Yeísmo (Spanish pronunciation:[ɟʝeˈismo]; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of manydialects of theSpanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditionalpalatal lateral approximant phoneme/ʎ/ⓘ (written⟨ll⟩) and itsmerger into the phoneme/ʝ/ⓘ (written⟨y⟩). It is an example ofdelateralization.
In other words,⟨ll⟩ and⟨y⟩ represent the same sound[ʝ]ⓘ whenyeísmo is present. The termyeísmo comes from one of the Spanish names for the letter⟨y⟩ (ye).[1] Over 90% of Spanish speakers exhibit this phonemic merger.[2] Similar mergers exist in other languages, such asFrench,Italian,Hungarian,Catalan,Basque,Portuguese orGalician, with different social considerations.
Occasionally, the termlleísmo (pronounced[ʎeˈismo]) has been used to refer to the maintenance of the phonemic distinction between/ʝ/ and/ʎ/.[3][4][5]
Most dialects that merge the two sounds represented by⟨ll⟩ and⟨y⟩ realize the remaining sound as avoiced palatal fricative[ʝ]ⓘ, which is much like⟨y⟩ in Englishyour. However, it sometimes becomes avoiced palatal affricate[ɟʝ]ⓘ, sounding somewhat like⟨j⟩ in Englishjar, especially when appearing after/n/ or/l/ or at the beginning of a word. For example,relleno is pronounced[reˈʝeno] andconllevar is pronounced[koɲɟʝeˈβaɾ] or[kondʒeˈβaɾ].
In dialects where/ʎ/ is maintained, its pronunciation involves constriction in both the alveolar or post-alveolar area and in the palatal area. Its duration when between vowels is 20% longer than that of a simple/l/, and the formant transitions to the following vowel are nearly twice as long. Replacing/ʎ/ with/ʝ/ can thus be considered a type oflenition since it results in a lower degree of closure.[6]
In most ofArgentina andUruguay, the merged sound is pronounced as avoiced postalveolar fricative[ʒ];[7] this is referred to aszheísmo.
The[ʒ] sound itself may have originated in Argentina and Uruguay as an influence from the localAmerindian languages on the colonial Spanish spoken by the area's inhabitants of that time; the pronunciation then persisted after themass immigration of post-colonial Italians, Germans, Spaniards and more into the region, which effectively transformed the region's demographics and affected various aspects of the Spanish language there, including (most noticeably) intonation. Prior to this post-colonial mass immigration wave, like most other South American countries, the populations of Argentina and Uruguay were similarly composed of amestizo majority (those of mixed Spaniard and Amerindian ancestry); inBuenos Aires, the[ʒ] sound has recently been devoiced to[ʃ] (sheísmo) among younger speakers.[8][needs update]
Bothzheísmo andsheísmo are types ofyeísmo, which refers only to the lack of aphonemic distinction between/ʎ/ and/ʝ/, not to any particularphonetic realization of the merged phoneme.
Comparatively, within the EcuadorianSierra region (spanning from theImbabura to theChimborazo Provinces, where the pronunciation of /ʎ/ as[ʒ] survives among the majority population of colonial-descended mestizos), the sibilant has not merged, as in Argentina and Uruguay; a distinction is also maintained, but with⟨ll⟩ representing[ʒ], rather than the original Spanish[ʎ] sound, and⟨y⟩ representing[ʝ].[9] The shift from /ʎ/ to[ʒ] in this region of Ecuador is theorized to have occurred long before the 20th century, and affected both Ecuadorian Spanish andQuechua; historically (through the early 17th century), Spanish speakers in this area had maintained distinctions between[ʒ], /ʎ/,[ʝ]. This three-way distinction is still present in the Quechua of more southerly regions, such as theAzuay province, which uses the graphemes <zh>, <ll>, and <y> to distinguish between these phonemes. In theorthography of several Ecuadorian dialects of Quechua, under the influence of the orthography of Ecuadorian-Andean Spanish, the grapheme⟨ll⟩ is also used to represent the[ʒ] sound.[10]
Parts ofColombia, similarly to the Andean regions of Ecuador, maintain a distinction between⟨ll⟩ representing[ʒ] and⟨y⟩ representing[ʝ]. This type of distinction is found in southernAntioquia Department and the southeast end ofNorte de Santander Department. A greater portion of Andean Colombia maintains the distinction between[ʎ] and[ʝ]. Overall, Colombia presents great variety with regards toyeísmo.[11]
The same shift from[ʎ] to[ʒ] to[ʃ] (to modern[x]) historically occurred in the development ofOld Spanish; this accounts for such pairings as Spanishmujer vs Portuguesemulher,ojo vsolho,hija vsfilha and so on.
The distinction between/ʝ/ and/ʎ/ remains in thePhilippines, AndeanEcuador andPeru,Paraguay, both highland and lowlandBolivia, and the northeastern portions ofArgentina that border Paraguay.[12] Parts of Chile that neighbour Bolivia are traditionally non-yeísta.[13]
The retention of a distinction between/ʎ/ and/ʝ/ is more common in areas where Spanish coexists with other languages, either with Amerindian languages, such asAymara,Quechua, andGuaraní, which, except for Guaraní, themselves possess the phoneme/ʎ/,[14] or in Spain itself in areas with linguistic contact withCatalan andBasque. The presence of non-yeísta areas in parts ofsouth-central Chile may likewise be associated with the geographical overlap of theMapuche.[13]
By 1989, several traditionally non-yeísta areas, such as Bogotá and much of Spain and the Canaries, had begun rapidly adoptingyeísmo, in the span of little more than a single generation. In areas whereyeísmo is variable,[ʎ] is lost more often in rapid and casual speech. There is also anidiolectal correlation betweenyeísmo and speech rate, with fast-speaking individuals being more likely to beyeísta.[6]
By 2009 there was evidence thatyeísmo had begun appearing in the speech of Ecuador's middle and upper classes.[15] In south-central Chileyeísmo was already dominant in the first half of the 20th century but grew further at the expense of non-yeísta areas over the course of the century.[13]
In Spain, most of the northern half of the country and several areas in the south, particularly in rural Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, and part of the Canaries used to retain the distinction, butyeísmo has spread throughout the country, and the distinction is now lost in most of Spain, particularly outside areas in linguistic contact with Catalan and Basque. In monolingual, urban northern Spain, a distinction between/ʝ/ and/ʎ/ only exists among the oldest age groups in the upper classes.[16][17]
Although northern, rural areas of Spain are typically associated with lack ofyeísmo, andyeísmo is typically thought of as a southern phenomenon, there are several isolated, rural,Asturleonese-speaking areas whereyeísmo is found even among elderly speakers. These include thevalley of Nansa,Tudanca, andCabuérniga, all inCantabria. This is evidence that the existence ofyeísmo in the southern half of the Peninsula and beyond may be due to the arrival of Asturleonese settlers, who already hadyeísmo, and subsequentdialect levelling in newly reconquered southern communities.[18]
Yeísmo produceshomophony in a number of cases. For example, the following word pairs sound the same when pronounced by speakers of dialects withyeísmo, but they areminimal pairs in regions with the distinction:
The relatively low frequency of both/ʝ/ and/ʎ/ makes confusion unlikely. However, orthographic mistakes are common (for example, writing*llendo instead ofyendo). A notable case is the name of the island ofMallorca: since Mallorcans tend to pronounce intervocalic /ʎ/ as /ʝ/,central Catalan scribes assumed the authentic (and correct) nameMaiorca was another case of this andhypercorrected it toMallorca. This new form ended up becoming the usual pronunciation, even for native Mallorcans.[19]
