Yeísmo

Yeísmo (pronounced IPA|/ʝeˈizmo/) is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme IPA|/ʎ/ (written "ll") and its merger into the phoneme IPA|/ɟʝ/ (written "y"), usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. The term "yeísmo" comes from the Spanish name of the letter "y" ("i griega" or "ye"). The opposite phenomenon, lleísmo (pronounced IPA|/ʎeˈizmo/), is the realization of both as the palatal lateral approximant phoneme IPA|/ʎ/.

Most dialects currently realize the merged phoneme as a voiced palatal fricative IPA| [ʝ] , which becomes an affricate or a plosive (either a voiced postalveolar affricate IPA| [ʤ] as in English "gin", a voiced palatal affricate IPA| [ɟ͠ʝ] when it occurs after a pause (as at the beginning of a sentence) or after a nasal (as in the words "cónyuge" and "conllevar"). However, in Rioplatense it is typically realized as a voiced postalveolar fricative IPA| [ʒ] , called "zheísmo" (or as a voiceless postalveolar fricative IPA| [ʃ] , called "sheísmo", among the younger generations), which may become a voiced postalveolar affricate IPA| [ʤ] (or voiceless postalveolar affricate IPA| [ʧ] among the younger) in the same context as above.

"Yeísmo" produces homophony in a number of cases. For example, the following word pairs sound the same to speakers of dialects with yeísmo, but would be minimal pairs in regions that distinguish:

*"haya" ("beech tree" / "that there be") ~ "halla" ("s/he finds")
*"cayó" ("s/he fell") ~ "calló" ("s/he became silent")
*"hoya" ("pit, hole") ~ "olla" ("pot")
*"baya" ("berry") and "vaya" ("that he go") ~ "valla" ("fence")

Due to the relatively low frequency of both "y" and "ll", confusion is unlikely. However, orthographic mistakes are common (for example, writing "llendo" instead of "yendo" — for some reason, most people tend to err towards "ll"). A similar effect took place in the local name of the island of Majorca: "Mallorca" is a continental Catalan hypercorrection of the earlier "Maiorca". [ [http://dcvb.iec.cat/ "Diccionari català-valencià-balear", Institut d'Estudis Catalans] (look up the term "Mallorca")]

References

See also

*Rioplatense Spanish
*History of the Spanish language
*List of phonetics topics