# Castilian "Lisp" [ ceceo/seseo ]



## JShafer

I know that the "Castilian lisp" is not a lisp, but a difference in pronunciation. But what exactly makes it different? What is the history of the "lisp" - how did it become different? Who speaks it today and where is it spoken? 


Also, how is the "lisp" different from "ceceo" and "seseo?"


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## lazarus1907

Hi,

Unless I am mistaken, lisp in English is "ceceo" in Spanish, which consists in incorrectly pronouncing the S's like the Z's in Spain (th in english). What do you mean by becoming different? Different from what?


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## serg79_

This is from Wikipedia:

_Ceceo_ should be carefully distinguished from the so-called "*Castilian lisp*", which is used in reference to the Standard Peninsular distinction. The term is a misnomer, owing perhaps to the use of /θ/ in cognates of English and French words, such as _centro_ where an /s/ used in those languages. A persistent urban legend even claims that a Spanish king (there is no agreement as to exactly _which_ king) spoke with a lisp, and his pronunciation spread by prestige borrowing to the rest of the population. This myth is thoroughly discredited by scholars.

Not sure how much I can quote but you can read the rest here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seseo


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## lazarus1907

So... the so called "Castillian Lisp" is a term to describe a "strange" phenomenon in the peninsular pronounciation of the C's and Z's as apposed to the way it is pronounced in America? Ugly term.

Before America was discovered, in Spain there were four sounds not used today in modern Spanish (two similar to "th"; two similar to "s"), that were simplified into two (/s/ and /θ/) in most parts of Spain. However, in the south, and particularly in Sevilla (my city), those four sounds fused into a single one: /s/. In America there was a similar phonetical evolution, partly because most of the initial immigration was from the South of Spain, and only through Sevilla, and Cádiz. A "th"-like sound existed in Spain before that, though, and don't forget that the "c" was in the original Latin a "k", and not an "s".


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## mhp

I agree, lisp is an inaccurate word because it means the inability to pronounce the s sound. Of course there are people in Spain with lisp as much as any other country, but generally Spaniards can and do pronounce s’s.

  Here is another article from Wikipedia


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## Jellby

JShafer said:


> I know that the "Castilian lisp" is not a lisp, but a difference in pronunciation. But what exactly makes it different? What is the history of the "lisp" - how did it become different? Who speaks it today and where is it spoken?
> 
> Also, how is the "lisp" different from "ceceo" and "seseo?"



I guess "Castilian lisp" means to pronounce "S" as [s] and "C/Z" as [θ].
"Ceceo" means to pronounce both "S" and "C/Z" as [θ].
"Seseo" means to pronounce both "S" and "C/Z" as [s].

Of course, people with "ceceo" or "seseo" cannot distinguish both names  Note, however, that it doesn't mean they are incapable of pronouncing the sounds, they can if they need to (when speaking foreign languages, for example), they just speak like that when they speak Spanish, it's an accent feature.


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## Cecilio

As far as I jknow, "ceceo" refers to a phonetic characteristic of a given peninsular Spanish dialect, where the "s" is pronounced like a "th". This dialect is located in the south of Andalusia, especially in some parts of Cádiz. In a sentence like "No sé qué hacer" they would pronounce the "s" and the "c" in exactly the same way, as if it was the "th" sound". In the most widespread versions of peninsular Spanish these two phonemes would be pronounced differently, with the exception of "seseo" areas, where only the "s" sound would be used.


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## PianoMan

I will be spending a month living in Spain with a host family next summer (I'm also taking a 9-day vacation in Andalucia/Madrid this Februrary) and I would like to be able to speak with the Castilian Lisp as best I can, what exactly are the rules for the lisp because if I'm correct the lisp is not pronounced on every "c", "s", or "z".  Thanks


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## la_mas_deseada

no of course, it shouldnt be called a lisp, it's just a different pronunciation, and it's more distinctive than the latin american way


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## PianoMan

Yes, but is there a certain rule that tells which words or syllables you pronounce with the "lisp"?


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## Outsider

PianoMan, unfortunately the word "lisp" is ambiguous. 

a) Most Spaniards pronounce the "s" differently from the "z/c". The latter is pronounced as "th" in English "think".
b) Some Spaniards pronounce "z/c" _and_ "s" as "th" in English "think". This is called _ceceo_.
c) Most Spanish speakers (outside Spain), and some in Spain itself, pronounce both "s" and "z/c" as an English "ss". This is called _seseo_.
d) Many Spaniards pronounce the "s" in a slightly different way from how it is pronounced in English; kind of whistled.

Now, which of the above are you asking about?


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## mariposita

PianoMan said:


> Yes, but is there a certain rule that tells which words or syllables you pronounce with the "lisp"?


 
C when it doesn't make a /k/ sound (/k/ before a, o, u; "th" before e and i)  is pronounced like the "th" in the word *thin*.

cielo
celos
hice
hiciste

Z is always pronounced like the "th" in the word *thin*.

zapato--caza
zero
zinc
zona
zumo
hizo
azucena

It is no more a lisp that our pronunciation of the *th* in the word *thin* is a lisp.


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## gunnerstahl10

My Spanish teacher uses a Castilian pronunciation, but from what I am reading, it is neither seseo or ceceo. It's a mix. 

He pronounces his c/z with a [th] sound.
He pronounces his s with an almost [sh] sound like the English "she". It's not a heavy pronunciation, but its distinctive. He tells me that natives of Salamanca usually use the [sh] sound when they are speaking. 

Is he actually wrong in his pronunciation?


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## PianoMan

Thank you so much, this should be fairly helpful at any attempt to break beyond the Latin American Spanish I have been taught.


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## verismo21

Please note that "*c*eceo" is the phonological variant used in Peninsular Spanish in which, as others have previously stated, is the 'th' sound that is produced when pronouncing strictly the *c* (before _e_ or _i_) and z.

The _s_ is for the most part, is the same as in Latin America. Accordingly, the word '*s*eseo' refers to Latin American Spanish for example, where they don't make any distiction between the phonemes *s*, c or z.

Also, I agree with the comments above that this should not be considered a lisp; this is completely absurd! Es simplemente un rasgo fonológico del dialecto peninsular...and not even all Spaniards use it (el *c*eceo). We native English speakers don't consider us having a lisp when we pronounce the same sound when we say "think" do we?

Also, the fact that the Spaniards who use the "*c*eceo", means that they have the wonderful ability to distinguish between words like _cima _and _sima_, which have different meanings obviously, whereas those who use the *s*eseo, unfortunately do not make any difference in pronunciation when they say these words, one simply has to go based off of the context of the sentence; however, sometimes even this doesn't help. For example, if someone with the *s*eseo says to you:

"la aristocracia de la tierra...impuso una escala de valores que colocaba a la nobleza y al clero en la *cima* y a los hombres libres en órdenes descendientes en cuya *sima* se encontraba el siervo de la gleba" (Fuentes 93).

So, if the listener doesn't know the context or what 'nobleza' or 'siervo' means, etc. they may not know who's on top or on the bottom of the social latter in the example above even if they know what _cima _and _sima _mean...

Normally this isn't too much of a worry though, just like in English, we have many homonyms that we rarely get confused over.

Just be true to yourself, and don't try to imitate the Spaniards as, if your learning Spanish, many foreigners fall into the trap of using the *c*eceo for all the s,c, and z's. This is wrong, humiliating and linguistically considered 'hipercorreción'. Just keep to the dialect you were taught in and you should be fine!


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## Cecilio

verismo21 said:


> Please note that "*c*eceo" is the phonological variant used in Peninsular Spanish in which, as others have previously stated, is the 'th' sound that is produced when pronouncing strictly the *c* (before _e_ or _i_) and z.



No. This is not "ceceo". The fact that we pronounce "c", "z" as in English "thin" does not receive a specific name. It's just the way we pronounce it in most areas of Spain. "Ceceo" is a different thing. It is a linguistic term to refer to a specific dialect of Spanish, located in southern Andalusia, where even words like "rosa" or señor" are pronounced with the "th" sound.


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## Cecilio

gunnerstahl10 said:


> My Spanish teacher uses a Castilian pronunciation, but from what I am reading, it is neither seseo or ceceo. It's a mix.
> 
> He pronounces his c/z with a [th] sound.
> He pronounces his s with an almost [sh] sound like the English "she". It's not a heavy pronunciation, but its distinctive. He tells me that natives of Salamanca usually use the [sh] sound when they are speaking.
> 
> Is he actually wrong in his pronunciation?



I don't think people in Salamanca pronounce the "s" sound as "sh". The pronunciation of "s" varies from one region to the other, and maybe the Salamanca pronunciation of it is slightly simlar to that of "sh", but only very very slightly. I'm not from that region (Castilla-León) and it would be good if some foreros from that area gave their opinion on this issue.


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## andaya

Cecilio said:


> No. This is not "ceceo". The fact that we pronounce "c", "z" as in English "thin" does not receive a specific name. It's just the way we pronounce it in most areas of Spain. "Ceceo" is a different thing. It is a linguistic term to refer to a specific dialect of Spanish, located in southern Andalusia, where even words like "rosa" or señor" are pronounced with the "th" sound.


 
Completamente de acuerdo
Por otro lado la gente de Salamanca no pronuncia la s como sh, eso ocurre más en otras regiones como en ciertas partes de Andalucía.


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## Outsider

The sound [sh] does not exist in modern Spanish. However, as I noted above, in many regions of Spain the "s" is pronounced as an apical sibilant, rather than a laminal sibilant. This can be mistaken for a [sh] sound by foreigners.

You can listen to the two types of "s" here. Click on "fricativas". The laminal(=English) "s" is [s]; the apical (=northern Spain) "s" is [s].


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## verismo21

I meant to say ceceo is the "th" pronunciation for "z" and "c"...I had left out the "z" in my last long note listed above. thanks.


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## Outsider

But that's not how Spanish speakers use the term.

The _ceceo_ is the pronunciation of *s* as the "th" in English "think". It occurs in some dialects of southern Spain.

The pronunciation of "z/c" as "th" has no special name, because it's considered the standard.


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## PianoMan

Well, I'll take your advice and stick to the Latin American dialect, but I do appreciate your information, it will still be helpful either way in determining what exactly someone else is saying (the example that was used of being able to distinguish a "z" over an "s").  It's also just something good to be familiar with.


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## verismo21

I agree with Outsider . Rather than ceceo it can be considered 'distinción' rather than ceceo for the th for the c and z. Thanks for the clarification.


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## DCPaco

PianoMan said:


> Thank you so much, this should be fairly helpful at any attempt to break beyond the Latin American Spanish I have been taught.


 
What's that supposed to mean?

Pronunciation has nothing to do with the quality of Spanish.  This, to me, seems a comment rooted in ignorance.


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## PianoMan

No, I'm going to Spain, it has nothing to do with quality, I just wanted to make my Spanish fit to the area I will be staying in.  Trust me, I have no preference of one pronunciation over the other, just wanted to try to learn the ceceo/seseo for practicality.


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## mariposita

PianoMan said:


> just wanted to try to learn the ceceo/seseo for practicality.


 

Piano man--as others have said, the standard dialect in Spain is neither ceceo nor seseo--rather, it is the pronunciation of both the /s/ and "th" sounds (there's no name for this here, because it is the standard). I agree that, if you are going to spend any substantial amount of time here, you will probably want to adapt to this dialect.


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## María Madrid

PianoMan said:


> Trust me, I have no preference of one pronunciation over the other, just wanted to try to learn the ceceo/seseo for practicality.


 
You're perfectly entitled to have a preference, anyway and no one should take offense. Just as students of English prefer to learn British or American English, there's nothing wrong about preferring one type of pronunciation: It's just about personal taste, not considering the other options inferior or wrong. 

As for learning ceceo, you shouldn't: as it's been explained here it's plain wrong.

Learning seseo: that is accepted, as it's the way c and z are pronounced in America and some areas in Spain (Southern Spain and the Canary Islands), but it's not what is considered "standard " is Spain. Saludos,


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## Jellby

Learning the Spanish way has some advantages. It will lead to less mistakes in writing and it's probably easier to switch to "seseo" from there than the other way around. But I'm not neutral.



> As for learning ceceo, you shouldn't: as it's been explained here it's plain wrong.



Way do you say that? It's not 'wronger' than "seseo", it's only far less extended, both are just accent traits. What's indeed wrong is writing "nasión" or "abración".


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## María Madrid

Jellby, as far as I know RAE does not accept ceceo (maybe I'm wrong). But seseo is, obviously, accepted. You can't say something is wrong when more than 300 million people speak that way. Saludos,


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## Jellby

María Madrid said:


> Jellby, as far as I know RAE does not accept ceceo (maybe I'm wrong).



In the entry about "ceceo" in the DPD I didn't find any hint that it isn't accepted, it says that:

El ceceo es un fenómeno dialectal propio de algunas zonas del sur de España y está mucho menos extendido que el seseo.


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## María Madrid

Mis recuerdos (lejanos) sobre la incorrección del ceceo vienen del colegio (quizá de los infumables textos de Lázaro Carreter, gloria de las letras y desgracia de la pedagogía). Quemé esos libros al acabar el bachillerato como acto catártico y no puedo citarlos ahora. Quizá desde entonces la cosa ha cambiado y ya no se "sataniza" el ceceo, por más que no sea un tipo de pronunciación habitual en personas cultas, sino más frecuente en clases bajas. 

Pero si miras seseo en el DPD sí especifica que se considera aceptado, cosa que no dice del ceceo, al que deja en un fenómeno dialectal y guarda un piadoso silencio a continuación. 

*seseo*. *1. *Consiste en pronunciar las letras _c_ (ante _e, i_) y _z _con el sonido que corresponde a la letra _s_ (→ s, 2); así, un hablante seseante dirá [serésa] por _cereza,_ [siérto] por _cierto,_ [sapáto] por _zapato_.
*2.* El seseo es general en toda Hispanoamérica y, en España, lo es en Canarias y en parte de Andalucía, y se da en algunos puntos de Murcia y Badajoz. También existe seseo entre las clases populares de Valencia, Cataluña, Mallorca y el País Vasco, cuando hablan castellano, y se da asimismo en algunas zonas rurales de Galicia. *El seseo meridional español (andaluz y canario) y el hispanoamericano gozan de total aceptación en la norma culta.*

Saludos,


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## konungursvia

There is a myth, completely false, that a Spanish king had a lisp and thus started the modern standard theta pronunciation for Z and C. In fact it evolved naturally, for if it were a lisp, that King would have been unable to pronounce S properly and the Spanish would all be pronouncing Espana as "Ethpana" (sorry no tilde on my keyboard).


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## DCPaco

María Madrid said:


> Jellby, as far as I know RAE does not accept ceceo (maybe I'm wrong). But seseo is, obviously, accepted. You can't say something is wrong when more than 300 million people speak that way. Saludos,


 
Del DRAE

*ceceo**.**1.* m. Acción y efecto de *cecear*1*.*

*cecear**1**.**1.* intr. Pronunciar la _s_ con articulación igual o semejante a la de la _c_ ante _e, i,_ o a la de la _z_.


En cuanto a lo que le dije al PianoMan, por supuesto que todo el mundo tiene derecho a elegir el acento que desea imitar (claro que yo me siento súper ridículo cuando uso el vosotros, el vos [aunque me encanta el voseo--especialmente el argentino], o los modismos del habla británica: I sound positively ridiculous ). Sin embargo, me pareció que el comentario de él reducía la lengua a un mero acento: "break beyond the Latin American Spanish I have been taught" (cosa que no lo es). Pero en fin, por sus comentarios subsecuentes veo que no era su intención.

Saludos!

Paco


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## María Madrid

I also heard there was a king who couldn't pronounced the voiced S (sonora), and that's why we only have voiceless s (sorda) in Spanish now. Thank God we have royalties to blame... Saludos,


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## PianoMan

I've heard that story, but I'm not sure on the credibility of that.  Either way, to DCPaco, I'm sorry I just phrased that one comment wrong and put the Latin American pronunciation in a negative context.  I didn't mean to, I just meant I wanted to extend my Spanish understanding to different dialects, "break away from" doesn't really sound very complementing.  But I assure you, I have no negative feelings about it.


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## DCPaco

PianoMan said:


> I've heard that story, but I'm not sure on the credibility of that. Either way, to DCPaco, I'm sorry I just phrased that one comment wrong and put the Latin American pronunciation in a negative context. I didn't mean to, I just meant I wanted to extend my Spanish understanding to different dialects, "break away from" doesn't really sound very complementing. But I assure you, I have no negative feelings about it.


 
 Don't worry about it...I must've been feeling a bit hypersensitive.

Gael García Bernal (a Mexican actor) does a great Spanish accent in Almodóvar's film:  The Bad Education (La Mala Educación).


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## PianoMan

Oh, I'm familiar with Almodovar, when we go to Spain, I believe a couple nights will be devoted to Spanish cinema.  I wonder if that's one of the films, is that one in particular well-known?


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## Rintintín

Wow, it's like opening a can of worms! I've lived a long time in Canada and I always felt very insulted when people referred to my native Spanish (Galician - northwest of Spain) pronunciation as a "lisp." Since then, I've discovered that there are four languages in the world with the "th" sound (please correct me if there are more): Arabic, English, Greek and Spanish. In Spanish it happens to be an accent. If it were a lisp, inherited as some legend suggests from a drooling king of some sort who couldn't pronounce the "s" sound, then we'd all pronounce gracias as "grathiath" which we don't. That's the simplest way for me to discredit this very misguided idea that the "th" is in any way is a lisp.


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## SpiceMan

I'm not sure, but maybe "castillian lisp" refers to pronouncing the s middle voiced instead of voiceless.


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## former_chomsky_advocate

Cecilio said:


> I don't think people in Salamanca pronounce the "s" sound as "sh". The pronunciation of "s" varies from one region to the other, and maybe the Salamanca pronunciation of it is slightly simlar to that of "sh", but only very very slightly. I'm not from that region (Castilla-León) and it would be good if some foreros from that area gave their opinion on this issue.



The problem here is that Americans interpret the apico-alveolar S as a palatal S, rather than a slightly backed S from the alveolar ridge.


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## mariposita

former_chomsky_advocate said:


> The problem here is that Americans interpret the apico-alveolar S as a palatal S, rather than a slightly backed S from the alveolar ridge.


 
But when non-Spanish speakers  refer to the "Castilian Lisp," it is not in reference to the slight variations in the pronunciation of /s/ in Spain. 

Instead, it is just a misguided way of making reference to the existence of the interdental /θ/ sound, which is not present in Latin American Spanish, but is present in English (though not always interdental) The story about the lisping king is one of those strangely compelling linguistic myths that gets perpetuated without any historical or logical basis.


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## Thomsen

Outsider said:


> The sound [sh] does not exist in modern Spanish. However, as I noted above, in many regions of Spain the "s" is pronounced as an apical sibilant, rather than a laminal sibilant. This can be mistaken for a [sh] sound by foreigners.
> 
> You can listen to the two types of "s" here. Click on "fricativas". The laminal(=English) "s" is [s]; the apical (=northern Spain) "s" is [s].


 
You're right someone above said it sounded more like a whistle. Literally like someone was whistling their "s" not like "sh". When I do it my tongue is a little closer to my teeth than when I make a "sh" sound but still not touching.

---
Not to go completely off target, but for non-linguistics people there are two pronunciations of "th" in English θ as in "think" and _ð_ or þ as in "the".

I feel like i'm a little out of my depth though and I didn't do so well in my linguistics class , so please correct me if Ive messed this up.

The ceceo involves making the c/z into θ.


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## mariposita

Thomsen said:


> The ceceo involves making the c/z into θ.


 
No, ceceo refers to making /s/ into θ. Pronouncing c/z is just the standard Castilian dialect.


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## faranji

The sound [sh] is not standard in modern Spanish. But one does certainly hear it in some regions of Southern Spain. Not as an alternative pronunciation of 's' but of 'ch'. It sounds like the Portuguese 'ch'. Maybe some Andalusian can confirm where is it exactly that words like 'chiquillo' or 'chuchería' are pronounced 'shiquiyo' and 'shusheria'


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## Outsider

Point taken, but that's still a very minoritary pronunciation, and not what is meant by _ceceo_, _seseo_, or the so-called "Castilian lisp".


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## San

faranji said:


> The sound [sh] is not standard in modern Spanish. But one does certainly hear it in some regions of Southern Spain. Not as an alternative pronunciation of 's' but of 'ch'. It sounds like the Portuguese 'ch'. Maybe some Andalusian can confirm where is it exactly that words like 'chiquillo' or 'chuchería' are pronounced 'shiquiyo' and 'shusheria'



In many places in the South of Andalusia, especially in Cádiz. Here the word "show" is pronounced like in English and not "chow" as  people do in the North.


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## HUMBERT0

faranji said:


> The sound [sh] is not standard in modern Spanish. But one does certainly hear it in some regions of Southern Spain. Not as an alternative pronunciation of 's' but of 'ch'. It sounds like the Portuguese 'ch'. Maybe some Andalusian can confirm where is it exactly that words like 'chiquillo' or 'chuchería' are pronounced 'shiquiyo' and 'shusheria'


También el estado de Chihuahua en México la Ch se pronuncia como Sh, ellos dicen "Ah Shihuahua cuanto apashe".


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## caballoschica

Rintintín said:


> Wow, it's like opening a can of worms! I've lived a long time in Canada and I always felt very insulted when people referred to my native Spanish (Galician - northwest of Spain) pronunciation as a "lisp." Since then, I've discovered that there are four languages in the world with the "th" sound (please correct me if there are more): Arabic, English, Greek and Spanish. In Spanish it happens to be an accent. If it were a lisp, inherited as some legend suggests from a drooling king of some sort who couldn't pronounce the "s" sound, then we'd all pronounce gracias as "grathiath" which we don't. That's the simplest way for me to discredit this very misguided idea that the "th" is in any way is a lisp.



I agree with you.  I took Spanish linguistics last semester and my professor was Galician.  I'm not exactly sure what people here are referring to as a lisp. It's just a different accent.  I guess because we are taught mostly Latin American Spanish, when we hear grathias we interpret it as a lisp? It's a way of pronouncing words and standard to pronounce certain c's and z's as th and s's as s, but a slightly different s than the English s.

HUMBERTO:
He leído que en Chile se pronuncian sus "ch"s como "sh".  Es una variación regional.  

Porque algo suena diferente, no significa que la pronunciación es mala. Hay mucha variación entre regiones en el mundo hispanohablante.


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## HUMBERT0

caballoschica said:


> HUMBERTO:
> He leído que en Chile se pronuncian sus "ch"s como "sh". Es una variación regional.
> 
> Porque algo suena diferente, no significa que la pronunciación es mala. Hay mucha variación entre regiones en el mundo hispanohablante.


Lo que pasa es que los colonizadores venían de diferentes partes de la peninsula iberica, y no era homogenea el habla.


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## faranji

caballoschica said:


> I agree with you. I took Spanish linguistics last semester and my professor was Galician. I'm not exactly sure what people here are referring to as a lisp. It's just a different accent. I guess because we are taught mostly Latin American Spanish, when we hear grathias we interpret it as a lisp? It's a way of pronouncing words and standard to pronounce certain c's and z's as th and s's as s, but a slightly different s than the English s.
> 
> HUMBERTO:
> He leído que en Chile se pronuncian sus "ch"s como "sh". Es una variación regional.
> 
> Porque algo suena diferente, no significa que la pronunciación es mala. Hay mucha variación entre regiones en el mundo hispanohablante.


 
¿Quieres decir que los chilenos pronuncian 'Shile'? Nunca oí a un chileno hablar así, pero esperemos a que alguno nos lo confirme.


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## Jellby

Thomsen said:


> Not to go completely off target, but for non-linguistics people there are two pronunciations of "th" in English θ as in "think" and _ð_ or þ as in "the".



þ itself can have the pronunciation of either "*th*e" or "*th*ick" (and in Icelandic it's only the second).


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## gorbax3

Here's a question; the word "necesito" would that include both the 'th' sound and the 's' sound?   como:  ne-thé- si-to ?


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## Cecilio

gorbax3 said:


> Here's a question; the word "necesito" would that include both the 'th' sound and the 's' sound?   como:  ne-thé- si-to ?



Yes. But the stress is on the 3rd syllable.


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## mariposita

ne-the-sí-to 

Lots of words contain both sounds:

piscina
cesación
cisne


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## david13

PianoMan said:


> Thank you so much, this should be fairly helpful at any attempt to break beyond the Latin American Spanish I have been taught.



Hi PianoMan, I am going to add my two cents to the fifty-some messages in  this thread, first, to add my voice to those who ask that _el ceceo_ not be called a lisp as it is not a speech defect but the way the "c" id pronounced before "e" and "i" and the way the "z" is pronounced most all the time. 

An easy way to remember: the Spanish word for beer,"cerveza," is pronounced in Latin America as "ser-veh-sa", the "z" more closely resembling the English "s" than the English "z".  In Spain, it's "ther-veh-tha". 

One last thing, and perhaps someone would like to comment on this, I have not yet visited Spain but my understanding is that Latin American Spanish is understood as readily in Spain as U.S. English is in the U.K. Nobody in London has ever looked at me strangely when I speak in my inimitable U.S. accent and certainly nobody expects me to learn an English accent.  Are things otherwise in Spain?

Thanks,

_*David*_


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## david13

mariposita said:


> ne-the-sí-to
> 
> Lots of words contain both sounds:
> 
> piscina
> cesación
> cisne



Does that mean piscina is pronounced "pis-*thi*-na"?


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## Cecilio

david13 said:


> Hi PianoMan, I am going to add my two cents to the fifty-some messages in  this thread, first, to add my voice to those who ask that _el ceceo_ not be called a lisp as it is not a speech defect but the way the "c" id pronounced before "e" and "i" and the way the "z" is pronounced most all the time.



No, ceceo is a different thing. In this thread you can find some good definitions of ceceo.



david13 said:


> Does that mean piscina is pronounced "pis-*thi*-na"?



Yes, that's the way it's pronounced.


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## mhp

david13 said:


> Does that mean piscina is pronounced "pis-*thi*-na"?


In a great part of Spain, yes.


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## mariposita

> , to add my voice to those who ask that _el ceceo_ not be called a lisp as it is not a speech defect but the way the "c" id pronounced before "e" and "i" and the way the "z" is pronounced most all the time.


 
Please read the previous messages... the ceceo is not what you are describing. 

The Ceceo is a regional dialect in the south of Spain that pronounces c/z and s all as "th" (as in the word "thing"). 

When the s/z/c sounds were evolving, some regions neutralized the different sounds in favor the /s/ (seseo) and others in favor of the "th" /θ/ sound (ceceo). The rest of Spain continues to make a distinction between the two. This is not called ceceo, it's just considered the standard...


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## david13

mariposita said:


> Please read the previous messages... the ceceo is not what you are describing.
> 
> The Ceceo is a regional dialect in the south of Spain that pronounces c/z and s all as "th" (as in the word "thing").
> 
> When the s/z/c sounds were evolving, some regions neutralized the different sounds in favor the /s/ (seseo) and others in favor of the "th" /θ/ sound (ceceo). The rest of Spain continues to make a distinction between the two. This is not called ceceo, it's just considered the standard...



Sorry, I misused the term "ceceo" to refer to standard pronunciation.  My apologies.


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## Outsider

I think that David was misunderstood.



david13 said:


> [...]  to add my voice to those who ask that _el ceceo_ *not be called* a lisp as it is not a speech defect but the way the "c" id pronounced before "e" and "i" and the way the "z" is pronounced most all the time.


Still, if I'm not mistaken the Spanish word for "lisp" -- the speech defect -- is also _ceceo_.


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## ivanovic77

david13 said:


> One last thing, and perhaps someone would like to comment on this, I have not yet visited Spain but my understanding is that Latin American Spanish is understood as readily in Spain as U.S. English is in the U.K. Nobody in London has ever looked at me strangely when I speak in my inimitable U.S. accent and certainly nobody expects me to learn an English accent. Are things otherwise in Spain?


 
Latin American Spanish is perfectly understood by Spaniards. Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, Latin American Spanish and Peninsular Spanish are even closer to each other than American English and British English. That's probably because English is basically a monosyllabic language, and for this reason it is more prone to be misunderstood. Spanish is perhaps a more polysyllabic language and it is less likely to be misunderstood.


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## david13

Outsider said:


> I think that David was misunderstood.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quote:
> Originalmente publicado por *david13*
> 
> 
> [...]  to add my voice to those who ask that _el ceceo_ *not be called* a lisp as it is not a speech defect but the way the "c" is pronounced before "e" and "i" and the way the "z" is pronounced most all the time.
> 
> 
> 
> Still, if I'm not mistaken the Spanish word for "lisp" -- the speech defect -- is also _ceceo_.
Click to expand...


You are entirely correct that "ceceo" is lisp (the noun), from cecear, "to lisp."

But I am afraid that you misunderstood me. What I meant to say was that I wanted to add my voice to those to ask that the standard peninsular Spanish pronunciation of "c" before "e" and "i" and "z" most all the time not be characterized as the "Castillian Lisp," as if it were a speech defect.

I apologize again for the confusion.

Best regards,

_*David*_


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## mhp

Just a quick clarification since this is a particularly long thread: "ceceo" means to pronounce 's' like 'th', whether on purpose, by accident or as a defect in speech. It does not mean pronounce 'c' or 'z' like 'th'.
[*ceceo*] 1. m. Acción y efecto de [cecear].
[*cecear*] 1. intr. Pronunciar la s con articulación igual o semejante a la de la c ante e, i, o a la de la z. (DRAE)


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## Outsider

david13 said:


> What I meant to say was that I wanted to add my voice to those to ask that the standard peninsular Spanish pronunciation of "c" before "e" and "i" and "z" most all the time not be characterized as the "Castillian Lisp," as if it were a speech defect.


That's what I was trying to point out to everyone else.


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## mariposita

Not everyone... a lot of us have it perfectly clear.

A less colloquial way to refer to an actual lisp is: _dislalia de la s_ or _sigmatismo interdental_.


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## prap

Hola a todos, 
To PianoMan and to David13, I add my fifty and two extra cents here too. 
As a person now living in Madrid, I agree with the person who said, speak Spanish in the manner that you have learned it. I can tell you that in learning the lingo here, (along with my young son who is learning Spanish with the madrid/Castilian 'lisp') I found it frustrating to try to speak in a different manner than the way I learned Spanish - a mix of Latin American influences.  After being in Madrid for months, I found that it trips me up more than anything. Honestly, it just recently occured to me that I would never try to speak English in the way someone from England would.  In like manner, perhaps I shouldn't 'completely' try to speak the way a Madrileño would. In English, I occasionally use terms and phrases that my English friends may use, but I wouldn't dare try to emulate the accent. 

HOWEVER, Interestingly enough, if I do not pronounce certain place names correctly, I am misunderstood. Just the other day, I prepared to go to "Las Rozas." The taxi driver asked, do you mean, "las Rosas" or Las Rothas?" (The former, is located in the OPPOSITE direction of town.)  I went back and forth with him, determined to be understood with my NY/Puerto Rican accent, and after 2 minutes, I determined that certain things are easier understood with it. I'm SO glad he asked me! 

OH, and to my untrained ear, there is definitely more of a 'sh' sound to the Madrid accent. My opinion is that it makes it easier for them to say the ceceo if they speak that way...their mouths just do it to follow the accents. I must tell you that even friends who teach Spanish back in the states, who have studied in Madrid, ALSO definitely pronounce the regular (s) just slightly differently too. It's all about that accent. 

Figured my experience may offer some help. 

To MHP and to outsider, the reason I even found this thread on WordReference was because I wanted to know how to call an actual speech defect of a 'lisp.' So, just as to clarify my initial confusion, I found in the dictionary here:
 'ceceo,' is the speech defect of a lisp. 'seseo,' refers to  ...
*seseo* _m Ling pronouncing of z, and c before e_ & _i as an s_

Mucha Suerte!


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## mariposita

Prap--If you read back, you'll see that the pronunciation that you'll find in Madrid is not referred to as "ceceo"... Ceceo is a term that refers to the pronunciation found in Andalucia--particularly around Cádiz, Malaga, etc. in which s/ce/ci/za/zo/zu are all pronounced with the "th" sound in "thing". You are  right about the s... there are several different /s/ sounds in Spain that can mark where the speaker is from. (In fact, Las Rozas is actually pronounced as La Rothas--the s is almost always dropped before an /r/).

If you stay in Madrid long enough, the accent and other differences will probably start to wear off on you... My friends from Latin America who have been here for 5+ years don't sound Spanish, but they don't sound entirely like the place where they are from originally, either. It starts to get complicated. My son wasn't really solid in his pronunciation of the c/z until he learned to read. Then he really got the distinction between the two sounds.


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## Ajura

Why did the Spanish lost their /dz/ and /ts/ consonant and why did they become /th/  in Spain.


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## mariposita

Ajura--The theory is that these two sounds were too similar and the distinction between the sounds became meaningless so they fused (as happened with the b/v). Around the same time, the /z/ sound and the /s/ were merging in /s/. So /s/ and /θ/ became the norm in the north, while in the south they took it a step further and reduced the four sounds to one:

/s/ seseo 
/θ/ ceceo (th in thing)--still very common in southern Andalucia (Cádiz, Malaga, etc.)

Seseo is typical of Sevilla and this is the place from which many boats to the new world embarked, which is why seseo is the standard in Latin America.


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## Outsider

Ajura said:


> Why did the Spanish lost their /dz/ and /ts/ consonant and why did they become /th/  in Spain.


Spanish lost all voicing contrasts between fricatives some time around the Renaissance. They became /θ/ in northern Spain, but /s/ in the south (roughly speaking).


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## nimisha

Hola:
Yo soy de Salamanca y no, no pronunciamos la 's' como 'sh'.
He encontrado *ceceo *(casa / caza = katha) en Huelva (Andalucía)
He encontrado *seseo *(casa / caza = kasa) en Sevilla (Andalucía)
El castellano estándar en España distingue perfectamente entre las dos palabras. Los hablantes que ilustran los dos fenómemos fonéticos de arriba las confunden.
Nunca he oído hablar del *Castilian Lisp*, pero:
-si fue un fenómeno histórico dentro de la evolución del Latín hacia el Español, aconteció como poco allá en la Edad Media, pues en 'El Lazarillo de Tormes' es evidente que los sonidos ya están asentados y son semejantes a los actuales.
-si es un fenómeno actual en el Español de Castilla, sólo se me ocurre la posibilidad de que haga referencia a la relajación en la pronunciación de la 'd' final de palabra que ocurre en ciertas zonas (León, Zamora, Salamanca) o a la aspiración de algunas 's' finales (como en Madrid). Ambos fenómenos (especialmente el segundo) se consideran propios del habla inculta.


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## María Madrid

Nimisha, en las páginas anteriores verás que ya se ha explicado con detalle lo que es seseo y ceceo. 

Y por Dios, dejemos de decir que la aspiración de las eses finales es típica de Madrid. Es típico de la periferia de Madrd, debido a la masiva población en los años sesenta y setenta de trabajadores inmigrantes de zonas donde sí es típica la aspiración de las eses, como Extremadura o Andalucía. ´Lo mismo que sucede en la periferia de Barcelona, por cierto, y nadie va por ahí diciendo que esa manera de pronunciar es típica de Barcelona. Saludos,


----------



## mal67

> Yo soy de Salamanca y no, no pronunciamos la 's' como 'sh'



It's not an /sh/ exactly, but I agree with other posters that there in a tendency in some parts of Spain (at least, central Spain - Madrid/Castilla etc) to pronounce the "s" in a way that is more sibilant and has some sh-like shading.  To my (admittedly non-native) ears, it's definitely not as "pure" an /s/ as is common in some Latin American dialects - in Spain, I think the tongue touches a little farther back from the teeth, and perhaps is not quite so tense.

I think it actually sounds close to the "x" sound (pinyin romanization) in some dialects of Mandarin.


----------



## Ajura

mal67 said:


> It's not an /sh/ exactly, but I agree with other posters that there in a tendency in some parts of Spain (at least, central Spain - Madrid/Castilla etc) to pronounce the "s" in a way that is more sibilant and has some sh-like shading.  To my (admittedly non-native) ears, it's definitely not as "pure" an /s/ as is common in some Latin American dialects - in Spain, I think the tongue touches a little farther back from the teeth, and perhaps is not quite so tense.
> 
> I think it actually sounds close to the "x" sound (pinyin romanization) in some dialects of Mandarin.



That is what we call checheo because sh is now an allopone of ch or xexeo since sh was written as x in old spanish....


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## mariposita

When English speakers use the term "the Castillian Lisp," they are erroneously referring to the fact that c/z is pronounced as th in Spain and not as /s/ as it is in Latin America. It, of course, makes no sense whatsoever to call this a lisp, since English also has the two sounds s/th... and distinguishing between these two sounds is the precise opposite of having a lisp. 

I think the origin of the expression Castillian Lisp is the (also erroneous and illogical) legend that it originated from a Castillian king's mispronunciation. This misinformation is propagated in high school Spanish classes and even textbooks.


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## Outsider

Another thing which may seem like a lisp is the pronunciation of the /s/ as an apicoalveolar in northern Spain, rather than as a predorsodental, as in southern Spain, Hispanoamerica, and in English. The apicoalveolar sounds a bit like a "sh" sound to foreigners (I suppose it's somewhat palatalized), although it's not a true /ʃ/. This is what Ajura was alluding to.

(If I'm not mistaken, the symbol for the English /s/ is [s̪], while the apicoalveolar sound of northern Spain is written [s̺] in IPA.)


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## mariposita

Outsider--
True, but that's vastly overstating the knowledge of Peninsular Spanish that people who use the term "Castillian Lisp" have... those who use this term in English are referring to the /s/ - /th/ distinction (at least every time that I have heard the term used).

More than a lisp, I think the apicoalveolar /s/ is like a very slight whistle... but, again, this isn't what the term "Castillian Lisp" refers to.


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## Outsider

Are you sure? To me, one of the things that stand out in the speech of people from northern Iberia is precisely the apicoalveolar sibilants that they use. It's very stereotyped in Portuguese, for example. If you want to imitate a peasant from northern Portugal, pronounce your "v"s as "b"s, and try to mimick their "s"s (something which most southerners are actually pretty bad at doing).

I get the impression that most outsiders actually confuse the two things: the distinction of /s/ and /θ/, and the /s/ pronounced as an apicolalveolar.

Granted, my impression may be colored by the (slightly different) phonetics of Portuguese in this respect.


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## mariposita

All I can say is that I've heard the term *Castillian Lisp* used many, many times in English and it always has always referred (erroneously, of course) to the c/z/s distinction. The fact is that in the US, very few people ever actually hear Peninsular Spanish, so they are usually just repeating something that they heard in their high school Spanish class or elsewhere.  Latin American Spanish is the standard in the US, so the notion of a "Castillian Lisp" is the way that many people mistakenly try to refer to the difference in pronunciation. 

The relationship (linguistically and geographically) between Portugal and Spain is obviously much closer and it makes sense that your perception of the pronunciation would be considerably more nuanced.


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## ceint

mariposita said:


> All I can say is that I've heard the term *Castillian Lisp* used many, many times in English and it always has always referred (erroneously, of course) to the c/z/s distinction. The fact is that in the US, very few people ever actually hear Peninsular Spanish, so they are usually just repeating something that they heard in their high school Spanish class or elsewhere.  Latin American Spanish is the standard in the US, so the notion of a "Castillian Lisp" is the way that many people mistakenly try to refer to the difference in pronunciation.


But the idea that Spanish people speak in a "lispy" way exists in the UK too. There was a very popular BBC TV comedy series in the 70s called "Fawlty Towers" (with John Cleese from Monty Python fame) which had a character called "Manuel", a clumsy waiter supposedly from Barcelona, and one of the sort of running jokes was his exaggeratedly lispy pronunciation (especially of the "c" in Barcelona).


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## mal67

mal67 said:


> It's not an /sh/ exactly, but I agree with other posters that there in a tendency in some parts of Spain (at least, central Spain - Madrid/Castilla etc) to pronounce the "s" in a way that is more sibilant and has some sh-like shading [...]
> 
> I think it actually sounds close to the "x" sound (pinyin romanization) in some dialects of Mandarin.





Ajura said:


> That is what we call checheo because sh is now an allopone of ch or xexeo since sh was written as x in old spanish....



No, I wasn't talking about the ch / sh sounds, both of which are more palatal than the Castillian "s".  Again, to my ears it sounds like somewhere between an English "s" and a Mandarin "x".  Thankfully (since my linguistics/phonetics classes are a distant memory), Outsider is able to describe what I'm talking about very exactly:



Outsider said:


> Another thing which may seem like a lisp is the pronunciation of the /s/ as an apicoalveolar in northern Spain, rather than as a predorsodental, as in southern Spain, Hispanoamerica, and in English. The apicoalveolar sounds a bit like a "sh" sound to foreigners (I suppose it's somewhat palatalized), although it's not a true /ʃ/. This is what Ajura was alluding to.



However, while I agree with Outsider that this is a very marked characteristic of the region, I also agree with mariposita that this apicoalveolar /s/ is *not* what English speakers mean when they use the term "lisp" -- they are definitely talking about the pronunciation of c/z as /θ/, and often in the erroneous belief that Spaniards pronounce "s" in this way as well.


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## María Madrid

ceint said:


> But the idea that Spanish people speak in a "lispy" way exists in the UK too. There was a very popular BBC TV comedy series in the 70s called "Fawlty Towers" (with John Cleese from Monty Python fame) which had a character called "Manuel", a clumsy waiter supposedly from Barcelona, and one of the sort of running jokes was his exaggeratedly lispy pronunciation (especially of the "c" in Barcelona).


To start with it was a British actor so I wouldn't take it as an academic or accurate reference. On the other hand what you call an exaggeratedly lispy pronunciation could be nothing but the standard Castillian pronunciation for c (only with e and i, of course), just as pronouncing "thanks" with a lispy sound on th and s on the end has nothing to do with lisping. Or maybe the actor making funny noises to sound funny. And Manuel's accent wasn't especially Catalonian, btw. Saludos,


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## mariposita

That's true, ceint... I think the notion that the standard Castillian pronunciation is a lisp (which I agree with Maria Madrid is ridiculous) comes from the fact that Iberian speakers place the θ sound in places where we would expect an /s/ (be it because we or used to hearing LA Spanish or because similar English words are pronounced this way).  It doesn't make sense, but that is exactly how the term Castillian Lisp is used by the English speakers who use it. And the oft repeated accompanying legend about the Castillian King who lisped and caused his subjects to imitate his lisp is the icing on the cake.

One other thing... the θ sound isn't exactly the same in Spanish as it is in English (at least in my dialect). It's softer. In English, we also don't (correct me if I'm wrong) use the θ between vowels (it becomes voiced), so this sound is unexpected for an English speaker.


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## María Madrid

In Spain there's this legend about a Castillian King who couldn't pronounce a voiced s and that's why it eventually was dropped in Spanish, as first the Court imitated him and then it became some kind of middle age "posh" pronunciation everybody copied to sound more elegant. I think those are just two versions of the same story... if it ever actually happened that a King had pronunciation problems and a whole country ended up talking like him.

There are different levels of lisping in Spanish θ too, but I agree that the English sound is milder; the pronunciation, the place where you place your tongue seems to be basically the same. On the other hand, thousands and thousands of British tourists visit Costa del Sol every year and a real ceceo (θ instead of s) is common in that area (just listen to Antonio Banderas when he speaks kind of relaxed... the θ sound slips in words with s all the time). So maybe those British tourists just hear all this lisping sound and no s and assume that's the standard pronunciation in Spain. Saludos,


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## mal67

mariposita said:
			
		

> One other thing... the θ sound isn't exactly the same in Spanish as it is in English (at least in my dialect). It's softer.





			
				 María Madrid said:
			
		

> There are different levels of lisping in Spanish θ too, but I agree that the English sound is milder



I'm not sure if I find much difference in the pronunciation of θ (I'm still thinking about that one), but from the above it sounds to me like mariposita is saying that the θ is softer in Spanish, but María Madrid finds it softer in English. So maybe there's just a fair amount  of variation.



> In English, we also don't (correct me if I'm wrong) use the θ between vowels (it becomes voiced), so this sound is unexpected for an English speaker.


There are certainly words in English that have an intervocalic θ: e.g., ether/ethereal, mythological, author, atheist, gothic, mathematics, etc.  

I do however remember reading that intervocalic th is always voiced in old English/germanic root words, whereas the unvoiced th appears in newer words that have been borrowed from non-germanic languages.  (Not sure if this is true though.)


----------



## ceint

María Madrid said:


> To start with it was a British actor so I wouldn't take it as an academic or accurate reference. On the other hand what you call an exaggeratedly lispy pronunciation could be nothing but the standard Castillian pronunciation for c (only with e and i, of course), just as pronouncing "thanks" with a lispy sound on th and s on the end has nothing to do with lisping. Or maybe the actor making funny noises to sound funny. And Manuel's accent wasn't especially Catalonian, btw. Saludos,


Yes, I know that it was a British actor and that there was nothing Catalonian about his accent (that's why I said "supposedly from Barcelona"). Only a complete barmpot would take Manuel from Fawlty Tower's accent as an academic or accurate reference. My post was just commenting on what Mariposa said about the idea of Spaniards speaking with a lispy accent being a particularly American thing. 


María Madrid said:


> Or maybe the actor making funny noises to sound funny.


Exactly, hence the "exaggeratedly lispy pronunciation".


----------



## Tiberia

andaya said:


> Completamente de acuerdo
> Por otro lado la gente de Salamanca no pronuncia la s como sh, eso ocurre más en otras regiones como en ciertas partes de Andalucía.


 
Pronunciar la s parecida a sh no es un rasgo andaluz. Lo que sí se pronuncia sh en lugar de ch en algunas zonas, como en Cadiz.


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## L4ut4r0

Cecilio said:


> The fact that we pronounce "c", "z" as in English "thin" does not receive a specific name.



Linguists call it "s-θ distinction" or simply "distinction": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceceo#Distinction

Ceceo: neθeθito. Two or three million people in Andalusia.
Seseo: nesesito. Hundreds of millions in Latin America and several millions in Spain
Distinction: neθesito. Tens of millions in Spain.


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## Cecilio

L4ut4r0 said:


> Linguists call it "s-θ distinction" or simply "distinction": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceceo#Distinction
> 
> Ceceo: neθeθito. Two or three million people in Andalusia.
> Seseo: nesesito. Hundreds of millions in Latin America.
> Distinction: neθesito. Tens of millions in Spain.




"Distinction" or "s-θ distinction" are just general terms to refer to something which does not have a specific name.


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## jbachelor

If you're in Spain, don't tell a Spaniard who pronounces his/her c's and z's like an English "th" that it's a "ceceo". 

In Spain:
1. "Ceceo" refers to those in places like Cádiz or in Sevilla who pronounce everything like an English "th", including s's. This is truly a lisp.
2. "Seseo" are those who pronounce everything like an S sound, even z's and c's. 
3. There is no way to refer to people who distinguish between c's/z's and s's, pronouncing c's/z's as "th" and s as "s". They are the ones who do not have a "ceceo" or "seseo"

And it is true that the Spanish "S" in Northern areas is different than the English "S". It is not a full out "sh" sound, but it's about halfway between an "sh" and an "s" sound. This is especially common in Castilla y León.

And take this from me, someone who's taken History of the Spanish language class from the Universidad de Salamanca... This phonetic sound of "th" did NOT come from a King who lisped. Originally before Spanish was Spanish, words such as "plaza" were pronounced like "plat-sa". This was the only correct way to say it at this time. As with any language over time, sounds are lost. In this case, the t-s combined to form a "th" sound in the north. In the south, the "t" part was completely dropped. (It is also worth mentioning that a lot of _conquistadores_ to Latin America were from regions that dropped the "t" completely, consequently explaining their "seseo"). 

The ceceo can be explained, because people in certain regions wanted to "over-correct" the loss of the T, and began to do it on everything, including S's.

Hope I've been of help.


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## elcastellano

gunnerstahl10 said:


> My Spanish teacher uses a Castilian pronunciation, but from what I am reading, it is neither seseo or ceceo. It's a mix.
> 
> He pronounces his c/z with a [th] sound.
> He pronounces his s with an almost [sh] sound like the English "she". It's not a heavy pronunciation, but its distinctive. He tells me that natives of Salamanca usually use the [sh] sound when they are speaking.
> 
> Is he actually wrong in his pronunciation?




No he aínt, it's called "distinción" notice the s and c in that word so instead of distinsión, it's pronounced dis-tin-thyón.  There's also a newer coinage that I heard, ceseo, which is a combination of ceceo y seseo.  And the s sounding like sh is easi to explain.  It's a apical (more acurately, retroflex) fricative so if you can imagine, I think Sean Connery's s's you should have a idea.  This sound is easy to mistake for sh or palato-alveolar fricative.  Just curl back your tongue behind where you'd say sh and you should have it.  Po saluos con tu viajes por castellano!


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## Södertjej

jbachelor said:


> The ceceo can be explained, because people in certain regions wanted to "over-correct" the loss of the T, and began to do it on everything, including S's.


I don't know how ceceo came about but what I do know is that ceceo is not popular because it' common among uneducated or lower classes in rural areas so I really doubt they even tried to "over-correct". And I'm not sure what ceceo has to do with T.


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## Pinairun

This is the question.
I think that anybody who pronounces "s" as "th" ought to visit the speech therapist.


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## elcastellano

Rintintín said:


> Wow, it's like opening a can of worms! I've lived a long time in Canada and I always felt very insulted when people referred to my native Spanish (Galician - northwest of Spain) pronunciation as a "lisp." Since then, I've discovered that there are four languages in the world with the "th" sound (please correct me if there are more): Arabic, English, Greek and Spanish. In Spanish it happens to be an accent. If it were a lisp, inherited as some legend suggests from a drooling king of some sort who couldn't pronounce the "s" sound, then we'd all pronounce gracias as "grathiath" which we don't. That's the simplest way for me to discredit this very misguided idea that the "th" is in any way is a lisp.



Pues, castellano, inglés, francés y árabe son cuatro pero aquí son mucho más:
So hopefully every one understands, here's a table, from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative, with the 40 or so languages that have theta as a sound and in some of these languages, including English, Castilian, and Arabic it's part of only one dialect.  I've researched and apparently, in Arabic this sound doesn't occur at all in daily speach, or something like that, it became a dental t.


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## elcastellano

jbachelor said:


> 3. There is no way to refer to people who distinguish between c's/z's and s's, pronouncing c's/z's as "th" and s as "s". They are the ones who do not have a "ceceo" or "seseo"
> 
> And it is true that the Spanish "S" in Northern areas is different than the English "S". It is not a full out "sh" sound, but it's about halfway between an "sh" and an "s" sound. This is especially common in Castilla y León.



Well, as I already posted a couple o' responses Imma try an make this my las.
To correct you, the third option, which as far as I know is the standard, is the distinction between s and z.  Mmmmk, well I took a class that's called "Spanish Phonetics and Dialects" bout two years back, an in it we learned the three major divisions in Castillian.  Ceceo or thay-tháy-oh. In case it wasn't already made clear enough, in this variety one would say casa as caza, sermón as zermón.  Then there's seseo or say-sáy-oh.  In this variety one would say caza as if it was casa, cereza as if it was seresa.  And then there was one, distinción, son!  This is where the s is still an s, whether it be apical or laminal (I think, laminal is the term for standard english s and Latin American Castillian s).  Then, z (all the time), and c (before e or i) are pronounced like th in english think, or s in Turkmen sygyr (cow, vaca).  So in review, hay distinción, tiene ambas pronunziaziones.  Hay seseo, que no tiene ambas pronunsiasiones.  Y ceceo, que tiene zolo ezta pronunziazión y no loz doz!  Paz or pas, elejid!

O también he oído un nuevo término el cual es una combinación de las palabras ceceo y seseo, es ceseo.  Oh, interesting note, while I was still taking that class we learned about what the speakers of each was called.  And we learned that speakers of ceceo are ceceantes and speakers of seseo are seseantes.  Then there's yeísmo, which I won't go into detail here, who's speakers are yeístas (they say there ll's as y's, so llama sounds like yama.), then there's lleísmo, whose speakers are lleístas, yo soy un lleísta.  So I wondered, what the hell do you call someone that speaks with distinción?  Again, I also speak with distinción since I has spanish ansesters yall.  So I aksed my professor, are we called distinciónistas or would we be distinciónantes (distinciónista sounds better doesn't it)?  He said no there is no term, but that's a good one.  And back to finding out about the word ceseo, I guess there are ceceantes, seseantes, ceseantes/distincionistas/distinciónantes, yeístas, lleístas, sheístas, zheístas (for these two ask about argentinan and uruguay or rioplatense castillian), tuteantes, voseístas or voseantes, etc.  As for tutear vs. voseo (I cant find a verb for it) no idea if these are even terms.  Anyways, ain't Castilian (sorry, ssspppaaaaaaaaaaaaanissssh), ain't it a great and varied language?  Ok won more thing ustedesistas and vosotrosistas.  Nah now I'm going too far, an as a final note, I tend to spell what I hear I'm an audio person, and in writing these posts I tend to talk to myself to make sure I am writing what I mean to write.  So if anything is mispelled I apologize, in either English or Castilian.


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## jbachelor

That's what I said... you just expanded on it. haha


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## duvija

el cura cazó/casó a dos ciervos/siervos de Dios.

(Cláusula favorita de un conocido mío, cuando tenía que explicar esos dos sonidos)

saludos


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## PichaPuerto

jbachelor said:


> If you're in Spain, don't tell a Spaniard who pronounces his/her c's and z's like an English "th" that it's a "ceceo".
> 
> In Spain:
> 1. "Ceceo" refers to those in places like Cádiz or in Sevilla who pronounce everything like an English "th", including s's. This is truly a lisp.




Hi, in Sevilla city they are definitely seseo not ceceo, and Cádiz city it is quite often seseo, although surrounding towns El Puerto de Santa Maria, Puerto Real, 
San Fernando mainly ceceo.


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## Forero

The best explanation I have heard of for the different ways of pronouncing _s_ and _z_/_c_ in Spanish is:


The sibilant in _casa_, once [ʐ], devoiced to [ʂ] as in _pasa_, and the africate in _decir_, once [dz], devoiced to [ts] as in _brazo_.
The [ts] of _decir_/_brazo_ became [s], still distinguishable from the [ʂ] of _casa_/_pasa_.
In some places [ʂ] merged with [s], creating _seseo_, in some places [s] became [θ] (leaving the [θ]/[ʂ] distinction), and in some places, both happened (leaving a [θ]/[s] distinction).
In some places [s]/[ʂ] merged with [θ], creating _ceceo_.
That [dz] and [ts] may have gone directly to [θ] seems improbable to me, but I know of no good explanation for why the [θ] sound arose in Spanish.


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## althasil

Hola a todos,

This may be an old thread but I'll try my best to share what I know about the topic. 



Forero said:


> That [dz] and [ts] may have gone directly to [θ] seems improbable to me, but I know of no good explanation for why the [θ] sound arose in Spanish.



As far as I know, /ʣ̪/ and its voiceless counterpart /ʦ̪/ didn't go directly to [θ̟]. /ʣ̪/ first deaffricated to /z̪/ while /ʦ̪/ remained intact. It was then devoiced, leaving behind the phonemes /s̪/ and /ʦ̪/. However, /ʦ̪/ was later deaffricated, effectively merging the two phonemes into /s̪/.

Meanwhile, /z̺/ and /s̺/ underwent devoicing (around the time of the /z̪/>/s̪/ devoicing) leading to a acoustically subtle two-way distinction between the voiceless alveolar fricatives differing only by place of articulation, i.e. apico-alveolar /s̪/ and dental /s̪/.

The already fronted dental /s̪/ advanced, increasing further the articulatory distance between both phonemes (thereby retaining/enhancing the contrast), becoming the very Castilian phoneme [θ̟], the <ce>, <ci> and <z> sounds of the northern dialects of Peninsular Spanish today.

/ʣ̪/, /ʦ̪/ 	> 	/z̪/, /ʦ̪/	>	 /s̪/, /ʦ̪/ 	> 	/s̪/	>	[θ̟]
/z̺/, /s̺/ 	>	 /z̺/, /s̺/ 	>	[s̺]


*In effect*:
*The dental place of articulation in /ʣ̪/ and /ʦ̪/ was effectively "cheshirised"; the plosives' place of articulation was "fossilised" during deaffrication. The old affricates and fricatives already differed in place of articulation for the old dialects of northern Spain.*


The evolution for Andalusian Spanish (and by extension, Latin American Spanish) (_seseo_/_ceceo_) is similar, the initial deaffrication and devoicing led to a merger of the phonemes (probably due to the likelihood of the old fricatives never being apico-alveolar to begin with).

The same sound change is responsible for the unexpected values of <ge>, <gi> and <j> relative to those in some other Romance languages (e.g. Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan) but I think that's a story for another day.

(Apologies if this has already been resolved via a link or something)

Si me equivoco, ¡por favor corregidme!

Saludos
Dom


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## Istriano

jbachelor said:


> If you're in Spain, don't tell a Spaniard who pronounces his/her c's and z's like an English "th" that it's a "ceceo".
> 
> In Spain:
> 1. "Ceceo" refers to those in places like Cádiz or in Sevilla who pronounce everything like an English "th", including s's. This is truly a lisp.
> 2. "Seseo" are those who pronounce everything like an S sound, even z's




The city of Cádiz is not _ceceante_.

Cádiz, Sevilla, Córdoba y Canarias son _seseantes_.
Unos hablantes de Málaga, Granada y Badajoz también lo son.
Spanish _seseo _is fully accepted by the Spanish Academy of language (so, if Castillians don't like it, it's for pure prejudice, not because _seseo _is incorrect!)

Castilian ''Lisp'' is synonym for CECEO as a speech defect, for example the accent used by Mariano Rajoy (who is Galician).


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## capitas

Istriano said:


> The city of Cádiz is not _ceceante_.
> 
> Cádiz, Sevilla, Córdoba y Canarias son _seseantes_.
> Unos hablantes de Málaga, Granada y Badajoz también lo son.
> Spanish _seseo _is fully accepted by the Spanish Academy of language (so, if Castillians don't like it, it's for pure prejudice, not because _seseo _is incorrect!)
> 
> Castilian ''Lisp'' is synonym for CECEO as a speech defect, for example the accent used by Mariano Rajoy (who is Galician).


From wikipedia: (and I agree)

Prominent differences between dialects of Spanish include the distinction or lack thereof between /θ/ or /s/. The maintenance of the distinction, known in Spanish as _distinción_ is characteristic of the Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain. Most dialects of Latin America and Southern Spain lack this distinction, and have merged the two sounds into /s/, a feature called _seseo_ in Spanish dialectology. Dialects with _seseo_ will pronounce the words _casa_ ("house") and _caza_ ("hunt") as homophones, whereas dialects with _distinción_ will pronounce them differently (as [kasa] and [kaθa], respectively). In some parts of Andalusia, the two sounds have merged, but into sounds [θ]; these dialects are said to have _ceceo_.

-"Zalimoh enzeguía" por "Salimos enseguida". I heard it in Cádiz and Sevilla, and it is really CECEO (every "S"and"z" sound pronounced as "Z".
Your "Castillian Lisp" is ,if you don't like the proper, at least the original pronunciation, spoken by over 30 million people (out of 360 million Spanish speakers). It seems to me a peculiar point of view to express that in Spanish "casa" and "caza" have the same pronunciation, and that only some prejudiced Castillian people make difference with Spanish "Z" and "s".
You mentioned RAE: Ceceo: acción de cecear. And cecear:
*1. *intr. Pronunciar la _s_ con articulación igual o semejante a la de la _c_ ante _e, i,_ o a la de la _z_.

No ambiguity in which sounds are "s" and "z".


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## duvija

I think the problem is that there is no word for the variants using both sounds (s, c/z). For our 's' ears, anything that sounds like c/z implies 'ceceo'. Of course it isn't. It just seems to us that in those areas there is no [s] at all. And the people outside those areas cannot imitate the pronunciation with both, without screwing up at the spoken 3rd word (ok, maybe 4th..).


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## ZacaríasLS

Pinairun said:


> This is the question.
> I think that anybody who pronounces "s" as "th" ought to visit the speech therapist.


 
Concuerdo... jaja


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## capitas

I met this morning a seller in the market, I asked him how much it was, and he told me "ziete con zezenta(7,60 €)". Than I asked him where was he from and told me .- ! Ozú ! ¡!de Cái (for Cádiz). Every written "z" pronounced as a Spanish "z"(Greek theta-zeta, English "th", if any doubt).
The interjection "Ozú" is tipical from Sevilla-Cádiz, *Always pronounced "th-zeta theta"*


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## Istriano

But sometimes people say they're from a city but in fact they're just from the province, my seseante friend is from Badajoz, but it took me some time to get her confess she's from the province of Badajoz, not from the city of Badajoz.  There are seseantes in the province of Huelva and ceseantes in the province of Cádiz.


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## capitas

Istriano said:


> But sometimes people say they're from a city but in fact they're just from the province, my seseante friend is from Badajoz, but it took me some time to get her confess she's from the province of Badajoz, not from the city of Badajoz.  There are seseantes in the province of Huelva and ceseantes in the province of Cádiz.


 I agree, Istriano.
In Cadiz and Sevilla there are both seseantes and ceceantes, and a mixture of those pronouncing some sounds "S" and some "z" no matter how they really should be.
And, in order to answer other foreros, it is not a pronouncing defect. They just "think" the sound that way. They are able to pronounce "s" and "z/c" perfectly when separately, but not according to the spelling of the words when speaking (both cultivated seseantes/ceceantes are also able to "understand" whether letters are "S" or "z/c", although they do not usually pronounce them).


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## zumac

Istriano said:


> The city of Cádiz is not _ceceante_.
> 
> Cádiz, Sevilla, Córdoba y Canarias son _seseantes_.
> Unos hablantes de Málaga, Granada y Badajoz también lo son.
> Spanish _seseo _is fully accepted by the Spanish Academy of language (so, if Castillians don't like it, it's for pure prejudice, not because _seseo _is incorrect!)
> 
> Castilian ''Lisp'' is synonym for CECEO as a speech defect, for example the accent used by Mariano Rajoy (who is Galician).





Istriano said:


> The city of Cádiz is not _ceceante_.
> 
> Cádiz, Sevilla, Córdoba y Canarias son _seseantes_.
> Unos hablantes de Málaga, Granada y Badajoz también lo son.
> Spanish _seseo _is fully accepted by the Spanish Academy of language (so, if Castillians don't like it, it's for pure prejudice, not because _seseo _is incorrect!)
> 
> Castilian ''Lisp'' is synonym for CECEO as a speech defect, for example the accent used by Mariano Rajoy (who is Galician).


 Why do you and Jbachelor insist on referring to the Castilian "Lisp". I'm sure that both of you are aware that the lisp theory has been discredited by scholars.

You mention that CECEO is a speech defect. Again, nothing is further from the truth.

It really gets tiring to hear this baloney about the "lisp" or the speech defect over and over again. Will you guys ever learn?

Saludos.


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## roboir

Hi Capitas,

I completely agree with you in that the interdental fricative for zeta and ce-,ci-  is a proper phonetic value and not some speech defect as some people have been intimating here (for instance, some varieties of Venetian in North-eastern Italy feature the interdental 'th' sound)

Nevertheless, I just wanted to challenge a point you make when you state



> Your "Castillian Lisp" is ,if you don't like the proper, at least the original pronunciation, spoken by over 30 million people (out of 360 million Spanish speakers)



I'm not convinced by this assertion that the interdental fricative (and ese-zeta opposition) was the original Castillian pronunciation. Mostly because this would suggest that the ese-zeta oppostion was already in-place (or even the most widespread form) in Spain at the time of the first wave of Spanish colonisation to the Americas, and that the seseo was a divergence (or a corruption even) from this.
I'm pretty sure that among linguists there is little academic consensus on such an assertion, and that most agree that the 'seseo' ( and non-opposition) was already present in at least parts of Spain (and possibly quite extended throughout the peninsula - not just the south and beyond its present day zones).
Therefore, the seeds of the seseo were not the result of some posterior divergence from the norm, nor did they take hold only later on American soil.

It seems that the richer variety of Middle Spanish interdental sounds ('dz', 'ts', 'dj', 'zh', and so forth) became simplified but along two diverse strands which occurred simultaneously and thereafter diverged.

And so, the seseo is no more an evolutionary development of Early Modern Spanish than is the ese-zeta oppostion (or the 'th', if you will).
Naturally, geographical factors would accentuate these two-strands.

By the way, even the most conservative and patriotic of Spanish philologists concede, almost admiringly, that the cleanest Spanish in terms of pronunciation and cadence (i.e., best conserved from the 16th century) is a variety from central upland Colombia (not necessarily representative of Colombian Spanish as a whole, mind you).. and this is a seseante form, which suggests that the seseo can't have been so removed from the norm nor disrespected back in the 16th century


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## duvija

roboir said:


> And so, the seseo is no more an evolutionary development of Early Modern Spanish than is the ese-zeta oppostion (or the 'th', if you will).
> Naturally, geographical factors would accentuate these two-strands.
> 
> By the way, even the most conservative and patriotic of Spanish philologists concede, almost admiringly, that the cleanest Spanish in terms of pronunciation and cadence (i.e., best conserved from the 16th century) is a variety from central upland Colombia (not necessarily representative of Colombian Spanish as a whole, mind you).. and this is a seseante form, which suggests that the seseo can't have been so removed from the norm nor disrespected back in the 16th century


 

Yes, I agree. The s/c,z split took hold in Spain after the 'conquest'. I don't think too many scolars disagree with this.

But what I don't agree is with "
_"...that the cleanest Spanish in terms of pronunciation and cadence (i.e., best conserved from the 16th century) is a variety from central upland Colombia" _
Could you give me the names of_ "the most conservative and patriotic of Spanish philologists_"?  Do you really believe that one type of dialect/regionalism/whatever can be 'cleaner' than another? or better? or had fewer divergencies from the original during those centuries?

Don't you believe that that opinion goes together with 'the second best national anthem after the Marselleise is the Uruguayan anthem'? 
I keep those urban legends in the same drawer.


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## roboir

Duvija,

Rest assured, I don't subscribe to the view that that particular form of Colombian Spanish is the necessarily the best conserved. 
My choice of the word "cleanest" there was unfortunate, because immediately it brings to mind notions of superiority, which I do not claim.

I was merely trying to illustrate that even within philological circles in Spain there is no consensus as what constitutes an original pronunciation of "z", "ce-", "ci-", if any (insofar as Early Modern Spanish is concerned).

regards


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## capitas

duvija said:


> Yes, I agree. The s/c,z split took hold in Spain after the 'conquest'. I don't think too many scolars disagree with this.


Hi Duvija and Roboir!
I don't pretend to be an expert, for I'm not at all, but it seems to me really hard to believe that, as you said, the split z/s took hold AFTER the conquest (America's conquest, I suppose by 16/17th century?


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## merquiades

Hello everybody.  The z/s split did not take effect after the conquest. In fact there was never a split in most of Spain.  More than one phoneme always existed.  It was rather a merger of the two that occurred in Andalucia. However, it is true the th pronunciation for c/z is relatively new, starting in the 1600's evolving from old pronunciation of ts.
It is not a lisp either. People who lisp have a speech defect and pronounce all s sounds as th.  That's like saying Anglophones have a lisp because they pronounce th when they say "thick".
If you want the history it was discussed in this thread: 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1903094


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## roboir

Capitas and Merquiades,

I'm no expert either!

Perhaps I should have explained myself more clearly.

What I meant to say was that the split into speakers who used the 'th', and those who used 's' for _z_, _ce-_ and _ci-_ had already occurred in  Spain before the first waves of Spanish exploration and colonisation.

What is not clear, of course, is to what extent the split had occurred, how long had it been developing and in what regions of Spain did one or the other pattern become dominant.

Some people suggest that the seseo must have been dominant in southern peninsula (extending beyond all of Andalucia up to and including Extremadura, Murcia and southern Alicante) and that logic dictates that seseante southerners were the prime movers of this emigration because...

a) Sevilla (a seseante zone even to this day) was the main port of departure for the Americas,
b) Canarias  (also still a seseante zone) was a stop-off point along the shipping routes
c) some of the most prolific conquistadores were from Extremadura and Andalucia, but most importanly
d) Spanish America would become seseante, even after absorbing waves of 
'th' fricative speaking Spanish immigrants in later centuries.

But, again, we can't be sure that the northern half of the peninsula was exclusively or even predominantly a zone of 'th' v 's' distinction.

For instance, a huge proportion of Spanish naval crew and soldiers were Basques and Asturians (in terms of Castilian speakers in these northern zones, they have been traditionally observant of the 'th' v 's' distinction) - so why doesn't it follow that they would have planted the th v s distinction in the New World when they travelled there?

Judging by the logic which we apply to the Andalucians and other southerners who travelled, we then could assume that some, most or perhaps even all of those Basques and Asturians were seseante speakers!


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## Agró

roboir said:


> Judging by the logic which we apply to the Andalucians and other southerners who travelled, we then could assume that some, most or perhaps even all of those Basques and Asturians were seseante speakers!



And we would be right in assuming that, at least as Basque speakers are concerned, because (surprise!) in Basque /θ/ does not exist.


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## capitas

roboir said:


> What I meant to say was that the split into speakers who used the 'th', and those who used 's' for _z_, _ce-_ and _ci-_ had already occurred in Spain before the first waves of Spanish exploration and colonisation.


Really, I don't like to deal with fonetics history just as a logical/philosphical issue, but as history it is.
It makes me feel better knowing that [z] appeared long before 1600's, and that "those new Old Castillians" did not enforce the "authentic" phonetic rules to the rest of the Spanish language world immediatly and just after them appearing. It didn't sound logical at all.
Thanks both, Robir and Merquiades for sharing your knowledge with me/us.


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## roboir

Agró said:


> And we would be right in assuming that, at least as Basque speakers are concerned, because (surprise!) in Basque /θ/ does not exist.



Yes, Agró

Many Basque-speakers have pointed this out to me before.

And given that Euskera does not boast the /θ/ sound, what are the possibilities that those Basques who were bilingual (or at least used Spanish as an occasional second tongue) were seseantes?

It seems curious given that Euskera exercised a considerable influence on the development of Castilian's phonetic system in that region where Burgos, La Rioja and Alava converge. 

Could it be that even those Basques would later become too isolated from phonetic developments in the centre of Spain?


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## Agró

roboir said:


> Yes, Agró
> 
> Many Basque-speakers have pointed this out to me before.
> 
> And given that Euskera does not boast the /θ/ sound, what are the possibilities that those Basques who were bilingual (or at least used Spanish as an occasional second tongue) were seseantes? Highly possible. There are even now old Basque speakers who are seseantes.
> 
> It seems curious given that Euskera exercised a considerable influence on the development of Castilian's phonetic system in that region where Burgos, La Rioja and Alava converge.
> 
> Could it be that even those Basques would later become too isolated from phonetic developments in the centre of Spain?


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## roboir

Thanks for that insight, Agró.

For what it's worth, there is a parallel with Catalán speaking zones in the east of the peninsula.

I recall talking to a gentleman from Altea in northern Alicante province, perhaps in his late 60s. We spoke in Castilian and I couldn't help but notice that he used the seseante variety.
Conscious that in recent decades there had been an influx of people from other parts of Spain to work along the Costa Azahar, I was tempted to guess that he might be an Andalucian - but no, he assured me that he had lived there all his life and Catalan\Valencian was his mother language.

I'm sure that this is mostly a phenomenon with older speakers in such regions, since the younger they are the stronger is their exposure to Spanish through schooling and the media.

But it does make sense that they would use the /s/ (and  of the laminar variety, too) in place of the /θ/ for 'ce-', 'ci-': but in terms of consistency I just find it strange that these same speakers also use /s/ for the 'zeta' instead of transferring the /z/ from their native Catalan.

Oh well, long live variety and local colour!


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## Agró

roboir said:


> Thanks for that insight, Agró.
> 
> For what it's worth, there is a parallel with Catalán speaking zones in the east of the peninsula.
> 
> I recall talking to a gentleman from Altea in northern Alicante province, perhaps in his late 60s. We spoke in Castilian and I couldn't help but notice that he used the seseante variety.
> Conscious that in recent decades there had been an influx of people from other parts of Spain to work along the Costa Azahar, I was tempted to guess that he might be an Andalucian - but no, he assured me that he had lived there all his life and Catalan\Valencian was his mother language.
> 
> I'm sure that this is mostly a phenomenon with older speakers in such regions, since the younger they are the stronger is their exposure to Spanish through schooling and the media.
> 
> But it does make sense that they would use the /s/ (and  of the laminar variety, too) in place of the /θ/ for 'ce-', 'ci-': but in terms of consistency I just find it strange that these same speakers also use /s/ for the 'zeta' instead of transferring the /z/ from their native Catalan.
> 
> Oh well, long live variety and local colour!


I agree. I think this phenomenon is called "seseo etimológico".

As for the last bit, I think Catalan speakers do use /z/ (voiced 's') in certain cases, eg intervocalic 'ca*s*a', but not everytime they find a 'z' in Spanish.


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## roboir

Merquiades,

Thanks for your lucid and very informative post from that other thread.

Just to show you that this transformation of the fricatives is not a phenomenon exclusive to Spanish, look at the evolution of Venetian (a Romance language, not a dialect of Italian) in North-eastern Italy (and still spoken in southern Brazil today).
The changes in the fricatives bear a remarkable resemblance to those occurring in Spain at around the same time.
If we can say that Italian preserved the 'ds' and 'ts' sounds ('*z*elo' and 'pi*zz*a') that Middle to Modern Spanish discarded or simplified, then Venetian followed the Spanish tendency (though not to the same extreme of simplification)

Latin[/U
*platea* >   (Spanish, 'plaza')  

- Old Venetian (11th-14th centuries)
*piaça *{pjatsa} (identical phonology to Italian 'piazza', only with different orthography)
- Middle Venetian and thereafter: a split occurs for the *ç* phoneme
Pattern A: /pjasa/ with a laminar 'Latin American' 's'
Pattern B: /pjaθa/ with the 'Castilian' alveolar fricative

It appears that Pattern A became dominant in most varieties (including, crucially, along the coast near Venice itself) whereas Pattern B was isolated to a few zones in the Belluno and Treviso provinces, if I'm not mistaken.
In Brazil, only Pattern A survives, perhaps because during emigration to Brazil speakers from* /s/ *zones of the Veneto outnumbered those from */θ/* zones.


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## roboir

Oh, I should add that the standard spelling would become (certainly by the 17th century which coincided with the Venetian Republic's peak) *'piasa'*, perhaps further emphasising the dominance and prestige of Pattern A.


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## Alma de cántaro

According to this article, it seems that, in fact, Spanish language was only spoken by 3 million people at the end of the XVIII century:

http://www.educacion.es/exterior/uk/es/tecla/nuevasteclas/tecla2006/B-11-06.pdf

Won't it be a question of misspronounciation? All those American people that learnt Spanish after the their Independence were probably unable to pronounce the Spanish "Z", weren't they?

Saludos


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## roboir

Agró said:


> I agree. I think this phenomenon is called "seseo etimológico".
> 
> As for the last bit, I think Catalan speakers do use /z/ (voiced 's') in certain cases, eg intervocalic 'ca*s*a', but not everytime they find a 'z' in Spanish.



Interesting point Agró.

Sometimes there is even a hypercorrection here, with regards to Catalan-speakers pronouncing foreign proper names.
For example, I heard recently a case in which Brazilian footballer Marcelo, who plays for Real Madrid, was pronounced as 'Mar*θ*elo' by a Catalan-speaking commentator on Catalan radio. Perhaps, he was too conscious that 'Marcelo' contrasts with the Catalan form 'Marcel' (Mar*s*el), but the fact is that in Portuguese the correct form is 'Mar*s*elu'... which phonetically is much more comparable to how a Catalan-speaker would naturally pronounce such a set of letters (right down to the atonic final-position 'o' as *u*).


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