# S-"dropping" in Spanish



## Outsider

domangelo said:


> This is an interesting bit of information regarding the Académie française. It represents some practical housecleaning that illustrates the innovative power of such an institution. Contrast this with the situation in Spanish, where the same tendency to drop the preconsonantal s in speech exists, but where the Real Academia has never banished it from the written language. Has this decision (probably conscious, as I am sure that they were well aware of the French decision), been beneficial in half heartedly preserving these s sounds (if such a thing is a benefit)?  Their erratic use in Spanish sounds sloppy and detracts from the prestige of Spanish among the less well informed second language learners, (i.e., nearly everyone), while the loss of the s in French goes completely unnoticed.


You seem to be unaware that the "s" is only "dropped" (actually, aspirated) in some accents of Spanish. Why should all the other accents have to submit to such idiosyncrasies?


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## demalaga

I don't agree that the Académie française has banished the non pronounced "s" in written French language.On the contrary French has a rather conservative spelling


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## Erutuon

But it has. There are the examples Latin _estis_ -> Modern French _êtes _and _fenestra _-> _fenêtre_. These both used to have the -s- still spelled in the word, but it was then taken out and indicated by the circumflex accent.


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## domangelo

My posting was originally written in the thread discussing the situation in French regarding the circumflex. In 1740, the Académie française got rid of the s from certain words, replacing it with the circumflex. I do not know whether the s had completely disappeared from all French pronunciation by that time, but the decision of 1740 seems to have made the s in côte and êtes and dozens of other words completely disappear from our consciousness. I contrasted that with the situation in Spanish, where there is also a marked tendency to drop preconsonantal s, perhaps not consistently enough for the Real Academia to be tempted to drop it from writing. Are there regions where the preconsonant s is strong? I must say that having heard Caribbean Spanish and Andalucian Spanish, I know that there are areas where it is nearly absent. Indeed, I have heard the language referred to as "E'pañol" for my entire life. Is there any desire or tendency to regularize this anarchic situation?


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## demalaga

In French the s marking the plural forms are not pronounced but they can if the following word beginns with a vowel making a "liaison" but the x of some plural forms are almost never pronounced.Also the conjugation for example the verb speak 
I speak   je parle
you speak tu parles (s is not pronounced)
they speak  ils parlent (nt not pronounced)
What some time in the past happend in French happens nowadays in Portuguese with nouns ending in "al", for emplample dois reals (TWO brazilian reals) is pronounced "doish riaush".The adjective égal formes plural égaux, wich should have been the pronounciation a few centuries ago.Now they pronounce "ego" but l'Académie Française has not changed the spelling in this case.


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## jmx

domangelo said:


> Are there regions where the preconsonant s is strong?


The word "strong" here is completely misguiding. The 's' letter in Spanish corresponds to a sibilant sound. There is a regional variation where this sibilant is "aspirated", which can mean pronouncing it as , not pronouncing anything, and some more possibilities. This variation is very widespread, as you have noticed, but it is still regional. In the northern half of Spain, in much of Mexico, in many South America highlands, any 's' is simply an [s].


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## Outsider

demalaga said:


> What some time in the past happend in French happens nowadays in Portuguese with nouns ending in "al", for emplample dois reals (TWO brazilian reals) is pronounced "doish riaush".


Nitpick: the plural of _real_ is _rea*i*s_.


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## Qcumber

jmartins said:


> There is a regional variation where this sibilant is "aspirated", which can mean pronouncing it as , not pronouncing anything, and some more possibilities.



Why do you use the term "aspirated"?
A consonant is aspirated when it is followed by /h/, e.g. in Chinese or Sanskrit /p/ Vs /ph/.
If, in a Spanish dialect, people say ['hanto] instead of ['santo], the /s/ is not aspirated. it is simply replaced by /h/.
Now, is there a Spanish dialect where people say ['shanto] instead of ['santo] - i.e. where the /s/ is aspirated? Note. [sh] in my transcription is _not_ the English digram <sh>.
So which is which in the Spanish dialect you were referring to?


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## Outsider

Qcumber said:


> Why do you use the term "aspirated"?


For the same reason that in French one speaks of _ache aspiré_? The "s" is pronounced as a voiceless glottal fricative, vulgo "aspirated _h_".


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## jmx

Qcumber said:


> Why do you use the term "aspirated"?
> A consonant is aspirated when it is followed by /h/, e.g. in Chinese or Sanskrit /p/ Vs /ph/.


I was just translating the Spanish words "aspirar" and "aspiración", which are the ones used in Spanish phonetics. The more exact technical term is probably 'debuccalization'.


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## Qcumber

Outsider said:


> For the same reason that in French one speaks of _ache aspiré_? The "s" is pronounced as a voiceless glottal fricative, vulgo "aspirated _h_".


??? French has no /h/. What is called "H aspiré" only means that the liaison doesn't take place. At best, with a minority of speakers, what you hear is a weak glottal _*stop,*_ definitely not a glottal fricative.

So it is Span. ['santo] > Span. dial. ['hanto]. The [s] is replaced by the . There is no aspiration.
Thanks.


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## Outsider

Replacing a sound by  can be called an aspiration. 



Qcumber said:


> French has no /h/.


But it once did. That's where the name comes from. I'm surprised you didn't know.



			
				domangelo said:
			
		

> Is there any desire or tendency to regularize this anarchic situation?


No more than there is one to regularize the similarly "anarchic" situation of English.


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## Arrius

It isn't just the pre-consonantal S that gets dropped in Andalusian. I once heard a girl remark: "¡*La moca metán moletando*!" which, with restored esses is "¡_Las moscas me están molestando!"_ or "_The flies are bothering me!"_


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## Qcumber

jmartins said:


> I was just translating the Spanish words "aspirar" and "aspiración", which are the ones used in Spanish phonetics. The more exact technical term is probably 'debuccalization'.


Interesting. I see what you mean. I'm not sure, however, such is the case here because it would imply the original phone was [sh], then lost the [s] part produced in the mouth: [sh] > [s]. [sh] doesn't exist in Spanish.

I think [s] >  is just a mutation or a substitution.

Finally, analyzing [s] and  into phonetic traits doesn't seem to support this hypothesis.

[s] = {[+alveolar], [+fricative], [-voiced]}
 = {[+glottal], [+fricative], [-voiced]}

because

{[+alveolar], [+fricative], [-voiced]} - [+alveolar] 
= {[+fricative], [-voiced]}

The [+glottal] is missing from the result to obtain .

All we could say at this level is that the [+alveolar] trait was replaced by the [+glottal] trait.


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## Outsider

Debuccalization is a common type of lenition.


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## Qcumber

Outsider said:


> But it once did. That's where the name comes from. I'm surprised you didn't know.


I do know this. I was talking about 20th-c. French.


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## Outsider

However, the term _ache aspiré_ refers to the phonetics of medieval French.


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## demalaga

There's a regional variation , the "ceceo" where they pronounce "s" with a sound like english "th".People who use ceceo sometimes uses "r" instead of "l".Some people drops completely the "s" but makes the preceding vowel a little longer or a lityle more open.laa moocaa metan moleetando.


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## Arrius

demalaga said:


> There's a regional variation , the "ceceo" where they pronounce "s" with a sound like English "th". People who use ceceo sometimes use "r" instead of "l". Some people drop completely the "s" but make the preceding vowel a little longer or a little more open: laa moocaa metan moleetando.


 
You know best, of course, but I personally haven't noticed this pronunciation of S. To which Spanish region or regions are you referring? I have, however, heard a Spanish pòlitician who pronounces *más* something like the English _mash_, but also a bit like the _ch_ in German _ich _or the_ kj_ in Norwegian _kjøre._ You are pretty sure to know who I mean. On satirical TV programmes he is regularly mocked for this pronunciation (like Felipe Gonzalez for dropping his esses), which must be common in his region of origin and not a personal speech defect. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name, but he is quite prominent.
The* ceceo* or lisp, is of course, the standard pronunciation of both c (except before a, o and u) and z in Spanish (but not of s ), as it is taught as a foreign language in other European countries. In South America it is rare and, I have heard, regarded as a bit snobbish. Rightly or wrongly, it is said to have come into general use through the imitation of a former king of Spain who must have brought it from the province of his birth. This would not surprise me, because the French_ Monsieur_, originally used only to refer to the king of France's brother, also became the normal form of address for all French males.
Your version of my sample Andalusian sentence, with lengthened vowels, looks a bit like Mexican to me, though your sentence may not have their very variable intonation. I don't know if they drop their esses, but the Cubans do as exemplified in that song about the poet Guantanmera, which includes the phrase, _Yo soy un hombre sincero( /sinsero/), y donde crecen las palmas_ _(/kresen la palma_/).
I have not come upon the l/r confusion you refer to, but it is a common linguistic phenomenon which exists in Japanese (where tinned milk is called miriku - i.e. milk) and in the totally unconnected African languages Fula and Cinyanja (in which last language the word for dog is is spelt indifferently _garu_ or _galu_).


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## demalaga

To know more about ceceo

search in the wikipedia.
Sorry I wanted to include the link but I'm not allowed for the moment


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## domangelo

Outsider said:


> Replacing a sound by  can be called an aspiration.
> 
> But it once did. That's where the name comes from. I'm surprised you didn't know.
> 
> No more than there is one to regularize the similarly "anarchic" situation of English.





I'm sorry if my description sounded judgemental. Of course, English tops the list of anarchic languges. Spanish is in a quite different category, as a Latin language with a history going back over two thousand years (to Latin) and with a linguistic academy, it is in a position to steer its course and shape its destiny. 

As for the s dropping, I suppose it is not nearly as pronounced in Castilla as in other regions, and thus it is of low prestige, so it has not found its way into the spelling of the language. Does the Real Academia have guidelines on pronunciation? 

The l/r confusion happens in Caribbean Spanish, as well. And in Puerto Rico there is also a tendency to aspirate initial r in words: la (h)adio for the radio, and  (h)ico for rico. So the name of the island can sound like: Puelto Hico. However, this is low prestige, and considered a country accent.


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## jmx

domangelo said:


> As for the s dropping, I suppose it is not nearly as pronounced in Castilla as in other regions, and thus it is of low prestige, so it has not found its way into the spelling of the language.


That is what I was trying to explain in my post #6. What you calll s-dropping, which more accurately is a variation of s-aspiration ("aspiración de las eses") is *general* in southern Castile (for example Madrid), while *inexistent* until some 30 years ago in northern Castile. 

That is, in my native-speaker perception, it's not a "more/less" question, but rather a "yes/no" one. Those speakers who "drop" only some s's in formal language, probably drop all of them in a relaxed environment. 



domangelo said:


> Does the Real Academia have guidelines on pronunciation?


I'm not sure about the Academia itself, but some scholars used to write treaties on this. What they do is to take the common dialect in "Castilla la Vieja" as a model, quite an anachronic point of view, by the way.

Anyway, nobody cares about these "pronunciation rules", not even in the media !


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## Outsider

domangelo said:


> As for the s dropping, I suppose it is not nearly as pronounced in Castilla as in other regions, and thus it is of low prestige, so it has not found its way into the spelling of the language. Does the Real Academia have guidelines on pronunciation?


I don't think it's a matter of prestige, although I also don't think it's primarily a question of pronunciation. Language regulators and societies in general tend to be conservative. They've been writing these words with "s" for so long, why should they change, even if the pronunciation has changed a little bit in some dialects? It's easier to just reinterpret the values of the letters, and keep writing the same way. This is what English has been doing since the Middle English period, when long vowels became diphthongs, but kept being written as vowels, and the pronunciation of some consonants (such as "gh" or "kn") also changed, but writing did not.


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## lazarus1907

Arrius said:


> It isn't just the pre-consonantal S that gets dropped in Andalusian. I once heard a girl remark: "¡*La moca metán moletando*!" which, with restored esses is "¡_Las moscas me están molestando!"_ or "_The flies are bothering me!"_


You are probably not used to the Andalusian aspiration, because I've never heard such thing. Most likely, it was something like "Lah mohcah mehtán molehtando". I don't remember having missed this sound and mistake a plural word for a singular one when listening to people from the south of Spain. The rest of Spain and foreigners find it more difficult, though.


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## tom_in_bahia

domangelo said:


> I'm sorry if my description sounded judgemental. Of course, English tops the list of anarchic languges. Spanish is in a quite different category, as a Latin language with a history going back over two thousand years (to Latin) and with a linguistic academy, it is in a position to steer its course and shape its destiny.
> 
> As for the s dropping, I suppose it is not nearly as pronounced in Castilla as in other regions, and thus it is of low prestige, so it has not found its way into the spelling of the language. Does the Real Academia have guidelines on pronunciation?
> 
> The l/r confusion happens in Caribbean Spanish, as well. And in Puerto Rico there is also a tendency to aspirate initial r in words: la (h)adio for the radio, and (h)ico for rico. So the name of the island can sound like: Puelto Hico. However, this is low prestige, and considered a country accent.


 
Ive never heard it as a direct /h/ sound. Ive always heard it as a /hr/ with a trilled r preceded by aspiration, not all the way aspirated like many dialects of Brazilian portuguese where rico is indeed /hiku/ and radio /hadjyu/.

When I lived in Madrid, a friend of mine who was a ling minor at my university got in a little tiff with her boyfriend (a spaniard) who complained que los andaluzes no saben pronunciar los eses. I remember saying, but your boyfriend consistently says *ehpañol* and *ehpejo* with strong aspiration. In a way, hes not saying an S either. She took this info and shoved it in his face as a reason why he was wrong and I didnt help their little lovers quarrel, but at least it won out over a popular linguistic myth that madrileños dont alter their S as well.

*Sorry, some keys dont work on this computer, such as the apostrophe.


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## tom_in_bahia

lazarus1907 said:


> You are probably not used to the Andalusian aspiration, because I've never heard such thing. Most likely, it was something like "Lah mohcah mehtán molehtando". I don't remember having missed this sound and mistake a plural word for a singular one when listening to people from the south of Spain. The rest of Spain and foreigners find it more difficult, though.


 
Reminds me of a shirt I consistently saw at all the tourist shops throughout Sevilla and Granada: *Jó, qué caló!*


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## Qcumber

domangelo said:


> The l/r confusion happens in Caribbean Spanish, as well. And in Puerto Rico there is also a tendency to aspirate initial r in words: la (h)adio for the radio, and (h)ico for rico. So the name of the island can sound like: *Puelto Hico*. However, this is low prestige, and considered a country accent.


Isn't this a creole pronunciation?


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## demalaga

To have a more clear idea about the spanish "s" if you have any doubt I recommend reading the entry "s" in wikipedia (The Spanish one, of course).Summanizing there are two main pronuntiations of "s", de apical and the alveolar.The alveolar is the s used in Catalan and in most of peninsular Spanish.It was incorrect use this sound instead of TH in words like cielo.But now it is more acceptable.
In Canary islands south Spain y especially in South America developped de alveolar s sound, wich is now accepted as correct in any case.On the contrary the use os th instead of s is more and more restricted to low cultured persons.
Using l instead of r I never noticed this in peninsular Spanish, but I heard a lot of time the other way round.Example "er" instead of "el"even wen this could bring confusion "er cardo(cardo is a vegetable you can eat) instead of ""el caldo" (caldo is a liquid soup)


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## demalaga

Sorry, I meant saying apical the one used in catalan and northern Spain


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## jmx

Arrius said:


> I have, however, heard a Spanish pòlitician who pronounces *más* something like the English _mash_, but also a bit like the _ch_ in German _ich _or the_ kj_ in Norwegian _kjøre._ You are pretty sure to know who I mean. On satirical TV programmes he is regularly mocked for this pronunciation (like Felipe Gonzalez for dropping his esses), which must be common in his region of origin and not a personal speech defect. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name, but he is quite prominent.


The politician you mean is most probably Mariano Rajoy. I don't think that way of speaking is typical of any region, it could be a personal thing, since that man had a serious car accident in his youth, and he needed face surgery.

I don't think Felipe González has ever been "mocked" for his pronunciation, he speaks with a more or less common andalusian accent, the impersonators simply use that accent.


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## Arrius

I don't think Felipe González has ever been "mocked" for his pronunciation_*,*_ *jmartins*

The programme I was thinking of, whose title I cannot remember, is a copy of the British_ "Spitting Image_" in which those playing the parts of various celebrities, put on latex masks and gloves. In order to make it clear who the character is supposed to be, the performers also exaggerate whatever linguistic peculiarities any particular one may have. Instead of "_mock_" one might say they* ape *the speech of these celebrities. Felipe Gonzalez's missing esses are stressed to the extreme, as is Bush's cowboy accent and lexical confusion (actually his Spanish is so rudimentary in real life, that this imitation is really a compliment).Even dear little Ronaldinho's "espanhol abrasileirado" comes in for harmless fun, as it does also in the show _Cruz y Raya_ (if I have remembered the name correctly).
In the original British show even the Queen and Prince Charles come in for a little leg-pulling on account of their unique posh idiolect.
But the Spanish politician with the mutilated esses that I am unable to identify was certainly not _Rajoy._ I think the fellow in question is probably a Basque, and looks a bit like Chaves but with more hair.


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## Lugubert

I have heard people from la Peninsula complain that Canarians used baby speech: ête caye for este calle etc.

The l/r confusion is global. Think of Chinese and Japanese. Many not vely funny jokes like asking fol flied lice in a lestaulant. You find it in the development of the languages of India, and there's the Romance 'tree': arbre, arbol, albre.


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## L4ut4r0

domangelo said:


> This is an interesting bit of information regarding the Académie française. It represents some practical housecleaning that illustrates the innovative power of such an institution. Contrast this with the situation in Spanish, where the same tendency to drop the preconsonantal s in speech exists, but where the Real Academia has never banished it from the written language.



I don't think anyone actually drops their "s"s. I say "_lah mohcah mehtán molehtando_" (or _lam moc-cam met-tan molet-tan do_). I certainly prefer to spell "las moscas me están molestando" than "la moca me tan moletando". I would see almost no advantage if we wrote _lâ môkâ m'êtán molêtando_.


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## Tajabone

Arrius said:


> But the Spanish politician with the mutilated esses that I am unable to identify was certainly not _Rajoy._ I think the fellow in question is probably a Basque, and looks a bit like Chaves but with more hair.


 
My dear Arrius  I guess you were referring to Aznar who is frequently imitated by _Cruz y Raya_ and the Spanish equivalent of Les Guignols (latex muppet satirical show).

My wife told me that Aznar's accent was peculiar enough to puzzle a great portion of his national audience


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## Arrius

Sorry, it wasn't Aznar, whose speech I do not find particularly odd. I have not seen the politician in question in the news for a while, and the satirical programme is off the air now. If I ever find out who he is I'll get back to this thread. He is quite distinctive and sounds as if he were talking through a mouthful of spaghetti Bolognese. What makes Aznar's speech incoherent at times is the volume, which dwindles off to a murmur that only he can hear.


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## jmx

Arrius said:


> ... the Spanish politician with the mutilated esses that I am unable to identify was certainly not _Rajoy._ I think the fellow in question is probably a Basque, and looks a bit like Chaves but with more hair.


Try finding him in these pages :
http://www.cuatro.com/programas/pro...etenimiento&type=Tes&xref=20060912ctoultpro_1

http://www.elpais.com/comunes/2005/guinol/votacion.html

http://www.cuatro.com/microsites/nochehache/guinol_abril.html


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## Arrius

Muchísimas gracias al colega *jmartins.* Aún si no encuentra al poliitico de los eses mutiladas en esta abundancia de informaciones que has tenido la gentileza de proporcionarme, la búsqueda será no obstante muy entretenida. A.


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## demalaga

I don't know for sure but probably the person who pronounces "mas" like "mash" in some spanish satyrical T.V. shows could the portuguese NObel laureate "José Saramago". In fact portuguese people pronounces this way.This writer lives in Spain and appears frecuently in the spanish media. I heard recently he believes in the idea of the unification of Spain and Portugal as one state, called "Iberia"


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## Arrius

You have something there, *demalaga*: I think the Galicians also pronounce the s as sh, at least in their dilalect, as in the slogan "nunca mais" (/maish/), at the time of the oil pollution on the northwestern coast. But it definitely was a politician of Spanish nationality that I meant.


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## JGreco

But similarly, when I watch TVE in the U.S there is a politics show with the female host who pronounces her s's nearly as if it was a English "sh" sound. I've heard this pronunciation in many of the Spanish films by several people. I think it is a apical alveolar sound (If this is wrong I apologize. I get confused with IPA sometimes.) pronouncing the s with the tongue situated on the roof of the mouth above the teeth. This pronunciation doesn't exists in Castellano in Latin America definitely uniquely Spanish. To the untrained ear it almost sounds just like the Portuguese s.


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## Arrius

re *apical alveolar** sound* *JGreco*, an explanatorynote:_ apical_ from apex, meaning here the tip of the tongue; _alveolar _referring to the hard palate (paladar) as opposed to the soft palate on the other side of the alveolar ridge farther into the mouth.


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## gypsy_kahlo

domangelo, i disagree that  the s-dropping is spoken spanish makes the language sound sloppy or detratcts from the prestige of the language...rather, it is such idiosyncracies such as this that reperesent the beauty of language in use and in evolution. especially considering spanish is spoken in such varying contexts across the world, not just in spain, different pronunciations are important defining features of cultures. i think it is wonderful, how boring it would be if languages were always static and uniform!


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## domangelo

gypsy_kahlo said:


> domangelo, i disagree that  the s-dropping is spoken spanish makes the language sound sloppy or detratcts from the prestige of the language...rather, it is such idiosyncracies such as this that reperesent the beauty of language in use and in evolution. especially considering spanish is spoken in such varying contexts across the world, not just in spain, different pronunciations are important defining features of cultures. i think it is wonderful, how boring it would be if languages were always static and uniform!



Hi, if you reread my post you will see that I say, "Their erratic use in Spanish sounds sloppy and detracts from the prestige of Spanish among the less well informed second language learners, (i.e., nearly everyone)...."
Well informed language learners, on the other hand, people who understand how languages evolve and who appreciate the beautiful diversity of languages will not be so negatively impressed. As someone said in an earlier post, this aspirated "s" sounds to many ears like "baby talk". Coming from New York, where Puerto Rican and Dominican Spanish are often heard, I know that this is a commonly held opinion about that regional pronunciation (with its strongly aspirated "s") and that criticsim is what I was referring to. But, of course, it just shows the linguistic chauvinism that people are capable of, since it is the height of arrogance for us English speakers to accuse others of sloppy, muddled pronunciation.


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## MarX

JGreco said:


> But similarly, when I watch TVE in the U.S there is a politics show with the female host who pronounces her s's nearly as if it was a English "sh" sound. I've heard this pronunciation in many of the Spanish films by several people. I think it is a apical alveolar sound (If this is wrong I apologize. I get confused with IPA sometimes.) pronouncing the s with the tongue situated on the roof of the mouth above the teeth. This pronunciation doesn't exists in Castellano in Latin America definitely uniquely Spanish. To the untrained ear it almost sounds just like the Portuguese s.


In many southern accents of American English this kind of S which sounds almost like SH is also used.
A prominent example: Joel Osteen.

Salam (or Shalam )


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## Arrius

jmartins said:


> Try finding him in these pages :
> http://www.cuatro.com/programas/pro...etenimiento&type=Tes&xref=20060912ctoultpro_1


I am sorry to have taken so long to find the politician of the emphatic and very wet intermediate and final esses that sound like a jota enuciated through a mouthful of chewed food. It is *José Bono*, whose alter ego is to be found on the above link you so kindly gave me, singing to a goat, under the title "¿Qué pasa con Bono?" of 11th October near the beginning of the clip.
Unlike myself he is far from slow, and when Minster of Defence was offered a medal, which he wisely declined, for pulling out the Spanish contingent from Iraq in good order and at record speed. It would have been the first time in history perhaps that a medal had been awarded for an (admittedly most prudent) withdrawal as opposed to an advance.
He comes from Albacete and his esses described above are not greatly exaggerated in the satirical show from the real-life version.


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## MarX

I listened some clips of José Bono.

His syllable final -S sounds pretty hard. More similar to the German CH in _Bach _instead of in _ich_.

I don't know if that's normal in Extremenyo. I've never heard any Extremenyo accent in my life (well, if you don't count Senyor Bono, of course).

Saludos,


MarK


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## Arrius

In fact it is more like the double L in Welsh Llandudno but very wet and more emphatic. You may have a Welshman around in Jakarta or wherever to demonstrate this sound to you. However, José Bono does not come from Extremadura of which the adjective is extremeño, but Albacete south of Madrid, in the autonomía of Castilla-La Mancha, where Don Quixote got up to his tricks. I am also unaware whether the sound he makes is typical of that region or a personal peculiarity. I have heard no one else talk like this.


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## jmx

Arrius said:


> However, José Bono does not come from Extremadura of which the adjective is extremeño, but Albacete south of Madrid, in the autonomía of Castilla-La Mancha, where Don Quixote got up to his tricks. I am also unaware whether the sound he makes is typical of that region or a personal peculiarity. I have heard no one else talk like this.


Right, he's from the south of Castilla-La Mancha, quite close to Andalusia (his home town is in the Guadalquivir river basin). But the peculiarity of his speech is that he speaks that way *in front of TV cameras*. Other people speak in a similar way, but *avoid* it outside colloquial speech. Many people in Spain associate this kind of accent with Madrid, but not everyone from Madrid accepts this association.


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## Arrius

Other people speak in a similar way, but *avoid* it outside colloquial speech.* jmartins*

I am relieved to hear it. It would appear therefore to be some kind of inverted snobbery, the equivalent of which might be a London-born politician dropping his aitches and saying _workin'_ instead of _working,_ of which I can think of no examples off-hand, though some of them do retain the impure vowels of Estuary English possibly to appear more like "one of the people". The fact that he can manage the intial ess of _será _or_ sólo_ without spluttering proves that he could pronounce the intermediate and final esses in the more usual way if he so chose.


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## MarX

Arrius said:


> The fact that he can manage the intial ess of _será _or_ sólo_ without spluttering proves that he could pronounce the intermediate and final esses in the more usual way if he so chose.


 
Are the natives of Albacete not supposed to pronounce the initial S's??

And what do you mean with intermediate esses?


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## Arrius

You have misunderstood me, friend *Marx.* I said "*he can manage the intial ess of será or sólo without spluttering".* What the other inhabitants of Alabacete do, I would not venture to say from personal experience, but *jmartins* says in #48 that they even pronounce the ess in other positions in the standard way when speaking to outsiders.
_Ess,_ which you will find in the dictionary, is the way the name of the letter S is spelt, corresponding to _aitch_ for H or _tee _for T.
In the word *s*aboro*s*o*s *as in "guisos saborosos", you have an *initial, **intermediate (*or* medial),* and *final* ess in that order, which I have painstakingly colour-coded for you. A.


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## MarX

What I understood is:

The way José Bono speaks corresponds to his native accent, that is, of Albacete.

Then you said that if he managed get his S in _será_ and_ sólo _(initial S-), he should be able to pronounce his S in medial and final position normally. Something that I assume he does not do after I read what you had written.


So I was wondering:

1. I did notice that José Bono pronounces his final -S like German ach. Yet I didn't find his medial -S- unusual (something you asserted).

2. After reading what you wrote, that he managed to (like he put an effort to) get his initial S- without spluttering, I concluded that he normally, that is, in Albacete, does pronounce his initial S- splutteringly. That's why I asked whether it is a characteristic in Albacete that you pronounce your initial S- differently.
Also a reason I asked is because I read about the phenomenon of _heheo/jejeo_ where _será_ and _sólo_ would be pronounced as _herá _and _hólo_. Something you also encounter in my mother tongue. I was wondering if that was what you meant.

I tried to explain this as thoroughly as possible. I hope you get what I mean, what I asked, and why I asked it.


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## Uly

Spanish dialects that aspirate [s] only do so when it is the coda of a syllable followed by a consonant. Thus the girl in the above quote probably said: [lahmóhkah meehtán molehtándo]. In answer to the original thread, the [s] is never dropped since the  compensates for or replaces the segment originally occupied by [s], and the length of the word remains intact. The only time I have heard [s] dropped entirely, and the segmentation of the word reduced, is in the speech of some Dominicans, especially and most notably with plural [s].


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## fabiog_1981

Arrius said:


> The* ceceo* or lisp, is of course, the standard pronunciation of both c (except before a, o and u) and z in Spanish (but not of s ), as it is taught as a foreign language in other European countries.


I'm afraid you're a wrong. That's not ceceo.
See what the Rae says about it.


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## avok

fabiog_1981 said:


> I'm afraid you're a wrong. That's not ceceo.
> See what the Rae says about it.


 
To be honest, fabio, I dont believe in ceceo   What Spaniards call ceceo sounds to me "heheo" 

By the way, I have always thought that only the Argentinians drop their s's (replace them with "h") but now I see it is much more common in the Spanish speaking world even in Spain.

I dont know why but "s dropping and replacing it with h" in any Spanish accent and "theta" in Castillian Spanish sound related to me. 

Also the "h" that replaces the dropped "s" is different than the typical English "h".


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## Outsider

avok said:


> I dont know why but "s dropping and replacing it with h" in any Spanish accent and "theta" in Castillian Spanish sound related to me.


I'm afraid that's merely your impression.

Pay attention to how Galicians like Mariano Rahoy speak, for instance.


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## avok

I know Outsider, that's why I did not insist on it. But you must know so far that I have good ears. 

I'll check Mariano but is it common in Galicia ??


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## Ligurian

I heard the funniest and most extreme case of "S" dropping in Barranquilla, on Colombia's caribbean coast. A guy, obviously from one of the andean towns in the interior of the country (judging from his accent) asked a local which bus to take to go to the beach. The answer was impossible for the poor guy: "Etequetacatrá". (Este que está acá atrás, or "the one right behind me".)


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## pktopp

Yes, aspiration of /s/ does occur in Spanish, esp. in Puerto Rican Spanish.  For example, the word "Español" is often pronounced /ehpañol/ in PR. The S is not "dropped"--it becomes an H.


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## MarX

Outsider said:


> You seem to be unaware that the "s" is only "dropped" (actually, aspirated) in some accents of Spanish. Why should all the other accents have to submit to such idiosyncrasies?


I thought about this question of yours, and actually one can say, "why not?".

I'm sure that when the Académie française decided to "drop" the S, there must have been accents that still retained it then.

I guess it's a question of prestige.
Île de France dropped the S, the Académie française followed.

But I'm aware this thread is about Spanish.
I just thought I'd answer that question of yours in the 1st post.


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## avok

In French S is still there! ex. le*s* (pronounced as lé but* not* written as lé)


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## MarX

avok said:


> In French S is still there! ex. le*s* (pronounced as lé but* not* written as lé)


Yes, but the S is "dropped" in words like _fenêtre, hôpital, êtes, état,_ etc.


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## Outsider

MarX said:


> I thought about this question of yours, and actually one can say, "why not?".
> 
> I'm sure that when the Académie française decided to "drop" the S, there must have been accents that still retained it then.


I would say that it's psychologically easier to not pronounce a letter you write than to pronounce one you don't write. French is a living example of this.


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## Frank06

*Hi,

I do understand that when talking about a phenomenon in Romance language X one can arrive at the same (or a similar phenomenon) in Romance language Y. It's normal, it's  a matter of common sense and in quite a lot of cases interesting and enlightening.

Nevertheless, I am going to ask to focus on the original question, viz. s-dropping in Spanish (and not to go into details about s-dropping in French).  Any similar phenomenon in another (Romance) language can be dealt with, but only in relation to the main topic.

Both the server and the listmembers have the capacity of dealing with a lot of threads. Let's use that capicity. People who want to go into the details of s-dropping in French, are invited to open a new thread. We can make a link between both threads without a problem.

Thanks for understanding.

Groetjes,

Frank
Moderator EHL*


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## Fray Luis

I'm an Andalussian, I have lived in Chile for a long time, I have heard Caribbean and Canary Island people all my life, and I can say that we aspirate the s rather than dropping it altogether, since we and the people we are talking with always know when it's singular or plural. There's a slight difference. As far as the ceceo, it's not the standard or official pronunciation of *c *and* z* in Spain. It is the incorrect pronunciation of *s* as *z*, common in some rural areas of southern Spain among people of a very low educational level. Neither the ceceo nor the Castilian pronunciation of *c* and *z* as English th in thought comes from the imitation of a formar king nor was imposed by a lisping king. That is a baseless legend which some people believed. Had the king had a speech defect like that he would have always pronounce like that, whereas in Castillian Spanish people differentiate between the two sounds. Even an illiterate person would always pronounce right. The four sibilant sounds we had in the Middle Ages were eventually simplified in two for northern and central Spain and one for southern Spain, the Canaries and Hispanic America.
I have never heard people pronouncing *l* for *r*, but I understand some people do in Panama. I know some people pronounce *r* for *l* in Andalucía and Chile, but it's very low class and they don't do it all the time.


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