Re: The letter j\

On Tue, 23 Apr 2002 02:01:05 -0400, Roger Mills <romilly@...> wrote:

>Danny Wier wrote:
>
>>(I haven't followed this thread too closely, so if this point has been
>>raised already, my apologies.)
>>
>>On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 01:14:46 -0400 Roger Mills <romilly@...> writes:
>>> In most of Argentina (I should say, in Buenos Aires) both <ll> and
>>> <y> are [Z]; interestingly, Pablo Flores always used [S] instead......a
>>> regional - personal - generational difference?  Or a change since 30
>>> years ago?
>>
>>Didn't that happen before as Portuguese developed into its own language
>>with |ch| /S/ where Castilian has |ll|?
>
>Right you are. I need to hunt up the book on Spanish and Portuguese
>(still in storage I think). But _IIRC_ (big doubt) the Port. is a case of
>independent or parallel development (though the process was probably
>similar). I suspect the Span. development is relatively recent, but I'm
>by no means sure......
I've heard only [Z] for Argentine speakers. As to the last point, I'm
pretty sure that even that is a recent development. I remember reading in
an American Spanish dictionary about regional pronunciations in the 50's
and the sound they gave as the peculiar Argentine {ll}, {y} was an
affricate like [d_Z], only palatal. This sound now seems to be widespread
(except with Argentines) replacing the earlier palatal fricative or
approximant.

Jeff J.