Re: Chinese Dialect Question

On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 08:49:33AM -0400, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> OK, I don't actually know Spanish, so this is just (possibly baseless)
> extrapolation from observing Spanish speakers amongst my acquaintances.
> Pronouncing _j_ as [j] could be confusion over the English usage
> (inadvertently swapping the English _j_ and _y_ because one is used to _y_
> being [dZ]). Mind you, this is from Central American Spanish speakers, so
> I'm not surprised it's wildly divergent from European Spanish.
There are plenty of differences between European and American
Spanish dialects, but in none of them is <j> pronounced as [j].
In Spanish, <j>  is /x/.  It may come out as [h] or as something
between [x] and [S] (like German whichever-ch-laut-isn't /x/), but
never [j].

Castilian spelling is phonemic and runs thus:

<a>                     /A/     [a]
<b>                     /b/     [B]
<c> before <e>,<i>      /T/
<c> elsewhere           /k/
<ch>                    /tS/
<d>                     /d/     [D]
<e>                     /e/     [E]
<f>                     /f/
<g>                     /g/     [G]
<h>                     silent
<i>                     /i/     [I]
<j>                     /x/
<k>                     /k/
<l>                     /l/
<ll>                    /l_j/
<m>                     /m/
<n>                     /n/
<ñ>                     /n_j/
<o>                     /o/     [O]
<p>                     /p/
<qu>                    /k/
<r>                     /4/
<rr>                    /r/
<s>                     /s/
<t>                     /t/
<u>                     /u/     [U]
<v>                     /b/     [B]
<w>                     /w/
<x>                     /ks/,/x/
<y>                     /y/,/i/ [I]
<z>                     /T/

The primary differences in American Spanish are the replacement of
/T/ and /l_j/ with /s/ and /j/, respectively.  Also, /j/ (whether
spelled <ll> or <y>) tends to turn into a fricative [Z] or even an
affricate [dZ)].  And the intervocalic fricativization of some of the
voiced stops isn't quite as regular as it is in Castilian;
/b/ and /d/ do almost alwas become [B] and [D] intervocalically, but
sometimes /g/ stubbornly remains [g] instead of becoming [G] the
way it ought to. :)

-Mark

Reply