# Spanish "X"



## Milktoast50

Hello,
I'll admit I haven't exhausted my online resources searching for information about this one, but I figure that some might be able to help me with little bother, so I'm asking anyway:
What are the rules for pronouncing "x" in Spanish?
I see that the Spanish pronunciation of:
Mexico= Mejico
Which could concievably be written 'Megico' (but isn't)
But I also see that:
sexo sounds like English 'sex' and not 'sejo'
Ademas:
'sexto' could be written 'seccto' (but isn't), in comparison to 'accion'

Hay reglas aqui?

Also, what was the Latin pronunciation of "x", what was the orthography of the sound that in English is written "x"?  How does the Spanish compare with the Latin, and are either systematic?

Thanks,
(And please don't yell at me for lack of accent marks or combing the internet, I did search!)


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## miguel89

Latin pronunciation of x was /ks/.

Spanish words in which x sounds as j are scarce. They are a leftover of previous orthographic conventions, when x represented first sh as in shop and then modern Spanish j as in jueves. They mostly remain in place names due to ideological reasons on Mexico's part. There's indeed the alternative written form _Méjico_, but it is being increasely abandoned since we entered the "political correctness era". Mexicans might get offended if you write _Méjico_, you know.

Regarding sexto, it couldn't possibly be written seccto since in Spanish c before consonant represents /k/.


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## Hulalessar

The letter <x> is the one letter in the Spanish alphabet about which you cannot lay down rules; you just have to know.

The use of <x> for the sound /x/ (= the sound normally represented by <j> or by <g> before <e> and <i>) is restricted to a few place names and surnames. That use has nothing to do with political correctness, however you define it.


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## miguel89

Hulalessar said:


> That use has nothing to do with political correctness, however you define it.



The use does not, its preservation, however, does.


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## XiaoRoel

El grafema /x/ del español representa fundamentalmente dos sonidos:
1. Representa por *arcaísmo gráfico* el sonido *fricativo sordo [x]*, en algunas grafías andaluzas y mejicanas: México [méxiko], Ximénez [ximénes].
2. En *español moderno* representa el grupo consonático *gutural + s* [ks/gs] que se puede pronunciar desde enfáticamente [ks] hasta la pronunciación más coloquial [s]. A *nivel diastrático* hay una diferenciación entre una _pronunciación académica_ que siempre conservará algo de la oclusión, y una _pronunciación coloquial_ sin restos de oclusión. incluso en el mismo sujeto.


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## Frank06

miguel89 said:


> The use does not, its preservation, however, does.


And what would be a possible ideological reason to preserve that <x>?


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## swift

Una magnífica disquisición, en español, aquí:

http://www.babab.com/no05/expediente_x.htm


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## miguel89

Frank06 said:


> And what would be a possible ideological reason to preserve that <x>?



It is explained in the article _swift_ has provided us a link to. Here's a relevant excerpt:





> La confusión gráfica, tanto en España como en América, se mantuvo largo tiempo, hasta que la Real Academia de la Lengua, que venía haciendo reformas ortográficas desde 1726, reservó, en la 8ª edición de la Ortografía  (de 1815), la letra x para el grupo culto latino /ks/ (de éxito, examen, etc.) [...] Los mexicanos, rigurosamente, con tesón y orgullo, han mantenido en palabras propias de su tierra esa x que siglos atrás les llevaron los españoles; y se sienten ofendidos, o al menos incomodados, cuando ven escrito Méjico así, con j.


Excerpts from Wikipedia on Toponimia de México:





> Aunque la pronunciación cambió, la grafía del nombre México conservó la equis por razones etimológicas e históricas, como tantos otros nombres de sitios y objetos provenientes de lenguas indígenas mesoamericanas.





> En México se utilizó la grafía Méjico al mismo tiempo que México  durante una parte del siglo XIX, aunque finalmente la grafía con jota cayó en desuso. Lo mismo sucedió con otros topónimos mexicanos escritos actualmente con x pero pronunciados /x/, como Oajaca por Oaxaca.


I don't see what would be a reason not ideological for not updating the spelling of a name, considering that the update was otherwise carried out. Anyway, if Mexicans like it that way, I'm not the one who's going to argue. I'm only pointing out what I believe are the reasons for this spelling.


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## Ben Jamin

Milktoast50 said:


> ... 'sexto' could be written 'seccto' (but isn't), in comparison to 'accion'


 
No, 'seccto' could only be pronounced 'sekto' in Spanish. Reason: 'c' before consonants is pronounced as 'K'. The same applies to 'c' before a, o and u, while only 'c' before i and e is pronounced as "th" in Castilian, and as 's' in other Spanish dialects (both in Spain and in Americas). Besides, Spanish does not tolerate double consonants.


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## Cynastros

I am wondering myself, but I do know .. this  < X > ,  sound like  <c- he, or  c-hi> ... Me-c-hi-co. Like the Greek < x > χί ,  appear.


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## berndf

Cynastros said:


> I am wondering myself, but I do know .. this  < X > ,  sound like  <c- he, or  c-hi> ... Me-c-hi-co. Like the Greek < x > χί ,  appear.


This has nothing to do with "x". /ç/ instead of /x/ is a Latin American variant pronunciation of "j" and "g" in front of "e" and "i". The "x" in "Mexico" is still pronounced as if it were "j".


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## Blas de Lezo

It's a matter of grammar history. You'll be fine knowing that X is pronounced [ks] in 99% of the words you may find (i.e. "examen" is pronounces "eksámen"), except in some mexican names of places and people (Mexico, Oaxaca, etc), due to an odd mexican nationalism regarding the "x" in some words. (I could talk of how the word _mexica_ was pronounced _meshica_, and that before the grammar regulation of the Real Academia in the XVIII century, the "x" in spanish represented a /sh/ sound, i.e. as in english "shell", and how the /sh/ sound evolved into the actual /j/ but if you're interested I guess you can look for info by yourself).


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## Milktoast50

Hello,
Thank you for all of your responses. (I'll pretend like they were all for me).
I actually ended up finding the article given in the link by swift- I had wasted time searching in the wrong places. The article provides a nice answer. (Also stupid of me to forget that "cc" only sounds like "x" when followed by "i" or "e").
I left the post up hoping that someone might have insight as to how the Spanish "x" compares to the Latin "x" and also because I don't perfectly understand the changes described by the article : http://www.babab.com/no05/expediente_x.htm.

As I understand it:
In Castilla during the 1400's there were two similar sounds:
- "x" sounded like the English "sh" as in "shore" 
- "j" OR "g" sounded like French "j" as in "jour" (that is to say, somewhere inbetween English 'j'udge and English 'sh'ore).

So already "j" and "g" were equivalent (at least in some cases).

Speakers started blending the French "j" sound and the English "sh" sound so that they could not be distinguished (there was something of a continuum between 'jerk' 'jour' 'shore') but the "sh" sound predominated for all of the letters. Writers employed all three letters (j, g, x) to convey the "sh" sound. (muxer = mujer = muger) 

What happened next I am unsure, but I think:

The "sh" sound changed in all instances to the English "h" sound so that the 'modern' pronunciations (letting Mexicans have it their way) all prevail:
Mexico
Jamon
Gitano
So writers could still take their pick between 'x' , 'j', or 'g' but now they sounded like a breathy English "h".

THEN an influential movement started by Spaniards well versed in Latin imposed the rule that "x" = ks (like it does today). The "x" = ks / gs movement caught on and became dominant but only after Spain had founded several colonies, most prominent among them 'Mexico.' 

So today 'Mexico' causes confusion because they like their own way and don't want "Mejico" even though the vast majority of their vocabulary also is voiced with standard "x". 

On the other hand Spaniards tend to let "x" relax into "s" in some cases, but can usually be brought into line by linguists like members of the academy (unlike the Mexicans who insist on their deviance).
Fin.

My question is:
If there was a time when j, g, and x were all being pronounced a breathy English "h" and writers apparently were interchanging all three, then speech must have informed writing more than in reverse. Basically (as I understand it) the 'ks' sound was at that time absent from Spanish. The closest I can conceive might be "que es?" slurred together. If academians wanted to impose a new pronunciation on "x", wouldn't writers simply avoid using it and instead use only "g" and "j"?

The success of the 'new "x"' suggests that writing informed speech and brought about the use of the 'ks' sound. 
'
My only guess is that some words in Latin were spelled with "x" and so homologs of such words had the preferred spelling with "x", even though they could be written phonetically with "g" and "j". Spaniards with good knowledge of Latin would then have enforced the "x" spellings on the appropriate words, and in addition forced the 'ks' pronunciation on these words, letting "j" be used for all other words. "g" was allowed to keep the conditional "h" sound so that words would at least appear like their latin cognates. 
 
So my guess implies a few things:
*That Latin "x" sounded like modern "x" and in Spanish underwent a period of "sh" then "huh" then forced back to "ks" even though that sound was absent for a long time in Spanish.
*That Latin "g" was always hard (e.g. 'get') no matter what vowel came after it. Spanish words (selectively?) softened the "g" sound to French "j" but the literate few continued to spell with "g".
*Spanish once had the "j" of modern French

So I guess this begs the questions:
What was the Latin pronunciation of "j"?
What about the hard sound of "g"? Was the subsequent-vowel rule always in place? Or was there a time when "g"
= French "j" no matter what followed? If so the hard "g" re-emerged when "g , j, x" all turned breathy (conditionally for g)?

Corrections? Answers? References or Links?
Mil gracias.

p.s. Please excuse my lack of accents, ignorance of phonological/linguistic terms (please no 'velars' 'palatials' or anything else), use of English orthography as a substitute for such terms, and my 'incorrect' use of "begs the question."
Fin.


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## berndf

Milktoast50 said:


> THEN an influential movement started by spaniards well versed in latin imposed the rule that "x" = ks (like it does today). The "x" = ks / gs movement caught on and became dominant but only after Spain had founded several colonies, most prominent among them 'Mexico.'


??? Who pronounces the "x" in Mexico like "ks"? I am not aware of any version of Spanish where this is done.





Milktoast50 said:


> The "sh" sound changed in all  instances to the english "h" sound so that the 'modern' pronunciations  (letting Mexicans have it their way) all prevail:
> Mexico
> Jamon
> Gitano
> So writers could still take  their pick between 'x' , 'j', or 'g' but now they sounded like a breathy  english "h".


The modern Spanish pronunciation is like "ch" in Scottish "loch" (or like Greek Chi in front of dark vowels or like the German _ach_-sound) and not like an English "h". But you are right that "x", "j" and "g" (the latter only in front of bright vowels!) were and are completely merged in Standard Spanish. A spelling reform (1815) eliminated the "x" from the standard Spanish alphabet and it remained only in place names and foreign words.

You might want to read this thread on the matter. It uses a lot of IPA symbols to represent sounds. If you are not familiar with IPA you might want to read this Wikipedia article as well


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## CapnPrep

berndf said:


> A spelling reform (1815) eliminated the "x" from  the standard Spanish alphabet and it remained only in place names and  foreign words.


Of course, only in the case of ‹x› pronounced like ‹j›. (You make it sound like the idea was to eliminate ‹x› everywhere…)



Milktoast50 said:


> *That Latin "x" sounded like modern "x" and in Spanish underwent a period of "sh" then "huh" then forced back to "ks" even though that sound was absent for a long time in Spanish.


The sound "ks" was never absent, because as you rightly guessed, there was constant influence from scholarly and church Latin throughout the development of Spanish. People who could read and write knew that  ‹x› was pronounced /sh/ (and later "breathy h") in one group of words, and /ks/ in another group. But this was unsatisfactory for two reasons:  ‹x› had two phonetic values, and one sound /h/ could be written in several ways (‹x›, ‹j›, ‹g(e/i)›). The solution was to say that  ‹x› should not longer be used to represent /h/. 

But this does not mean that the pronunciation of the first group of words, where the sound of ‹x› had evolved into /h/ over time, was "forced back" to /ks/. This may have happened in a small number of words, maybe someone can think of an example. But mostly, those words simply changed their spelling to ‹j› (a process completed by the 1815 reform that berndf mentioned).



> What was the Latin pronunciation of "j"?


It was like  ‹y› in "yellow". But this sound underwent changes in post-classical spoken Latin. Just as today you can hear Spanish speakers pronounce "yo" like English _yo-yo_, _show_, _Joe_, etc. 



> What about the hard sound of "g"? Was the subsequent-vowel rule always in place? Or was there a time when "g" = French "j" no matter what followed?


The letter ‹g› always had a hard sound in classical Latin. The vowel rule appeared in spoken Latin around the 2nd-3rd centuries. (Which is why we find the same rule in all the Romance languages, and in English.)


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> Of course, only in the case of ‹x› pronounced like ‹j›. (You make it sound like the idea was to eliminate ‹x› everywhere…)


I said "...remained only in place names and foreign words" (which by my use of the term "foreign words" includes scholarly expressions). Are there any other "x"es in modern Spanish?


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## CapnPrep

berndf said:


> I said "...remained only in place names and foreign words" (which by my use of the term "foreign words" includes scholarly expressions). Are there any other "x"es in modern Spanish?


Most people would not consider _sexo_ and _sexto_  (mentioned above) to be "foreign words" or "scholarly expressions" in modern Spanish.


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## JGreco

> The modern Spanish pronunciation is like "ch" in Scottish "loch" (or  like Greek Chi in front of dark vowels or like the German _ach_-sound)  and not like an English "h"


This is not true of all varieties of Spanish. It is only standard to European Spanish and Rio Platense (Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Bolivia). Practically the rest of the Spanish speaking world still uses the breathy English "h" sound as the pronunciation for "j".


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## berndf

JGreco said:


> This is not true of all varieties of Spanish. It is only standard to European Spanish and Rio Platense (Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Bolivia). Practically the rest of the Spanish speaking world still uses the breathy English "h" sound as the pronunciation for "j".


Of course. I understand the context given by the post to which I responded as being concerned with Standard European Spanish only.


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## HUMBERT0

I think that the “x” is still part of our spelling for several reasons, one might be that after independence in the XIX century the country wanted to affirm its own sovereignty, and not follow blindly developments from our former rulers, if memory serves me right we even broke relations with Spain after independence and many Spaniards were sent back to Europe. 

Another reason is that, “México/Méjico” is just the tip of the iceberg; we would have to change people’s names, places, things, like: axiote, xola, xochimilico, xilote, Xicotencatl, ixtle, Xochitl, Ixtlan, Ixtapa, Xel-ha, cacaxtla, Xalisco, nixtamal, Uxmal, naxayote, etc. the list is by no means small. I have to admit that there is some confusion, some "x" may be pronounced with a “sh” as in native-American languages or “s” or “ks” or “j”. To summarize, “x” is seen as a reminder of a sound that was and is still present in many Native American languages, not in modern Castilian.

And we are not alone, If I'm not mistaking many names and regions in el Pais Vasco still maintain the “x”, I don’t see them changing their spelling to accommodate Castilians, and probably they’ve been spelling it the same way for hundreds of years.


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## Ben Jamin

JGreco said:


> Practically the rest of the Spanish speaking world still uses the breathy English "h" sound as the pronunciation for "j".


 
What is "breathy English "h" sound"? How does it compare to "non breathy English "h" sound" and for example Castillian 'j', Scottish 'ch' and German 'ch'?


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## phosphore

Castillian <j> represents the voiceless uvular fricative, German <ch> represents either the voiceless velar fricative or the voiceless palatal fricative and English <h> represents the voiceless laryngeal fricative. I'm not sure what breathy means.


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> What is "breathy English "h" sound"? How does it compare to "non breathy English "h" sound" and for example Castillian 'j', Scottish 'ch' and German 'ch'?


In most of this thread we have been talking very generally about the sound of ‹j› in modern Spanish (which can be the same as Scottish and German ‹ch›). [I _suppose_ it would be on-topic to go into all the different possible phonetic realizations of the corresponding phoneme in all varieties of Spanish around the world, but personally I would find this deeply irritating… ] 

Anyway we used "breathy _h_" instead of saying "the sound of Castillian ‹j›" because (i) the pronunciation of this letter has changed in the history of Spanish (as explained above), and (ii) the OP made it clear that he didn't want to see any IPA or terms like "velar". So we adopted his terminology.


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## berndf

CapnPrep said:


> Anyway we used "breathy _h_" instead of saying "the sound of Castillian ‹j›" because (i) the pronunciation of this letter has changed in the history of Spanish (as explained above), and (ii) the OP made it clear that he didn't want to see any IPA or terms like "velar". So we adopted his terminology.


I think you misunderstood JGreco. What he described as "breathy _h_" is a pronunciation found in Latin America what is markedly different from [χ]. The closest resemblance I can think of is the pronunciation of Arabic _ha´_ as a syllable coda as in _al-a*h*ram_ (=_the pyramids_) which even stand in phonemic contrast to [χ] in that language.


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## CapnPrep

You're right, that's what JGreco was saying. I'll edit my other message. But the point is that in the rest of the thread this was just a convenient term to distinguish today's pronunciation from anything like "sh" or "zh" or "dj" or whatever.


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## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> I think you misunderstood JGreco. What he described as "breathy _h_" is a pronunciation found in Latin America what is markedly different from [χ]. The closest resemblance I can think of is the pronunciation of Arabic _ha´_ as a syllable coda as in _al-a*h*ram_ (=_the pyramids_) which even stand in phonemic contrast to [χ] in that language.


I think that it would be very useful to use the IPA signs after all. I do not know Arabic, so I do not know what sound there is in Al a*h*ram. What I know is that there are several "h" sounds in Arabic, velar, glottal and pharyngeal, voiced and unvoiced, fricative and plosive. Did you mean the 'γ' sound (voiced velar fricative)? Like in Spanish "di*g*nidad"?


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## Forero

The Mexican j is an unvoiced pharyngeal fricative [ħ].


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## Outsider

I haven't had the chance to read all replies, but I think the original question can be answered fairly simply, as regards modern Spanish:


In modern Spanish the letter "x" usually appears in latinisms or hellenisms, and is as such pronounced "ks". This is the most frequent situation.

Exceptions are a limited number of words borrowed from indigenous American languages, where the pronunciation varies with the specific word. If memory does not fail me, other possible pronunciations for "x" in words of indigenous origin are "sh", "s", "ks", or as a Spanish "j". The latter is the case in the word "México" (which may alternatively -- but controversially -- be spelled with a "j").


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## JGreco

> I think that it would be very useful to use the IPA signs after all. I  do not know Arabic, so I do not know what sound there is in Al a*h*ram.  What I know is that there are several "h" sounds in Arabic, velar,  glottal and pharyngeal, voiced and unvoiced, fricative and plosive. Did you mean  the 'γ' sound  (voiced velar fricative)? Like in Spanish "di*g*nidad"?


First of all, unless you post a website that can simply explain IPA format in simple terms for the majority of Wordreference users, it can be very difficult and daunting to explain what a voiced and unvoiced fricative or plosive is in layman's terms. I took several classes towards learning IPA in my degree and I still have difficulty using the terminology to describe languages since the majority of normal people will be like "what....(as flies buzz around their heads)" until you give a general example of a International language and how a certain pronunciation pattern relates to that language. That is why I used English breathy "h" as a way to explain the Latin American "H" sound of the majority of speakers (of course with certain exceptions). Sorry for the digression, but I felt that I needed to explain myself which may lead to a new posting by me in a day or two.


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## JGreco

To represent the "j" sound of Latin America, I would say that it is more similar to  or a voiceless glottal fricative. To make myself even more clear.


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## Outsider

Milktoast50 said:


> My only guess is that some words in Latin were spelled with "x" and so homologs of such words had the preferred spelling with "x", even though they could be written phonetically with "g" and "j". Spaniards with good knowledge of Latin would then have enforced the "x" spellings on the appropriate words, and in addition forced the 'ks' pronunciation on these words, letting "j" be used for all other words.


I don't think there were that many cases of the "j"-sound going back to the "ks"-sound by influence of the intellectuals. 

What happened in general was this:

In words where a former Latin "x" was pronounced with a "ks"-sound in Spanish, the spelling remained "x".
In words where a former Latin "x" had changed to a "j"-sound, the spelling was changed to "j".

Thus examples such as _ejército_ or _dijo_ (former _x_ pronounced as a _j_) and _examen_ (former _x_ pronounced _ks_). Many of these words where _x_ is pronounced _ks_ postdate the spelling change.


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## berndf

Forero said:


> The Mexican j is an unvoiced pharyngeal fricative [ħ].


For the purpose of this thread this characterization might be sufficient. But I still have problems with it. I cited Arabic because it has /ħ/ (ح), /h/ (ه) and /x~χ/ (خ) and the Mexican <j> must be one of the three but it is neither [ħ] nor [x~χ] hence it must be some sort of . In some American Englisch accents there is such a "breathy" or "heavy" /h/ in the word "*h*undred".


JGreco said:


> To represent the "j" sound of Latin America, I would say that it is more similar to  or a voiceless glottal fricative. To make myself even more clear.


I agree. The term "glottal" must be taken with a grain of salt, though. Most realizations of /h/ don't have a clear point of articulation and hence the term "glottal" is somewhat arbitrary.


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## Forero

berndf said:


> For the purpose of this thread this characterization might be sufficient. But I still have problems with it. I cited Arabic because it has /ħ/ (ح), /h/ (ه) and /x~χ/ (خ) and the Mexican <j> must be one of the three but it is neither [ħ] nor [x~χ] hence it must be some sort of . In some American Englisch accents there is such a "breathy" or "heavy" /h/ in the word "*h*undred".
> I agree. The term "glottal" must be taken with a grain of salt, though. Most realizations of /h/ don't have a clear point of articulation and hence the term "glottal" is somewhat arbitrary.


I am talking about a ح sound. I don't know how _al-a*h*ram_ sounds, but the Mexican _j_ sounded to a professor I had, who was from Egypt, just like his pronunciation of ح. 

He was surprised that _j_ should have this sound in Mexico since he was taught Spanish _j_ was pronounced as خ. When he pronounced the latter sound for me, it sounded to me just like peninsular Spanish _j_ as in _paja _or German _ch_ as in _ach. _When he pronounced his ح for me, it sounded just like Mexican _j_ as in _paja_ or _Jalisco_.

He agreed that it was not the same sound as an English or German _h_.


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## JGreco

> I am talking about a ح sound. I don't know how _al-a*h*ram_  sounds, but the Mexican _j_ sounded to a professor I had, who was  from Egypt, just like his pronunciation of ح.


I don't know. That sound is way too pharyngeal to my ears to be similar to the Mexican or Latin American pronunciation. If I can't find an example in my next posts I invite someone to post an example of this sound to prove my point.


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## berndf

Interesting. The name _Taha _is spelled طه [tˤaha]; then you *do *know how the /h/ in _al-ahram_ sounds. For a speaker of European languages (including myself), it is not easy to differentiate ح and non-initial ه while Arabic native speakers have no problems. I know that generally Egyptians often don't pronounce emphatic consonants very distinctive so that they may sound like their non-emphatic counterparts. But I have never heard that this should apply to ح. So, maybe you are right. But I still don't think so.


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## Ben Jamin

JGreco said:


> First of all, unless you post a website that can simply explain IPA format in simple terms for the majority of Wordreference users, it can be very difficult and daunting to explain what a voiced and unvoiced fricative or plosive is in layman's terms. I took several classes towards learning IPA in my degree and I still have difficulty using the terminology to describe languages since the majority of normal people will be like "what....(as flies buzz around their heads)" until you give a general example of a International language and how a certain pronunciation pattern relates to that language. That is why I used English breathy "h" as a way to explain the Latin American "H" sound of the majority of speakers (of course with certain exceptions). Sorry for the digression, but I felt that I needed to explain myself which may lead to a new posting by me in a day or two.


 
Hello! I understand your arguments, but the posts at this forum are read by people with different linguistic background. Many, just as you described, are immune to the IPA, others, like me, have learned enough to be able to find the respective sounds in the IPA tables, and listen to the sound recordings (easily accessible on the Web). On the other hand, the information as "an h like in Ahmed" or "breathy English h" tell me nothing, since, as said before, there are stunningly many h-sounds in Arabic, which is not the language I know much about. Neither do I know what "breathy" means in phonetics. I am familiar with the sounds of most of the European languages though. So, it would not do any harm, if you could give an IPA notation as additional information to those who can use it.



JGreco said:


> To represent the "j" sound of Latin America, I would say that it is more similar to  or a voiceless glottal fricative. To make myself even more clear.



 Thank you! It explains a lot.

A link to a "talking" IPA page is here:
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departm...lsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html


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## Milktoast50

Well. Sorry for being ignorant of IPA sounds.  You really can't get specific w/o them, but in any case this thread has been very illuminating (besides digressing into subtleties in global pronunciation).  I think I was being redundant with my stupid "breathy english h."  I just wanted to distinguish it from the non-aspirated 'h' of spanish.  I guess I was taught spanish by US teachers who had mostly been influenced by south american accents, so I was a little confused by the assertion that spanish 'j' sounds like german 'ch.'  But anyway this thread is getting way over my head so I'm not gonna pretend to be responsible for wherever it goes next.
Thanks to everyone.


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## Ben Jamin

Milktoast50 said:


> Well. Sorry for being ignorant of IPA sounds. You really can't get specific w/o them, but in any case this thread has been very illuminating (besides digressing into subtleties in global pronunciation). I think I was being redundant with my stupid "breathy english h." I just wanted to distinguish it from the non-aspirated 'h' of spanish. I guess I was taught spanish by US teachers who had mostly been influenced by south american accents, so I was a little confused by the assertion that spanish 'j' sounds like german 'ch.' But anyway this thread is getting way over my head so I'm not gonna pretend to be responsible for wherever it goes next.
> Thanks to everyone.


 Please, do not be sorry. There was nothing stupid either about the "breathy" thing. It was only limited to the public familiar with this term (I guess mostly American). It just shows how difficult it is to discuss phonetics in writing, without the help of sounds. 
Why, by the way, did the moderator delete my link to the "talking" IPA site? What was wrong with that?


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## Outsider

Do you mean the link here?


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## Ben Jamin

Outsider said:


> Do you mean the link here?


 Yes


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## Outsider

Here's a previous thread concerning the pronunciation of "x" in Spanish.


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## skubidur

En España casi nadie pronuncia la x en la expresión oral, la x se convierte en una s aunque sepamos escribir correctamente examen pronunciamos es-samen y así casi todas las palabras con x. 
Espero que os sirva esta explicación.
Saludos desde Madrid.


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