈtian/, but this phonetically is [diskuˈtian]. Transcribing e.g. viento as /ˈbjento/ would be a problem because the common analysis of Spanish (as I understand it) is that this semivowel is the result of a phonological process that de-syllabifies vowels, not because of an underlying semi-vowel segment.

It would help if we could identify what solutions sources tend to do in this situation.

This whole section is actually unsourced. While we have a nice audio file to go with this transcription, the transcription itself is OR. We do have a phonetic transcription of the exact same passage from Martínez-Celdrán et al (2003) for Castilian Spanish, but no audio file. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

"It would help if we could identify what solutions sources tend to do in this situation": As I explained in the edit summary, most works about the phonology of Spanish use a stress mark, even if they cling to IPA for the rest of the transcription. So, /biénto/, or in any case /'bien.to/ with syllable boundaries rather than just /'biento/. /bi'ento/ is a real eyesore for a speaker of Spanish. --Jotamar (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

The audio by Martínez-Celdrán et al (2003) is available here. And the passage is not identical to what we have. Nardog (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I've restored the syllabification and hiatus marking. The stress mark need not necessarily signify a syllable division simultaneously—see e.g. Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, which puts it before the stressed vowel even if there's an onset—but since hiatus is obligatory in some (usually morphologically complex) words like dueto and huimos, preserving the syllabification in phonemic transcription makes sense. Of the JIPA illustrations of Spanish varieties, only Coloma (2018) has a phonemic transcription, and he writes ⟨ˈbiento⟩ (he even transcribes discutían and sería without indicating hiatus, probably because there's a morphological boundary, but nonetheless it doesn't seem like a good call).

What do you mean by "Lexical stress and syntactic stress diverge only in set phrases"? Don't mientras, como, entre, etc. bear stress when said in isolation? Nardog (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

In isolation? Those words are only used in isolation for metalinguistic uses, the same as el or con; well, mientras is a partial exception, when it means mientras tanto (meanwhile) it is stressed, but that's not what happens in our text. Obviously I'm speaking about the preposition entre and the conjunction como, as used in the text, not about the unrelated homophones, forms of the verbs entrar and comer. And of course sol (as all nouns), dos (as all numerals) and más are stressed words. --Jotamar (talk) 22:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, I'm not entirely convinced (I don't think "monosyllabic words never have [lexical stress]", I'm just skeptical of the idea that the absence of stress in function words is a product of the phonemic composition of the words per se and not a product of intonation—unless of course you can show me a source that confirms it), but I've restored your stress placement. Nardog (talk) 23:16, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

English has disyllabic prepositions too, namely: over, under. I clearly perceive those prepositions as unstressed. Don't you agree? --Jotamar (talk) 16:58, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You seem to be talking about stressed words in sentences instead of stressed syllables within words. Don't we mark word(-internal) stress rather than higher-level stress in foot groups and intonation groups? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:27, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It's been a while since I read it, but Lavoie (2002) talks about stress distinctions between content and function words. Might be a good place to look. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

We are discussing a phonemic transcription rather than a more loosely defined broad transcription. In other words, all allophony is ruled out, and we indicate "stress phonemes", and don't care about their allophones. I believe that every Spanish polysyllable has at least one syllable that is stressed (carries primary lexical stress), though that syllable may be realized weak due to sentence stress; however, as soon as sentence stress shifts to that word (e.g., for contrast) the stressed syllable clearly shows.

Thanks for pointing me to Lavoie (2002). I think I would agree to not indicating lexical stress of function words in a merely broad transcription. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

"... though that syllable may be realized weak due to sentence stress": I see it differently, both for Spanish and English, and I guess for any language with lexical stress. Some words are intrinsically unstressed, and some words can be stressed or unstressed depending on their function. For instance, the is always unstressed while this is always stressed; compare the intonation pattern of the book and this book; that is stressed as a demonstrative but unstressed as a relative, etc. --Jotamar (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Some words are intrinsically unstressed, and some words can be stressed or unstressed depending on their function. [...] intonation pattern [...] as a relative, etc. My understanding is that the topic of this discussion is whether certain syllables are stressed (word/​lexical stress), not whether certain words are (i.e. sentence/​prosodic stress). Or are you suggesting we should mark sentence stress, and maybe intonemes, in our phonemic transcription? And do so on the same level and in the same way as we mark lexical stress? — Remember this is supposed to be an emic transcription. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'm probably not getting what you're saying. Of course I'm speaking of something that is 100% emic. My point is simply that a phonemic transcription like /'la 'kasa/ is wrong for Spanish (do you agree with that?), and for the exact same reason for instance /'kontɾa 'la 'xente/ or /'kontɾa la 'xente/ are wrong too. --Jotamar (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

My point is that word stress and sentence stress are two different things that follow different rules. I think it should be /ˈkontɾa la ˈxente/ if only word stress is marked, and if you also want to mark sentence stress you need to indroduce some other notational device, for example /ˈkontɾa la ˈxente/ (as opposed to the emphatic /ˈkontɾa la ˈxente/). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:49, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

/ts/ for ch

Where in Spain do they pronounce ‹ch› like /ts/? I've heard this several times, but I have never found mention of it anywhere. I actually quite like it because it makes the system more symmetric :) For examples, listen here (e.g. "escuché" at ca. 10 seconds, "luchan" at the very end). 178.7.217.119 (talk) 14:27, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

At least in/around Madrid. Erinius (talk) 15:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

[ð̞]

How does someone pronounce this correctly? Is it like D and R (English) pronounced at the same time? I hear through Wiktionary sound files that it's something like between a Z, R, and D. 61.247.7.157 (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't find it useful to describe one sound as a combination of two or more sounds. In English, the sound nearest to [ð̞] is the "th" of "this, that, these, those". For more precision: give the tongue a "lighter touch" than in English. Kotabatubara (talk) 18:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Extremely marginal exceptions to word-final -r corresponding to a tap in related words

I added the text "Morphologically, a word-final rhotic always corresponds to the tapped [ɾ] in related words" to the section about rhotics on this article. This is accurate for the entire lexicon of almost the entirety of the Spanish-speaking world, however, there is one present-day exception, and there may have been some historical exceptions which as far as I know are unattested.

The present-day exception consists of demonyms used in the Roncal Valley, an area with a population of little more than 1000 people where a Basque dialect used to be spoken. These demonyms take the form -ar in the masculine singular, -arra/-arres in the feminine and plural.

The historical exceptions would've been some words ending in -rre, where the final -e was supposedly dropped and later restored. My source for this is Hualde's "Quasi-Phonemic Contrasts in Spanish" which quotes Penny's "A History of the Spanish Language" as saying an alternation "probably once existed between singular tor and plural torres".

I feel like these exceptions are so marginal that, if mentioned on some general article about the Spanish language, they should be mentioned one about its history or something, and not this page or even the one about dialectal differences, but I'm looking for feedback. Erinius (talk) 05:22, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

How can I put this politely? It's a fascinating fact, and might show up in a comprehensive treatise—but does it really belong in any encyclopedia article? Wikipedia should have (though I haven't seen it) an explicit policy on just how marginal a piece of data can be and still be appropriate to include in the type of introductory article an encyclopedia provides. Kotabatubara (talk) 14:57, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

IPA vowels used here vs. those in the Spanish article

Not using the most precise symbols is misleading. Right now I am teaching a class and this article, as it is now, cannot be used as my students get confused and I had to tell them that the "correct" vowel table is in the Spanish article. That solved their confusion.

In the Spanish Wikipedia article they use ä, e̞ and o̞. But here, my students read a, e and o, which ARE NOT the same sounds. Despite the fact the correct wikilinks are being used in this article for all the vowels, the symbols used are not the required ones and, unless they follow the links, they won't easily realize the difference. George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 23:42, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

There are some compromises made in our transcription for readability and accessibility. If you would like to revisit the question of transcription conventions, I suggest that you find something more compelling than that you are personally not capable of instructing your students in the pronunciation of Spanish vowels in a manner that allows them to use this article. Personally, I don't find that line of reasoning very compelling. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:51, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Narrow transcription does not necessarily lead to accurate transcription. Humans aren't consistent, and if you actually measure the formants, the "correct" symbol for an instance of e.g. /a/ could be any of [ä, a, ɑ, ɐ, æ], if not more. That level of detail is impossible to maintain and ultimately irrelevant except where the specific quality is the focus of discussion. Nardog (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Rising diphthongs? Really?

I find the pronunciation of the so-called "rising" diphthongs described everywhere clearly wrong. It does not correspond to the actual pronunciation - am I the only one to notice this?

"ie" does not sound like [je] (which is the same, only differently rendered, as [i̯e]), but in my opinion like [ie̯]. Just compare the undeniably different pronunciation of Spanish "pie" (foot) versus French "pied"! In French the diphthong is clearly rising, the "i" clearly unsyllabic and hardly perceptible as an "i"-**vowel** anymore - it is different in Spanish, where it seems to be even more accented than the "e".

Also, please listen when a Spaniard is about to utter "Shit!", it sounds like "miiier" and not like "mjeeer". You hear something similar with "miércoles", "tiempo", etc.

The same is true for "ue". It never ever sounds like a [u̯e], but instead like a [ue̯].

My position is also underlined and confirmed by "hasta luego", where the "luego" comes across more like a ['lʊə̯ɣo], at least when (as is so often the case) spoken very quickly!

And besides:

"Luis": That sounds like [lujs], and "muy" like [muj].

Here, too, the "u" is undoubtedly more prominent - so much for "rising diphthong"!

At the "forvo" website there are many spoken examples; very few of the speakers here offer evidence for the claimed rising diphthongs, quite the contrary.

MWV, Saarbrücken

94.219.186.110 (talk) 00:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Two people can listen to the same voice clips and hear quite different things. While some people on forvo seem to say "pie" as with a syllabic "i", in no case have I heard the "i" sound more accented than the "e". In my own experience with Spanish "in the wild" I've only ever heard "ie" as [je] - but in any case, Wikipedia content should be based on what reliable sources say and not editors' personal opinions and judgments, and reliable sources describe these sequences as rising diphthongs.

I've heard the e's quality in "ue" get changed quite a bit, especially in words like "luego" and "nuevo", and I know there's some phonological literature covering this. That said, the default pronunciation seems to be [u̯e], and that's what the IPA's Illustration of Castilian Spanish describes.

"muy" usually is transcribed as [muj] anyway, and there's no contrast between [uj] and [wi] in Spanish so it makes sense that "Luis" could be pronounced with [uj] as well. Erinius (talk) 06:22, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

"deshuesar"

I reverted [des.w̝eˈsaɾ] back to [dez.w̝eˈsaɾ]. The point of citing deshuesar (as a minimal pair with desuello) is that the [w] of hueso can alternate with [ɣʷ], a voiced consonant, and that /s/ before a voiced consonant is syllablle-final and realized as a voiced [z]. Kotabatubara (talk) 15:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not just that it can alternate with [ɣʷ], I think that the one without [ɣ] is nothing but a spelling pronunciation, another one of so many in Spanish. --Jotamar (talk) 21:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is Castilian Spanish the default on this page?

There are a lot more Spanish speakers in Latin America than in Spain; I believe Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country. 167.206.19.130 (talk) 14:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't edit this page often, and I don't know what is the reason or excuse for that, but you should be aware that Castilian Spanish really stands for spelling pronunciation as typical of Madrid, and the fact is that spelling pronunciations are virtually universal among Spanish speakers in formal registers, so it's not really such a lopsided guideline as it might seem at first sight. --Jotamar (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I used WikiBlame to investigate and found when it was added: First, in this edit on 14 May 2009, @Kwertii: added a "Castilian = default" disclaimer here, then later that day @Aeusoes1: rephrased it to saying "Standard Spanish", based on Castilian, is the default, you added a Template:fact tag, and Ausoes1 then rephrased things again, giving something nearly identical to the current "Castilian = default" statement.

I'm not sure there's any particular reason that statement hasn't been deleted or substantially changed, but I'm not sure it should be either. Erinius (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Describing the relationship between /ɛ, ɔ/ and Spanish /ie/, /ue/

I just noticed that the edit I made in regards to this is related to a reverted previous edit I made in September. I find it unclear to describe the use of Spanish /e/, /o/ and /ie/, /ue/ as " similar to the distinction between the close /e, o/ and the open /ɛ, ɔ/" of other Romance languages: the connection is historical (the vowels /ɛ, ɔ/ developed by sound change into Spanish diphthongs) but the current phonetic outcome of those sound changes is not especially similar phonetically to /ɛ, ɔ/. However, I see that my previous wording was described as "an utterly wrong sweeping statement" in this January revision. While the correspondence is not perfect, due to separate sound changes in separate languages, I don't understand exactly why that makes it preferable to use the wording "similar to" instead of "correspond to". @Sol505000 are there alternative wordings that would address my concern while avoiding the inaccuracy that you found with my wording? Urszag (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

/dl/ does exist

regarding Spanish phonology: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

@Nardog, the words from Listado de lemas que contienen «dl» | Diccionario de la lengua española | RAE - ASALE can be either /dl/ or /d.l/, just as intervocalic /tl/ can be /t.l/. this is also noticeable in foreign words or names like sandler or chandler where sometimes it's /d.l/ and other times it's /dl/ Brawlio (talk) 05:45, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

What makes you conclude those are not /d.l/? Nardog (talk) 07:09, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

it's not that they aren't /d.l/, it's that they can also be /dl/. ¿what makes you conclude that they're not /dl/? Brawlio (talk) 00:01, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

/tl/ is considered a possible onset in certain varieties of Spanish because they have words beginning with /tl/. Nobody is going to regard sandler or chandler as having /dl/ as an onset unless there are Spanish words that begin with /dl/, just as nobody analyzes English indict to have the onset /nd/ because there is no English word that begins with /nd/. Nardog (talk) 08:12, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

The /ndl/ sequence in Sandler and Chandler has to be divided as /nd.l/ or /n.dl/. In native vocabulary, Spanish has neither words that start with /dl/ nor words that end in /nd/. Spanish does have borrowed words that end in /nd/; however, on the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a theoretical reason why it couldn't have syllables that start with /dl/ in borrowed words (and an absence of word-initial examples could be accidental). Ultimately this is an empirical question (as much as matters of syllabification can be) where we should follow what reliable sources say.--Urszag (talk) 19:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I see. Then let's remove the claim of nonexistence, which seems unsourced anyway (not to mention proving a negative). Nardog (talk) 00:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we should generally say nothing rather than making claims of nonexistence that are of dubious accuracy, but the problem with just not mentioning /dl/ is that then the introductory sentence ("If and only if the first consonant is a stop /p, t, k, b, d, ɡ/ or a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/, a second consonant, either /l/ or /ɾ/, is permitted") makes it sound like "dl" is permitted (even if it doesn't quite say that). Furthermore, at least some reliable sources do seem to say that /dl/ is unattested as an onset (I added one citation now; I'm not sure whether the sources already cited at the end of the sentence about /tl/ were also supposed to apply to the claim about /dl/). So I think that in this case, what would be ideal is to find a source that discusses examples like those that Brawlio brought up and addresses if they can be analyzed as marginal exceptions to the general absence of onset /dl/ in Spanish.--Urszag (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Phonotactic "restrictions" (not strict) on word-initial/post-consonantal palatals, etc.

Hi @Brawlio, I appreciate your contribution regarding the occurrence of /ʎ, ɲ/ after other consonants. However, I think we'll both agree that the article shouldn't be left in this state, so let's discuss what the best end state for the article would be. Do you think nothing of this kind should be mentioned, or do you think the current statements are indefensibly broad but have some kernel of truth to them?

It's obvious that these consonants are not strictly prohibited in that position, but I wonder if you would concede that they are at least uncommon, or not found in native vocabulary (other than compound/prefixed words)? huaiño, aclla, lliclla are borrowings from Quechua: I assume that Baker 2004 intended to exclude words of this type. As a thesis, the paper by Baker is not a top-rate source, so I'd be fine with removing it, but I think Morales-Front 2018 deserves some weight as an academic source, although its coverage of this topic is brief and not very clear (All I found to go on was the statement that "[ɾ] and [ɲ] are restricted word-initially"). Urszag (talk) 07:00, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

there are words like panllevar which we could surmise is a compound word but I'm not sure whether we can say so for certain. or enllentecer which comes Latin with no "un-prefixed" form in Castilian. there's also piesllo from vulgar Latin, aullar from Latin, traillar which is just the verb form of another word, and maullar. but yes, i agree that they're uncommon. Brawlio (talk) 18:47, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Brawlio, what do you think of the current phrasing? It is not fully sourced, but I'd like to remove the "dubious" tags from the statements cited to Baker 2004, Hualde 2022, and Morales-Front 2018, given that I think the article now provides enough context that a reader is not in danger of misinterpreting these statements as referring to ironclad prohibitions on word-initial /ɲ/ or postconsonantal /ɲ/ or /ʎ/.--Urszag (talk) 03:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)