Re: Spanish ll in different dialects

Mark P. Line (and others) have written.

> Philip Newton said:
> > From: David Peterson <thatbluecat@...>
> > [on Mexican |ll|]
> >> I've only ever heard a mixture between
> >> [j], [Z] and [dZ].  Both "ll" and "y" get pronounced this way
> >
> > A friend of mine, a Japanese who had spent a year or two on Mexico and
> > picked up a little Spanish, gave me the phrase [dZo mE dZamo <name>],
> > which confused me since I could imagine [dZ] for |ll| but had never
> > heard of any pronunciation for |y| but [j]. Yet she insisted that that
> > was the pronunciation she had learned there.
>
> I've heard Cubans use [dZ] for |y| in their *English* and always assumed
> it was because the do the same in their variety of Spanish.
>
I suspect a range from [j] > [j\] > [Z] > [dZ] (progressively more closure)
is permissible in the Spanish speaking world. I'm a little suspicious of the
[dZ], however-- perhaps we Americans are hearing their somewhat frictional
[j\] as our more familiar affricate (this might also apply to the Japanese
speaker someone mentioned)-- or maybe the Spanish speaker thinks it sounds
more "American" to use [dZ].  I heard [Z] a lot in Argentina, and
occasionally [dZ] which I attributed to the Italian background of 50% of the
population. (That was 30 some years ago; Pablo Flores usually transcribed
"ll, y" as [S].  Perhaps there's some on-going change.

A really long time ago, there was a comedian on TV who went by the name José
Jimenez-- I don't think he was actually Hispanic-- and part of his schtick
was to pronounce Engl. y as j, and almost every routine included something
like--
--Well, José, what were you doing in New Haven?
--I went to "Jail"
and so on.............
(In these PC times, I doubt that an Anglo could get by with parodying the
accent.  Mr. Leguizamo can do it, but he's entitled.)