Talk:Spanish phonology

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Contents 1 Phonetic transcription of "muy" 2 Confusion over rhotic and nasal archiphonemes, and about the sound of Castilian "ch" 3 epenthetic g in huevo? 4 s/z aspiration 5 The trill is a phoneme? 6 "F" as voiceless bilabial fricative 7 "Assimilation" of /s/

[edit] Phonetic transcription of "muy"

Isn't muy' better described as /mwi/ rather than /muj/?

No, because it's clearly a descending diphthong, /muj/ (one of the few instances of this), unlike, say, ruido (/'rwido/). --Pablo D. Flores 11:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

No, when emphasized it gets lengthened into "muuuuuuuuy" and when clipped it becomes "mu'". This would make no sense if the peak of the diphthong were on the /i/. Thus, it is clearly [uj] (phonologically /úi/) and not [wi] (phonologically /uí/). Uaxuctum 04:42, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion over rhotic and nasal archiphonemes, and about the sound of Castilian "ch"

I think there is a lot of confusion in the article regarding the two rhotics and the three nasals. Those only contrast in certain positions (intervocalic for the rhotic, non-syllable-final for the nasals); in other cases, they get merged into the archiphonemes /R/ and /N/, whose allophonic pronunciation depends on the context. For example, the rhotic archiphoneme /R/ is pronounced as a tense trill (like that of "perro") when syllable-initial (such as in "ratón" /Ra.tóN/, "subrayó" /sub.Ra.yó/), and as a tap (like that of "pero") in intra-cluster ("sabroso" /sa.bRó.so/) and in syllable-final ("arder" /aR.déR/) positions (in the latter case, it may also sound as a very lax trill). The nasal archiphoneme /N/, for its part, is pronounced a homorganic nasal in preconsonantal position, and as a mere nasal release when absolute final (though it may become a default alveolar for emphasis).

As for the sound of Castilian "ch", I can attest from my own speech that it is indeed an affricate and not a plosive, but instead of the typical postalveolar [ʧ], it is an alveolopalatal [ʨ] or palatal [cç͡], which is why it may sound similar to a [tʲ]. Uaxuctum 04:42, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with Spanish phonology, but I'm a bit skeptical that you actually pronolunce it with a [ç]. That's the /x/-realization used before frontal vowels in German and is quite different from anything I've ever heard in Spanish.

There are samples of how the voiceless palatoalveolar and palatal fricatives sound in a neutral context here and here if you want to compare. [ʨ͡] sounds more likely to me, though I'm not going to try to sound authoritive about a subject I don't have intimate knowledge about.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:52, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I mentioned a palatal affricate, not a fricative ([cç͡], that's the plosive [c] followed by the fricative [ç] and joined by a tie bar; not [ç] alone). Uaxuctum 06:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The fricative/affricate wasn't really the issue. What I was questioning was the presence of a [ç] in any form as I'm very familiar with the sound in German and Japanese, but can't recall ever hearing it in any variant of Spanish. In fact, I have a small section on Spanish phonology in Svenskans fonologi by Claes Garlén (mainly a book on Swedish phonology, but which also includes many comparisons to other languages) that seems to describe it as a [ʧ]. There is, however, a mention of [ç] as an allophone of /x/ before /i/ and /e/ in some (unspecified) South American variants. Could you by any chance provide some sort of reference to support your claim?

Peter ^Isotalo 16:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of Castilian Spanish. I support my claim in that I am describing my own speech. Castilian Spanish "ch" is most definitely not the postalveolar [ʧ]. I can perfectly recognize that sound and it is not the one I regularly pronounce and hear pronounced for Castilian Spanish "ch". Instead, I clearly notice that postalveolar sound in the accent of Italians speaking Spanish. It sounds distinctly "harsher" than our Castilian Spanish "ch". Our "ch" is usually the palatoalveolar [ʨ], almost identical to the one in Japanese "chi", but I notice that before back vowels (as in "chu") it tends to be pronounced more backwards, nearly or fully as a palatal. It's not surprising that you did not recognize [ç], simply because it isn't really there. The affricate [cç͡], despite its notation, sounds distinctly different from both the fricative [ç] and the plosive [c]. To clearly perceive the characteristic accoustic effect of a fricative, you need it to last for a certain amount of time, longer than what it lasts as part of an affricate. Likewise, many people would find it hard to recognize there's a "sh" within "ch". The phonetic notation, thus, is somewhat misleading. Uaxuctum 21:40, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

If it doesn't sound like [cç͡], it might actually not be one. How about convincing us with a recording or a reference?

Peter ^Isotalo 11:19, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say it doesn't sound like the affricate [cç͡], I said it doesn't sound like the fricative [ç] pronounced alone, which is quite a different statement. I even went into length explaining what I meant and likening it to the fact that many do not immediately recognize there's a "sh" within "ch". I'll make recordings of my own speech as soon as I can (which will take a while because I need to buy a new microphone and OTOH I'm now on holidays away from home). Nonetheless I'm starting to feel rather annoyed that you stubbornly insist in distrusting someone knowledgeable in phonetics describing the pronunciation of his native dialect. Meanwhile, you can listen carefully to this recording I've found on the web "vino a echarlo". Uaxuctum 09:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

You can get a second opinion if you want, but I hear a [ʨ] or [ʧ] and I'm leaning towards the latter. If you really want to confirm this, you should consult a Spanish phonology and quote it here.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I listened to that recording, and it sounds like [ʨ] to me; it is quite similar to the sound written 'j' in Chinese. A few points of reference that may help clear this up:

• The Spanish/Italian difference could involve aspiration as well as place. The Spanish recording I heard has almost no aspiration, which makes the fricative portion extremely short. If there is aspiration, that will lengthen the frication, which can account for some of the heaviness; this is the case in English, e.g.
• The sound of [cç͡] is not a sibilant, whereas [ʨ] is. Uaxuctum, check whether your teeth are together when saying 'ch'; if so, it's probably the latter, if not, the former.

Benwing 03:25, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

The sound in that recording is actually halfway between alveolopalatal and palatal, because in that word "echarlo" the "ch" happens to be preceded by vowel "e", which makes the "ch" slightly more front than it would be otherwise. The range of allophones for Castilian "ch" is a continuum going all the way from [ʨ] to [cç͡], and the exact pronunciation will depend on the phonetic environment, particularly the degree of frontness or backness of surrounding vowels, and may also fluctuate in the speech of the same speaker (you usually get the extremes of the allophonic range in words with all-front or all-back vowels like "chichi" and "uchu" respectively, and the difference in sibilance is quite distinguishable between the high-pitched sound you get in the former and the 'flat', non-sibilant one in the latter). When I can, I will record myself saying words with only back vowels like "mucho", where the sound is more clearly palatal and non-sibilant. I repeat I'm a native speaker of the Castilian dialect, which means I've been pronouncing and hearing pronounced the sound I'm describing during all my life, and I'm well acquainted with phonetics to be sure what I'm talking about. Also, I'm directly describing the live speech coming out of my own mouth and not merely the semidistorted sound one hears in a recording. Thus, I can pinpoint my tongue into the exact point of articulation of Castilian "ch" with natural ease, and then experiment with it to see what sound it turns into when I progressively make it more front or back, or more plosive or fricative, than it should be, which indirectly confirms me what the actual point of articulation of my native "ch" is. If I stop the pronunciation of "mucho" before the fricative part, I get the palatal plosive [c] (very recognizably, I can feel the top of my tongue pushing against the front of the soft palate in the same position as when I'm about to pronounce Spanish voiced palatal plosive/affricate/fricative "y"), and if I lenite the affricate into a fricative, what I get is not [ɕ] (as in Japanese "shi"), let alone [ʃ] (as in English "sh"), but IPA [ç] (note that the German ich sound is actually more of a palatovelar than purely a palatal, so don't take it as a model for the sound of IPA [ç]). OTOH, both standard Italian and Castilian "ch" are most definitely unaspirated (aspiration in Spanish only occurs in certain contexts in Andalusian and closely related dialects, particularly when a syllable-final [s], turned [h], precedes a plosive as in "hasta" [ˈast̪a] > [ˈɑht̪a] > [ˈɑ̤t̪ːʰa], but Andalusian pronunciation is starkly different from that of Castilian in many aspects). And I repeat Castilian "ch" is most definitely not postalveolar [ʧ] and is never pronounced that way in this, my native dialect. I can instantly recognize the postalveolar being pronounced not only in Italian, but also for example in Mexican Spanish, and I can perfectly notice and reproduce the different point of articulation of postalveolar English "ch" and "j" with respect to Castilian Spanish "ch". Uaxuctum 11:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

My dialect (Rioplatense Spanish) has that, /xi/ = [çi] (/xe/ is not [xe] but it isn't so markedly palatal either). I believe most dialects have that; one of the reasons that the Spanish of Spain sounds distinctly harsh to my ears is the preservation of the guttural character of /x/ before front vowels. --Pablo D. Flores 17:53, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In our Spanish of Spain, "j" is usually velar [x] before front vowels and uvular [χ] before back vowels. Uaxuctum 21:40, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

You're mistaken, "j" in Spanish is normally a postvelar sound (before front vowels), and not at all a velar one. Before back vowels, it tends to be uvular like you said. There's plenty of bibliography about this and many aspects of the Spanish language both Latin American and Castilian from very well-known linguists, starting with Tomás Navarro Tomás from the "escuela cervantista" to many other modern experts. You should back up your arguments with a citation from one of these sources and not rely on your intuitions, which may very well be wrong. You can use spectrograms to backup your arguments, some of which I know will not stand.

Regarding the sound of "ch," I agree with you in that it is more to the front of the mouth in Spanish than in English or Italian, but don't make generalizations for other dialects of Spanish. Many dialects of Latin American Spanish have this fronted "ch" sound, and as a matter of fact, it is far more common than the Italian one, which also exists. I have evidence for this taken from palatograms that I've performed on many speakers as part of my ongoing research, as well as spectrograms.

Regarding your comment about the German "ch" being more palato-velar, it is wrong! I suggest a citation if you want your statement to stand as true, for the vast bibliography on the subject says otherwise. --KY

It may not be quite wrong to say that the ich-Laut is palatovelar rather than palatal. If you listen closely (much more closely than necessary to be understood, however), the German [x ~ ç] continuum phoneme has a lot more than two realizations. While clearly closer to [ç] than to [x], the actual sound in ich /ɪx/ is not quite as fronted as the one in Mönch /mœnx/, which in turn is a little less fronted than the extreme which occurs in Milch (because /l/ is laminal-alveolar and has a very restricted allophony range). BTW, the allophony continues in the other direction as well; behind /uː/ (Buch) it reaches the Russian /x/ which seems to be what is called "postvelar". Or maybe pharyngealized or something. (Not uvular, however.)

While I've never heard, or heard of, a palatal affricate in Spanish (I've heard more Mandarin than Spanish…), I can imagine that it exists, considering how fronted the ch I've heard so far is. Such sounds exist in Mandarin. Pinyin x is probably best described as the voiceless palatal sibilant. (There's no IPA symbol for it, but [ç͡ɕ] or [ɧ̟] are probably appropriate enough.) Pinyin q is the aspirated affricate of [c] and x, and j is the finally voiced (and unaspirated) counterpart of q.

(And no, x is most emphatically not [ɕ], even though almost everyone transcribes it that way. It fills the space between [ç], [ɕ] and [sʲ], but almost never reaches any of these 3 extremes, even though different speakers don't pronounce it exactly the same. Citable source: [well… to be added later when I find it. Thought I'd find it faster. It's the website of someone who has been living in China for years, and linked to from some Wikipedia page on Chinese.])

David Marjanović | native speaker of German, armchair linguist | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 19:20 CEST | 2006/5/14

I agree with you, but when it comes to the allophonic description of a language, we have to be aware of the fact that allophone are always going to be part of a spectrum, especially due to its neighboring sounds, which affect its formants. In that case, the most common and stable (articulatorily and acoustically) allophone must be chosen.--KY

I just had a discussion over at Talk:Irish phonology concerning palatalized velar fricatives, and just today I saw a mention of the realization of Mexico as [mex^jiko]. I think this might be a description of the /x/-allophone that is more accurate than [ç].

Peter ^Isotalo 21:44, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] epenthetic g in huevo?

This article claims that there is an epenthetic g in the beginning of huevo. I know this is true for some accents, but for all of them? I doubt that.

Benwing 2 July 2005 23:35 (UTC)

In the most careful pronunciations, that word may indeed be pronounced ['weβo], but I think that virtually all natural accents have ['ɣweβo]. — Chameleon 2 July 2005 23:58 (UTC)

I have not heard it in Valencia or Aragon - but my experience of other accents (except Madrileño) is limited.

I'm not sure about the view that a hard 'g' in the middle of a word becomes an an approximant - I thought, and my Oxford and Collins dictionaries agree, that it is a voiced velar fricative (ɣ) - but I am not an expert on phonetics and they may be rather prescriptive rather than descriptive. User:Wee Jimmy 29 August 2005 22:32 (UTC)

Generally, they seem to be only slightly fricated or not at all. The velar fricative symbol is very often used, but they're usually explained to represent approximants and the recordings I've heard (with spectrograms) support this.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

kit In Puertorriqueño it's definitely [weβo], but the g must have been around for quite some time, as even my Sefardi speaking grandmother from turkey says [gwevu]! It must have been in use by 1500.

They are approximants or very slight fricatives, as mentioned above. As for the epenthetic g, I speak Rioplatense and it's definitely there (as a velar approximant) in un huevo. Moreover, there's also something epenthetic and palatal going on when I say un hielo. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] s/z aspiration

In my opinion all the s entry should be completely remade. It speaks about the s aspiration as if it were a group of independent, isolated phenomenons (Colombian Caribe, Madrid, Southern Spain) when in fact it is one and the same thing, with slightly different results. Please someone with better knowledge than me do it. Jotam 01:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The trill is a phoneme?

I don't think the trill is a phoneme. The trill has a more limited distribution than the tap, and they share similar phonetic properties. The following two rules summarize the trill's production in terms of the tap, giving a more parsimonious phoneme space with just /ɾ/:

ɾ-STRENGTHENING: /ɾ/ --> r / #_ or C._

TAP DELETION: ɾ --> Ø / _r

So, a word like ron would derive as follows:

/ɾon/ --> (ɾ-STRENGTHENING) ron --> [ron]

A word like carro, which contrasts minimally with caro, would have two taps at the phonemic level:

/kaɾɾo/ --> (syllabification) kaɾ.ɾo --> (ɾ-STRENGTHENING) kaɾ.ro --> (TAP DELETION) ka.ro --> [ka.ro]

Malandi 10:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Got a source for that? -Iopq 15:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a long-made mistake. Spectographic evidence clearly shows that a trill is not a sequence of two taps, but consistently a sequence of 3 or 4 taps average. How can the trill be derived from a tap, then? As a matter of fact, perception experiments have shown that a trill equivalent to 2 taps is perceived as ill-formed by native speakers.--KY

If [tʃ] can be an allophone of /k/, I doubt the difference between two or four taps is too much for allophony. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

But taps and trills are made completely differently on the physical level. Trills use the force of air to move the tongue, while taps are just using the muscles of the tongue to "tap" the roof of the mouth. --Iopq 15:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not much a leap anyway. Heck, [ɾ] is an allophone of /t/ in English and those are produced differently. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "F" as voiceless bilabial fricative

I feel sure that I hear a voiceless bilabial fricative for the letter "f", at least in certain contexts ("café" and "Porfirio" but not "fuerte" or "Alfonso"), but I find no mention of this here. Am I mistaken?

[edit] "Assimilation" of /s/

"In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for /s/ appears to be voiceless, adjusting point and mode of articulation to the surround. This explains the observed assimilations (/peskao/: [pexkao], /fosforo/: [fofforo]) in Madrid and (/est̪os/: [eht̪oh])."

This isn't any different from what the article says immediately above about /s/ not having a defined place of articulation (being defined only as a voiceless fricative), because none of the "assimilations" cited involves /s/ not being a fricative. Also, the last is not an assimilation, because the place of [h] is glottal, not dental. It's simply a lenition, very common in many Spanish dialects and already mentioned in the previous paragraph.

This section should be deleted, and the examples (if they are valid -- I can't say because I have no experience with Madrid Spanish) should be retained as examples of the Madrileño process.

--Armchairlinguist 00:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, [h] is phonetically placeless (so it's not lenition, it's debuccalization). It is not a fricative in the strict sense of the word so Southern Spain contrasts with Madrid in not requiring /s/ to be a fricative. The grammar of that paragraph is pretty sketchy though, it could use some retouching. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, you're right for this case, although I don't see how someone not experienced in this particular distinction can immediately understand that the [h] referenced here is a placeless non-continuant, not the glottal fricative of the IPA. It seems like this needs to be simplified a bit or explained better. --67.109.56.162 00:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm now wondering why it has changed "it may lose its oral articulation entirely to become an aspiration (usually transcribed as /h/)" to "become /h/". Since /h/ in IPA is the symbol for a glottal fricative, if it's not really a glottal fricative (phonetically placeless, as claimed) then it's not accurate to say it's really /h/. I'd like to see this changed back. Likewise I am not really a fan of the wording change made about /z/. My choice of "voiced or lightly voiced /z/" meant that it might change to become fully voiced, which would be written /z/, or lightly voiced but still written /z/. "Change to become voiced or a lightly voiced /z/" makes it sound like vooiced doesn't mean /z/ when it actually does.

--Armchairlinguist 09:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. The sound [h] is phonetically placeless. Its place in the consonant chart as glottal and as a fricative is due to the limitations of the chart. Likewise, the only difference between [z] and [s] is voicing and when one wants to represent an alveolar sibilant that is partially voiced, either symbol can be used [s̬] [z̥]. I'll reword it though. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

-- The examples are not valid for Madrileño Spanish. I live here and the s is not voiceless or fricative at all (maybe for some specific parts of Andalucía, but I can't say how common that it). That should be removed.Oconel 12:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

What is it instead? And do you have a source? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

As you can see here, aspiration of the /s/ only happens in the south (you have to scroll down a bit) http://www.proel.org/lenguas.html Oconel 13:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The question of the Madrilenian dialect is contentious. People from Madrid have been taught that they speak 'dialecto castellano', this is part of their ideological identity. But the language really spoken in Madrid has, and has always had, lots of southern traits. Madrilenians often deny this fact and cling to what they were told in school. Jotam 01:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, since Madrid is in the middle of Castille it makes sense that they speak 'dialecto castellano'. Please specify what southern traits are those. As far as I know it's characterised by 'laísmo' and 'lleísmo'Oconel 13:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It would make a lot of sense that madrilenians spoke 'dialecto castellano', if such thing existed. But it is just a political construct. Anyway, Oconel is quite right in pointing out that the /s/ aspiration is the main marker of dialectal boundaries for Spanish. This is a map with the /s/ aspirating areas in Spain : http://jotamartin.byethost33.com/alpi_aspira_e.php . Madrilenians aspirate their s's just like all southerners, but also they (and many other spaniards) are taught in school to repress their natural pronunciation and adopt another one based in 'pronouncing everything exactly as it is written'. Jotam 23:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

So, we have two sources with completely opposite results (and as you can see, Madrid is not at all in the south). Anyway, if Madrilenians are taught to "repress their natural pronunciation" and they don't aspire the s, doesn't it mean "they don't aspire the s" whatever the reason?. Why are they able to tell when someone aspire the s if they aspire it themselves as you said? Also, if that were due to schooling, people from the south of Spain wouldn't have seseo or ceceo. Just go to Madrid and hear people talk.

Another link (and I hope the RAE is good for you) http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=s (it says the s is only aspired in Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia and Canary Islands) Oconel 12:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we have opposite results. The www.proel.org map looks very conservative, it probably uses a rather contrived criterion to make sure that the southern area is as small as possible. Besides, that site doesn't explain how the line between northern and southern dialects has been drawn. Keep in mind that no studies about madrilenian pronunciation exist, as far as I know, and I've even read otherwise serious articles where the fact that Madrid speaks 'standard Spanish' is simply taken for granted. I'd almost say that stating that Madrid speaks 'southern' is political taboo in Spain. Jotam 23:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, when I said that many people in Spain are taught to repress their pronunciation, I didn't imply that they are successful in doing so. I reckon madrilenians aspirate some 10-20% of s's in very formal registers, some 40-50% in 'intermediate' registers, some 80-90% in relaxed speech. This a generalisation, just for foreigners to get an idea. Besides, probably most madrilenians are not conscious of how often they drop their s's, as most people they meet speak just like them. I think we can use the word Diglossia for this situation. Jotam 23:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

About going to Madrid : I often do. That's why I'm so sure about what I say. Jotam 23:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

About the RAE link : NO, the RAE is not a good source of information about dialectal differences. The mere fact that /s/ aspiration is confined to exact administrative boundaries speaks for itself. Jotam 23:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a note that the map Jotam provided is from the ALPI, which was a linguistic survey of the Iberian Peninsula conducted in the 1930s. So although it's still a valuable source of information, it may not be an accurate picture of the modern situation. But I'm not from Spain, so I can't comment on the validity of it either way. --Miskwito 18:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, language is changing quickly in Spain these days. And overall the change can be described as a 'madridization' of the language, due to most media being based in Madrid. Another reason why madrilenians can't hear the differences in other dialects, many people are adopting their speech. Jotam 23:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

So when a friend and I were told in Bilbao that we didn't say "ej que" (/s/ aspiration for "es que"), what happened was that in the north they are starting to aspire the /s/ too, and they can't see the difference anymore? Are you sure you talk to madrileños when you go to Madrid? Also, what part of Madrid you visit (maybe there are differences I'm not aware of between the different towns)?Oconel 21:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In 1930 the population of Madrid was 1.290.445, nowadays is 5.964.143. Since Jotam doesn't like the links I provide and insist everything is biased, there's very little I can do to prove my point. Also, some people think Madrilenian speech is posh speech (similar to a drawl and which doesn't seem to be the case here) and others think it's what could be called macarra (hoodlum according to my dictionary) who do aspire the s, and I'm starting to wonder if that's where Jotam got his idea. None of those Spanish is the average in Madrid.Oconel 22:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

That the RAE source is biased is absolutely obvious, and very easy to prove too. That the www.proel.org map is biased is impossible to prove, because we don't know how that north/south line has been drawn. The people I usually meet in Madrid are middle-class, from all districts in the city and most of them have university degrees. When they meet a stranger, they adopt a pronunciation based on 'written spanish' (not on northern spanish), similar to TV newscasters. But I think we can all agree that the question is : how do they speak with friends and family ? I found out long ago. Jotam 11:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like Oconel to answer this : to work in sports programmes on the radio, is it compulsory to be a macarra ? Jotam 11:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

So, Madrilenians only aspire the /s/ at home and not in front of you? Right. Then why doesn't the acting hide the yeísmo or the laísmo? Or how did you manage to find out the "secret"? Don't answer, I'm not sure I want to read whatever new theory you're going to make up next. I give up, let's have the Wikipedia say they do aspire the /s/ and if you want to add something else, feel free to do it.

I haven't listened to a football radio program in a long time, but I've caught glimpses of those so called "debates" on TV, and yes, there are always a couple of macarras.Oconel 07:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that most of what is applied to "Southern Spain" on this page really only applies to certain areas such as Cadiz. Could we maybe be more specific as to what pronunciation applies to which area? I know a lot of people tend to lump all southern Spaniards (rather, Andalusians) together as having the same manner of speech, but this is far from true.