HISTORY of the Spanish language in the world

Spanish history

1. HISTORY OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"History of Spanish" redirects here. For the history of the Spanish people,
see Spaniards §   History .
Spanish
language
A manuscript of the Cantar de mio Cid, 13th century
Overview
Pronunciation  
stress
Orthography
Names
History
Old
Middle
Influences
Grammar
Determiners
Nouns  
gender

2. Pronouns  
personal
object
Adjectives
Prepositions
Verbs  
conjugation
irregular verbs
Dialects
Andalusian
Andean
Argentine
Belizean
Bolivian
Canarian
Caribbean
Central American
Chilean
Colombian
Costa Rican
Cuban
Dominican
Ecuadorian
Equatoguinean
Guatemalan
Honduran
Mexican
Murcian
New Mexican
Nicaraguan
Paraguay
Panamanian
Peninsular
Peruvian
Philippine  
status
Puerto Rican

3. Rioplatense
Saharan
Salvadoran
Standard
Uruguayan
Venezuelan
Dialectology
Seseo
Yeísmo
Voseo
Leísmo
Loísmo
Interlanguages
Llanito
Jopara
Judaeo-Spanish
Portuñol
Spanglish
Castrapo
Creoles
Roquetas Pidgin
Chavacano or Chabacano
Palenquero or Palenque
Aljamiado
Teaching
Hispanism
RAE
Instituto Cervantes
v
t
e
This article contains phonetic transcriptions  in the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see  Help:IPA. For the
distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA §   Brackets and transcription delimiters .
The language known today as Spanish is derived from spoken Latin, which was
brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans after their occupation of the
peninsula that started in the late 3rd century BC. Today it is the world's 4th

4. most widely spoken language, after English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi.
[1]
 Influenced by the peninsular hegemony of Al-Andalus in the early middle
ages, Hispano-Romance varieties borrowed substantial lexicon from Arabic.
Upon the southward territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Castile, Hispano-
Romance norms associated to this polity displaced both Arabic and
the Mozarabic romance varieties in the conquered territories, even though the
resulting speech also assimilated features from the latter in the process.
[2]
 The
first standard written norm of Spanish was brought forward in the 13th
century by Alfonso X the Wise (who used Castilian, i.e. Spanish, along with
Latin as languages of the administration), probably drawing from the speech of
the upper classes of Toledo.
[3]
 Features associated with the Castilian patterns of
Hispano-Romance also spread west and east to the kingdoms
of León and Aragón for the rest of the middle ages, owing to the political
prestige achieved by the Kingdom of Castile in the peninsular context and to
the lesser literary development of their vernacular norms.
[4]
 From the 1560s
onward the standard written form followed Madrid's.
[5]
The Spanish language expanded overseas in the  Early Modern period in the
wake of the Spanish conquests in the Americas (as well as the Canary Islands).
Besides the Caribbean, the colonial administration in the new territories had
its main centres of power located in Mexico City and Lima, which retained
more features from the central peninsular norm than other more peripheral
territories of the Spanish Empire, where adoption of patterns from the
southern peninsular norm of Seville (the largest city of the Crown in the 16th
century and the port linking to the Americas) was more pervasive, even though
in other regards the influence from the latter norm (associated to Andalusian
Spanish) came to be preponderant in the entire Americas.
[6]
 Spanish varieties
henceforth borrowed influence from Amerindian languages, primarily coming
from the Caribbean, the Central-Andean and Mesoamerican regions.
[7]
 Today it
is the official language of 20 countries, as well as an official language
of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations.
Main distinguishing features
The development of Spanish phonology is distinguished from those of other
nearby Romance languages (e.g. Portuguese, Catalan) by several features:
diphthongization  of Latin stressed short E and O in closed syllables as well
as open (tiempo, puerta vs. Portuguese tempo, porta)
devoicing  and further development of the medieval Spanish  sibilants,
producing (1) the velar fricative [x] in words such as caja, hijo, gente, and
(2)—in many dialects of Spain, including the prestige varieties of Madrid,
Toledo, etc.—the interdental [θ] in words such as cinco, hacer, and lazo
debuccalization  and eventual loss of Latin initial /f/ in most contexts,
marked in modern spelling by the silent ⟨h⟩ of words such

5. as hablar, hilo, hoja (from Latin fabulare, filum, and folia respectively. Also
in Gascon: hilh, huelha)
early fricativization of palatal /ʎ/ (from Vulgar Latin -LJ-, -CL-, -GL-), first
into palatal /ʒ/ and ultimately into velar /x/, e.g., filius →hijo, *oc'lu → ojo,
*coag'lare → cuajar; cf. Portuguese filho, olho, coalhar)
development of initial PL-, CL-, FL- into palatal /ʎ/ in many words,
e.g., plorare → llorar, clamare → llamar, flamma → llama; cf.
Portuguese chorar, chamar, chama, Catalan plorar, clamar, flama)
Vulgar Latin initial /j/ (from J-, DJ-, G(E)-, G(I)-) remains
before /a/, /e/ and /i/, subsequently disappearing in an unstressed
syllable
(iaceō→yace, gypsum→yeso, ienuārius→enero, *iectāre→echar, gelār
e→helar, *genuclum→hinojo vs. Portuguese jaz, gesso, janeiro, jeitar, gelar,
joelho)
The following features are characteristic of Spanish phonology and also of some
other Ibero-Romance languages, but not the Romance languages as a whole:
palatalization of Latin -NN- and -LL- into /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ (año, caballo) (also in
Catalan: any, cavall).
the phonemic merger  of /b/ and /v/, making, for example, the
noun tubo and the verb tuvo phonetically equivalent (in all contexts except
those of hypercorrection or spelling pronunciation)
[8]
 (also in Galician,
Northern European Portuguese and some Catalan and Occitan varieties)
spirantization of /b/, /d/, and /ɡ/ → [β̞], [ð̞] and [ɣ̞]—not only from original
Latin B, D, and G (as in Sp. probar, sudar, legumbre), but also from Latin
*V, P, T, and C (as in Sp. tuvo, sabe, vida, lago) (also in Galician, European
Portuguese, Catalan and parts of Occitan)
The Latin system of four verb conjugations (form classes) is reduced to three in
Spanish. The Latin infinitives with the endings -ĀRE, -ĒRE, and -ĪRE become
Spanish infinitives in -ar, -er, and -ir respectively. The Latin third conjugation—
infinitives ending in -ĔRE—are redistributed between the Spanish  -er and -
ir classes (e.g.  facere → hacer, dicere → decir). Spanish
verbal morphology continues the use of some Latin synthetic forms that were
replaced by analytic ones in spoken French and (partly) Italian (cf. Sp. lavó,
Fr. il a lavé ), and the Spanish  subjunctive mood  maintains
separate present and past-tense forms.
Spanish syntax provides overt marking for some direct objects (the so-called
"personal a", see differential object marking for the general phenomenon), and
uses clitic doubling with indirect objects, in which a "redundant" pronoun
(le, les) appears even in the presence of an explicit noun phrase. (Neither
feature occurs in other Western Romance languages ,
[citation needed]
 but both are
features of Romanian, with pe < PER corresponding to Spanish a.) With regard

6. to subject pronouns, Spanish is a pro-drop language, meaning that the verb
phrase can often stand alone without the use of a subject pronoun (or a
subject noun phrase). In some cases, such as with impersonal verbs referring
to meteorological (llover, to rain; nevar, to snow) or other natural phenomena
(amanecer, to get light out; anochecer, to get dark out), it is ungrammatical to
include a subject. Compared to other Romance languages, Spanish has a
somewhat freer syntax with relatively fewer restrictions on subject-verb-
object word order.
Due to prolonged  language contact with other languages, the
Spanish lexicon contains loanwords from Basque, Hispano-Celtic
(Celtiberian and Gallaecian), Iberian, Germanic
(Gothic), Arabic and indigenous languages of the Americas.
Accents—used in Modern Spanish to mark the vowel of the stressed syllable in words
where stress is not predictable from rules—came into use sporadically in the 15th
century, and massively in the 16th century. Their use began to be standardized with
the advent of the Spanish Royal Academy in the 18th century. See also Spanish
orthography.
External history
The standard Spanish language is also called Castilian in its original variant, and in
order to distinguish it from other languages native to parts of Spain, such as Galician,
Catalan, Basque, etc. In its earliest documented form, and up through approximately
the 15th century, the language is customarily called Old Spanish. From approximately
the 16th century on, it is called Modern Spanish. Spanish of the 16th and 17th
centuries is sometimes called "classical" Spanish, referring to the  literary
accomplishments of that period. Unlike English and French, it is not customary to
speak of a "middle" stage in the development of Spanish.
Origins
Castilian Spanish originated (after the decline of the Roman Empire) as a
continuation of spoken Latin in several areas of northern and central Spain.
Eventually, the variety spoken in the city of Toledo around the 13th century
became the basis for the written standard. With the Reconquista, this northern
dialect spread to the south, where it almost entirely replaced or absorbed the
local Romance dialects, at the same time as it borrowed many words
from Andalusi Arabic and was influenced by Mozarabic (the Romance speech of
Christians living in Moorish territory) and medieval Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino).
These languages had vanished in the Iberian Peninsula by the late 16th
century.
[9][10]

7. The prestige of Castile and its language was propagated partly by the exploits
of Castilian heroes in the battles of the Reconquista—among them Fernán
González and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid)—and by the narrative poems about
them that were recited in Castilian even outside the original territory of that
dialect.
[11]
The "first written Spanish" was traditionally considered to have appeared in
the Glosas Emilianenses located in San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja. These
are "glosses" (translations of isolated words and phrases in a form more like
Hispanic Romance than Latin) added between the lines of a manuscript that
was written earlier in Latin. Nowadays the language of the  Glosas
Emilianenses is considered to be closer to the  Navarro-Aragonese
language than to Spanish proper. Estimates of their date vary from the late
10th to the early 11th century.
[12]
The first steps toward standardization of written Castilian were taken in the
13th century by King Alfonso X of Castile, known as Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso
the Wise), in his court in Toledo. He assembled scribes at his court and
supervised their writing, in Castilian, of extensive works on history, astronomy,
law, and other fields of knowledge.
[13][14]
Antonio de Nebrija wrote the first grammar of Spanish, Gramática de la lengua
castellana, and presented it, in 1492, to Queen Isabella, who is said to have
had an early appreciation of the usefulness of the language as a tool of
hegemony, as if anticipating the empire that was about to be founded with the
voyages of Columbus.
[15]
Because Old Spanish resembles the modern written language to a relatively
high degree, a reader of Modern Spanish can learn to read medieval documents
without much difficulty.
The Spanish Royal Academy was founded in 1713, largely with the purpose of
standardizing the language. The Academy published its first dictionary in six
volumes over the period 1726–1739, and its first grammar in 1771,
[16]
 and it
continues to produce new editions of both from time to time. (The Academy's
dictionary is now accessible on the Internet.) Today, each of the Spanish-
speaking countries has an analogous language academy, and an Association of
Spanish Language Academies was created in 1951.
America
Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the discovery and colonization of the
Americas by Spanish colonizers brought the language across the Atlantic and
to Mexico, Central America, and western and southern South America.
[17]
 Under
the Spanish Crown, the language was used as a tool for colonization by

8. Spanish soldiers, missionaries, conquistadors, and entrepreneurs. In the
coming centuries, their descendants continued to spread the language.
[18]
Use of the language in the Americas was continued by descendants of the
Spaniards: Spanish   criollos  and Mestizos. After the wars of independence
fought by these colonies in the 19th century, the new ruling elites extended
their Spanish to the whole population, including the Amerindian majority, to
strengthen national unity, and nowadays it is the first and official language of
the resulting republics, except in very isolated parts of the former Spanish
colonies.
[19]
In the late 19th century, the still-Spanish colonies of  Cuba and Puerto
Rico encouraged more immigrants from Spain, and similarly other Spanish-
speaking countries such as  Argentina, Uruguay, and to a lesser
extent Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela, attracted waves
of European immigration, Spanish and non-Spanish, in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. There, the countries' large (or sizable minority) population
groups of second- and third-generation descendants adopted the Spanish
language as part of their governments' official assimilation policies to include
Europeans. In some countries, they had to be Catholics and agreed to take an
oath of allegiance to their chosen nation's government.
When Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States as a consequence
of the Spanish–American War, its population—almost entirely of Spanish and
mixed Afro-Caribbean/Spanish ( mulatto and mestizo) descent—retained its
inherited Spanish language as a mother tongue, in co-existence with the
American-imposed English as co-official. In the 20th century, more than a
million Puerto Ricans migrated to the mainland U.S. (see Puerto Ricans in the
United States).
A similar situation occurred in the American Southwest,
including California, Arizona, New Mexico  and Texas, where Spaniards,
then criollos (Tejanos, Californios, etc.) followed by  Chicanos (Mexican
Americans) and later Mexican immigrants, kept the Spanish language alive
before, during and after the American appropriation of those territories
following the Mexican–American War. Spanish continues to be used by millions
of citizens and immigrants to the United States from Spanish-speaking
countries of the Americas (for example, many  Cubans arrived in Miami,
Florida, beginning with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and followed by other
Latin American groups; the local majority is now Spanish-speaking). Spanish is
now treated as the country's "second language," and over 5 percent of the U.S.
population are Spanish-speaking, but most  Latino/Hispanic Americans are
bilingual or also regularly speak English.
Africa

9. The presence of Spanish in  Equatorial Guinea dates from the late 18th
century, and it was adopted as the official language when independence was
granted in 1968.
Spanish is widely spoken in Western Sahara, which was a protectorate/colony
of Spain from the 1880s to the 1970s.
Judaeo-Spanish
In 1492 Spain expelled its Jewish population. Their Judaeo-Spanish language,
called Ladino, developed along its own lines and continues to be spoken by a
dwindling number of speakers, mainly in Israel, Turkey, and Greece.
In the Pacific
In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the Pacific War, but
is no longer spoken there by any significant number of people. As part
of Chile since 1888, Spanish is spoken by most people in Easter Island along
with Rapa Nui language.
Spain
Language politics in Francoist Spain  (During the dictatorship of Francisco
Franco from 1939 to 1975, policies were implemented in an attempt to increase
the dominance of the Spanish language over the other languages of Spain.
Franco's regime had Spanish nationalism as its main ideological base. Under
his dictatorship, the Spanish language was declared  Spain's only official
language.
The use of other languages in the administration was either banned,
discouraged or frowned upon depending on the particular circumstances and
timing, while the use of names in other languages for newborns was forbidden
in 1938, except for foreigners.
The situation evolved from the harshest years of the immediate afterward
(especially the 1940s, also the 1950s) to the relative tolerance of the last years
(late 1960s and early 1970s); Franco died in 1975, and his successor  Juan
Carlos of Spain began the Spanish transition to democracy) declared Spanish
as the only official language in Spain, and to this day it is the most widely used
language in government, business, public education, the workplace, cultural
arts, and the media. But in the 1960s and 1970s,
[citation needed]
 the Spanish
parliament agreed to allow provinces to use, speak, and print official
documents in three other languages:  Catalan for Catalonia, Balearic
Islands and Valencia; Basque for the  Basque provinces  and Navarre,
and Galician for Galicia. Since 1975, following the death of Franco, Spain has
become a multi-party democracy and decentralized country, constituted

10. in autonomous communities. Under this system, some languages of Spain—
such as Aranese (an Occitan language of northwestern Catalonia), Basque,
Catalan/Valencian, and Galician—have gained co-official status in their
respective geographical areas. Others—such
as Aragonese, Asturian and Leonese—have been recognized by regional
governments.
International projection
When the United Nations organization was founded in 1945, Spanish was
designated one of its five  official languages  (along
with Chinese, English, French, and Russian; a sixth language, Arabic, was
added in 1973).
The list of Nobel laureates in Literature includes eleven authors who wrote in
Spanish (José Echegaray, Jacinto Benavente, Gabriela Mistral, Juan Ramón
Jiménez, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Vicente Aleixandre, Gabriel
García Márquez, Camilo José Cela, Octavio Paz, and Mario Vargas Llosa).
Influences
The mention of "influences" on the Spanish language refers primarily to lexical
borrowing. Throughout its history, Spanish has accepted  loanwords, first
from pre-Roman
languages (including Basque, Iberian, Celtiberian and Gallaecian), and later
from Greek, from  Germanic languages , from  Arabic, from
neighboring Romance languages, from Native American languages
[citation needed]
, and
from English.
The most frequently used word that entered Spanish from (or through
[22]
)
Basque is izquierda "left".
[23]
 Basque is perhaps most evident in some common
Spanish surnames, including García and Echeverría. Basque place names also
are prominent throughout Spain, because many Castilians who took part in
the Reconquista and repopulation of Moorish Iberia by Christians were
of Basque lineage. Iberian and Celtiberian likewise are thought to have
contributed place names to Spain. Words of everyday use that are attributed
to Celtic sources include  camino "road", carro "cart", colmena "hive",
and cerveza "beer".
[24]
 Suffixes such as -iego: mujeriego "womanizer" and -ego:
gallego "Galician" are also attributed to Celtic sources.
Influence of Basque phonology is credited by some researchers
[who?]
 with
softening the Spanish labiodentals: turning labiodental [v] to bilabial [β], and
ultimately deleting labiodental [f]. Others negate or downplay Basque
phonological influence, claiming that these changes occurred in the affected
dialects wholly as a result of factors internal to the language, not outside

11. influence.
[25]
 It is also possible that the two forces, internal and external, worked
in concert and reinforced each other.
Some words of Greek origin were already present in the spoken Latin that
became Spanish. Additionally, many Greek words formed part of the language
of the Church. Spanish also borrowed Ancient Greek vocabulary in the areas of
medical, technical, and scientific language, beginning as early as the 13th
century.
[26]
The influence of  Germanic languages  is very little
on phonological development, but rather is found mainly in the
Spanish lexicon. Words of Germanic origin are common in all varieties of
Spanish. The modern words for the cardinal directions (norte, este, sur, oeste),
for example, are all taken from Germanic words
(compare north, east, south and west in Modern English), after the contact
with Atlantic sailors. These words did not exist in Spanish prior to the 15th
century. Instead, "north" and "south" were  septentrion and meridion
[citation
needed]
 respectively (both virtually obsolete in Modern Spanish as nouns, unlike
their not uncommon adjectival counterparts  septentrional and meridional),
while "east" was oriente (or levante), and "west" was occidente (or poniente).
These older words for "east" and "west" continue to have some use in Modern
Spanish.
In 711 the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by Moors, who brought in the Arabic
language. For about eight hundred years, until the fall of the Emirate of
Granada (1492), Spanish borrowed thousands of words from  Andalusi
Arabic and Andalusi Romance, such as alcalde "mayor", álgebra "algebra",
aceite "oil", zanahoria "carrot", alquiler "rent", achacar "to blame", adelfa
"oleander", barrio "neighbourhood", chaleco "vest", to name just a few; making
up 8% of the Spanish dictionary—the second largest lexical influence on
Spanish after Latin.
[27][28][29]
 It is thought that the bilingualism of
the Mozarabs facilitated the large transfer of vocabulary from Arabic to
Castilian.
[30]
The neighboring Romance languages—such as  Andalusi
Romance, Galician/Portuguese, Catalan, French, and Occitan—contributed
greatly to the Spanish lexicon throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern
era.
[31]
 Borrowing from Italian occurred most frequently in the 16th and 17th
centuries, due largely to the influence of the Italian Renaissance.
[32]
The creation of the Spanish Empire in the New World led to lexical borrowing
from indigenous languages of the Americas, especially vocabulary dealing with
flora, fauna, and cultural concepts unique to the Americas.
[33]

12. Borrowing from English has become especially strong, beginning in the 20th
century, with words borrowed from many fields of activity, including sports,
technology, and commerce.
[34]
The incorporation into Spanish of learned, or "bookish" words from its own
ancestor language, Latin, is arguably another form of lexical borrowing through
the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period, most literate
Spanish-speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted
Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Spanish. The form of
Latin that Spaniards spoke and the loanwords came from was  Classical Latin,
but also Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin used in original works of the
time.
Internal history
Spanish shares with other Romance languages most of the phonological and
grammatical changes that characterized  Vulgar Latin, such as the
abandonment of distinctive vowel length, the loss of the case system for nouns,
and the loss of deponent verbs.
Syncope
Syncope in the history of Spanish refers to the loss of an unstressed vowel from
the syllable immediately preceding or following the stressed syllable. Early in
its history, Spanish lost such vowels where they preceded or followed R or L,
and between S and T.
[35][36][37]
Early syncope in
Spanish
Environmen
t
Latin
words
Spanish
words
_r
aperīre, humerum, litteram,
[38]
 operam,
honorāre
abrir, hombro, letra, obra,
honrar
r_ eremum, viridem yermo, verde
_l acūculam, fabulam, insulam, populum aguja, habla, isla, pueblo
l_ sōlitārium soltero
s_t positum, consūtūram puesto, costura

13. *Solitario, which is derived from sōlitārium, is a learned word; cf. the alternate
form soltero. As also "fábula" from "fabulam", although this last one has a
different meaning in Spanish.
Later, after the time of intervocalic voicing, unstressed vowels were lost
between other combinations of consonants:
Later syncope in
Spanish
Environment Latin words Spanish words
b_t cubitum, dēbitam, dūbitam codo, deuda, duda
c_m,
c_p, c_t
decimum, acceptōre, recitāre diezmo, azor, rezar
d_c undecim, vindicāre once, vengar
f_c advērificāre averiguar
m_c,
m_n,
m_t
hāmiceolum, hominem, comitem anzuelo, hombre, conde
n_c,
n_t
dominicum, bonitāte, cuminitiāredomingo, bondad, comenzar
p_t
capitālem, computāre,
hospitālem
caudal, contar, hostal
s_c,
s_n
quassicāre, rassicāre, asinum,
fraxinum
cascar, rascar, asno, fresno
t_c,
t_n
masticāre, portaticum, trīticum,
retinam
mascar/masticar, portazgo, trigo,
rienda
Words capital, computar, hospital, recitar and vindicar are learned words;
cf. capitālem, computāre, hospitālem, recitāre, and vindicāre and alternate
forms caudal, contar, hostal, rezar, and vengar.
Elision
While voiceless intervocalic consonants regularly became voiced, many voiced
intervocalic stops (d, g, and occasionally b) were dropped from words altogether
through a process called elision.
[39][40]
 Latin /b/ between vowels usually changed
to /v/ in Old Spanish (e.g.  habēre > aver), while
Latin /p/ became /b/ (sapere > saber). In modern times the two phonemes

14. merged into /b/ (haber, saber), realized as [β] between vowels (see Betacism).
Latin voiced stops—/b/,  /d/, and  /ɡ/, which are
represented orthographically as B, D, and G respectively—and also occurred in
intervocalic positions also underwent lenition: [β], [ð], and [ɣ], but appeared in
Spanish also through learned words from Classical Latin.
Examples
of
 elision in
Spanish
Consonant Latin word Spanish word
b → ∅ vendēbat vendía
d → ∅
comedere, vidēre, hodie, cadēre, pede,
quō modō
comer, ver, hoy, caer, pie,
cómo
g → ∅ cōgitāre, digitum, legere, ligāre, lēgālecuidar, dedo, leer, liar, leal
Many forms with d and g preserved, e.g. ligar, legal, dígito, crudo, are learned
words (Latinisms); cf. the alternate forms  liar, leal, dedo and Old
Spanish cruo and its Latin origin crūdus.
An exemption to the rule: The retention of the d and g is due to the invalidity of
the -ao, -aa, -oo, and -oa hiatuses in Old Spanish that would result from
dropping it.
Consonant Latin word Spanish word
d → [ð] gradus, vadum, modus grado, vado, modo
g → [ ]
ɣ
sparagus, agustus, plāga,
magus
espárrago, agosto, llaga,
mago
Voicing and spirantization
In virtually all the  Western Romance languages , the
Latin voiceless stops—/p/, /t/, and  /k/, which are
represented orthographically as P, T, and C (including Q) respectively—where
they occurred in an "intervocalic" environment (qualified below), underwent
one, two, or three successive stages of  lenition,
from voicing to spirantization to, in some cases, elision (deletion). In Spanish
these three consonants generally undergo both  voicing and spirantization,
resulting in voiced fricatives: [β], [ð], and [ɣ], respectively.
[41][42]
 Although it was

15. once speculated that this change came about as a transfer of phonological
features from substrate Celtic and Basque languages, which were in
geographical proximity to Iberian Vulgar Latin (see Sprachbund), it is now
widely recognized that such change is a natural internal development.
[43]
[44]
 Intervocalic /p/, /t/, and /k/ reappeared in Spanish through learned words
from Classical Latin and also appeared in Spanish through consonant cluster
simplification from Vulgar Latin (see below), and Latin voiced stops—/b/, /d/,
and /ɡ/, which are represented orthographically as B, D, and G respectively—
and also occurred in intervocalic positions also underwent lenition: [β], [ð],
and [ɣ], but appeared in Spanish also through learned words from Classical
Latin and also appeared in Spanish through consonant cluster simplification
from Vulgar Latin.
The phonological environment of these changes is not only between vowels but
also after a vowel and before a sonorant consonant such as /r/ (Latin patrem >
Spanish padre)—but not the reverse (Latin  partem > Spanish parte, not
*parde).
Examples
of
 voicing and spirantization in
Spanish
Consonants Latin word Spanish word
p → b [β]
aperīre, cooperīre,
lupum,
operam, populum,
capram, superāre
1
abrir [a β ir], cu
ˈ ɾ
brir [ku β ir], lo
ˈ ɾ
bo [ loβo],
ˈ
obra [ oβ a], pue
ˈ ɾ
blo [ pweβlo],
ˈ
cabra [ kaβ a], so
ˈ ɾ
brar [soβ ar]
ˈɾ
t → d [ð]
cīvitātem, cubitum,
latum, mūtāre,
scūtum, stātus, petram
ciudad [θju ðað], co
ˈ
do [ koðo], la
ˈ
do [ laðo],
ˈ
mudar [mu ðar],
ˈ
escudo [es kuðo], esta
ˈ
do [es taðo],
ˈ
piedra [ pjeðra]
ˈ
c → g [ ]
ɣ
focum, lacum, locum,
pacāre, sacrātum, aqua,
lucrum
2
fuego [ fwe o], la
ˈ ɣ
go [ la o], lue
ˈ ɣ
go [ lwe o],
ˈ ɣ
pagar [pa ar], sa
ˈɣ
grado [sa aðo],
ˈɣɾ
agua [ a wa], lo
ˈ ɣ
gro [ lo o]
ˈ ɣɾ
1
Latin superāre produced both sobrar and its learned doublet superar.
2
Latin lucrum produced both logro and its learned doublet lucro.
The verb decir, in its various conjugated forms, exemplifies different phonetic
changes, depending on whether the letter <c> (Latin  /k/) was followed by
a front vowel or not. The Latin /k/ changes ultimately to Spanish /θ/ when
followed by the front vowels (/i/ or /e/—thus dice, decimos, etc.), but in other
forms, before a back vowel, /k/ is voiced to /ɡ/ and, in the modern language,

16. realized as a spirant [ɣ] (as in digo, diga). This also is the pattern of a few other
Spanish verbs ending in -cer or -cir, as in the table below:
Forms
with
 /k/ → /θ/,/s/ (before
front vowels)
Forms
with
 /k/ → / /
ɡ
 (before
back
vowels)
English Latin Spanish English Latin Spanish
To say,
to tell
It says,
it tells
dīcere / di kere/
ˈ ː
dīcit / di kit/
ˈ ː
decir /de θi /,/de
ˈ ɾ
si /
ˈ ɾ
dice / diθe/,/ dise/
ˈ ˈ
I say, I
tell
May it
tell
dīcō / di ko /
ˈ ː ː
dīcat / di kat/
ˈ ː
digo / di o/
ˈ ɡ
diga / di a/
ˈ ɡ
To do,
to make
It does,
it
makes
facere / fakere/
ˈ
facit / fakit/
ˈ
hacer /a θe /,/a se /
ˈ ɾ ˈ ɾ
hace / aθe/,/ ase/
ˈ ˈ
I do, I
make
May it
make
faciō >
*facō / fako /
ˈ ː
faciat >
*facat / fakat/
ˈ
hago / a o/
ˈ ɡ
haga / a a/
ˈ ɡ
Vowel raising
Stressed vowels were raised when followed by [j] in the same or next syllable
(except when the [j] had fused with earlier preceding /t/ or /k/,
e.g. fortia → fuerza with diphthongization).
[45]
 This blocked the later process of
diphthongization.
Examples
of
 raising in
Spanish
Change Latin Spanish Change Latin Spanish
/e/ → /i/vitreum, vindēmiavidrio, vendimia/o/ → /u/lucta *[lo ta]
i̯
[46]
lucha
/a, / →
ɛ
/e/
bāsium, praemiumbeso, premio/ / → /o/
ɔ
octō *[ to]
ɔi̯
[47]
ocho
Apocope of -e
A word-final unstressed /e/ is lost when following a dental or alveolar
consonant other than /t/ and preceded by a vowel.
[48]
 This happened after the
voicing described above, as e.g. parietem → pared.
[49]
Examples
of
 apocope of -e in
Spanish
[50]

17. LatinSpanish LatinSpanish
parietemparedmercēdemmerced
pānem pan mare mar
fidēlem fielmēnsem mes
pācem paz
Diphthongization in open and closed syllables
It is commonly thought that the reflexes of stressed short E and O of Latin
were realised, after the loss of phonemic quantity, as the low-mid vowels /ɛ/
and /ɔ/ respectively in the Western Romance languages, contrasting with
close-mid /e/ and /o/, which would have originated from the mergers between
long E and short I and between long O and short U, respectively; this change
would explain the similarity of the vowel systems in modern Romance
languages such as Portuguese, Catalan and Italian. These low-mid vowels
subsequently would have undergone diphthongization in many of the Western
Romance languages. In Spanish this change occurs regardless of  syllable
shape (open or closed), in contrast to French and Italian, where it takes place
only in open syllables, and in greater contrast to Portuguese where
this diphthongization does not occur at all. As a result, Spanish phonology
exhibits a five-vowel system, not the seven-vowel system that is typical of many
other Western Romance languages.
[51][52][53]
 The stressed
short [e] and [o] reappeared in Spanish through learned words from Classical
Latin and also evolved from short vowels /i/ and /u/ from Vulgar Latin, and
was retained from long vowels [eː] and [oː] from Vulgar Latin.
Spanish diphthongization in open
and closed syllables
Syllable
shape
Latin Spanish French Italian
Portugues
e
Catalan
Open
petram,
focus
piedra,
fuego
pierre,
feu
pietra,
fuoco
pedra, fogo
pedra,
foc
Closed
festa,
porta
fiesta,
puerta
fête,
porte
festa,
porta
festa, porta
festa,
porta

18. Learned words and consonant cluster simplification
Learned words—that is, "bookish" words transmitted partly through writing
and thus affected by their Latin form—became increasingly frequent with the
works of Alfonso X in the mid-to-late 13th century. Many of these words
contained consonant clusters which, in oral transmission, had been reduced to
simpler consonant clusters or single consonants in previous centuries. This
same process affected many of these new, more  academic, words, especially
when the words extended into popular usage in the Old Spanish period. Some
of the consonant clusters affected were -ct-, -ct[i]-, -pt-, -gn-, -mn-, -mpt-, and -
nct-. Most of the simplified forms have since reverted to the learned forms or
are now considered to be uneducated.
[54]
Reduction
of consonant clusters
Consonant
cluster
Latin form Learned
form
Old
Spanish
form
Modern
Spanish
form
ct → t
effectum,
perfectum,
respectum,
aspectum,
dīstrīctus,
sectam
efecto,
perfecto,
respecto,
aspecto,
districto, secta
efeto,
perfeto,
respeto,
aspeto,
distrito, seta
efecto, perfecto,
respeto/respecto,
aspecto, distrito,
secta
ct[i] → cc[i]
→ c[i]
affectiōnem,
lectiōnem,
perfectiōnem
affección,
lección,
perfección
afición,
lición,
perfeción
afición/afección,
lección, perfección
pt → t
acceptāre,
baptismum,
conceptum,
raptus
aceptar,
baptismo,
concepto,
rapto
acetar,
bautismo,
conceto,
rato
aceptar, bautismo,
concepto, rato
gn → n
dīgnum,
magnīficum,
signīficāre
digno,
magnífico,
significar
dino,
manífigo,
sinifigar
digno, magnífico,
significar
mn → n
columnam,
solemnitātem,
alūmnus
columna,
solemnidad,
alumno
coluna,
solenidad,
aluno
columna,
solemnidad, alumno
mpt → nt promptum, prompto, pronto, pronto, exento

19. exemptum exempto exento
nct → nt
sanctus,
distīnctum
sancto,
distincto
santo,
distinto
santo, distinto
Most of these words have modern forms which more closely
resemble Latin than Old Spanish. In Old Spanish, the simplified forms were
acceptable forms which were in coexistence (and sometimes competition) with
the learned forms. The Spanish  educational system, and later the Real
Academia Española, with their demand that all consonants of a word be
pronounced, steadily drove most simplified forms from existence. Many of the
simplified forms were used in  literary works in the  Middle
Ages and Renaissance (sometimes intentionally as an archaism), but have
since been relegated mostly to popular and uneducated speech. Occasionally,
both forms exist in Modern Spanish with different meanings or
in idiomatic usage: for example afición is a 'fondness (of)' or 'taste (for)',
while afección is 'illness'; Modern Spanish respeto is '(attitude of) respect',
while con respecto a means 'with regard to'.
Most words with consonant clusters in syllable-final position are loanwords
from Classical Latin, examples are:  transporte [tɾans
ˈpor.te], transmitir [tɾanz.miˈtir], instalar [ins.taˈlar], constante [konsˈtante], 
obstante [oβsˈtante], obstruir [oβsˈtɾwir], perspectiva [pers.pekˈti.βa], istmo 
[ˈist.mo]. A syllable-final position cannot be more than one consonant (one of n,
r, l, s or z) in most (or all) dialects in colloquial speech, reflecting Vulgar Latin
background. Realizations like  [trasˈpor.te], [tɾaz.miˈtir], [is.taˈlar], [kos
ˈtante], [osˈtante], [osˈtɾwir], and [ˈiz.mo] are very common, and in many cases,
they are considered acceptable even in formal speech.
Another type of consonant cluster simplification involves  "double"
(geminate) plosives that reduced to single: -pp-, -tt-, -cc-, -bb-, -dd-, -
gg- /pː, tː, kː, bː, dː, gː/ > -p-, -t-, -c-, -b-, -d-, -g- /p, t, k, b, d, g/. The simplified
Spanish outcomes of the Latin voiced series  -bb-, -dd-, -
gg- /bː, dː, gː/ remain voiced, inducing phonemic merger with intervocalic /b/,
/d/, /g/ that issued from voicing of Latin /p/, /t/, /k/, so that all are subject
to the same phonetic realization as  voiced fricatives: [β], [ð], and [ɣ],
respectively.
Simplification
of double plosives in Spanish
Consonant Latin word Spanish word

20. bb [b ]
ː
 → b [β
]
ABBĀTEM abad
dd [d ]
ː
 → d [ð]
IN + ADDERE, ADDICTUS,
ADDICTIŌNEM
añadir, adicto, adicción
gg [g ]
ː
 → g [ ]
ɣ
AGGRAVARE agravar
pp [p ]
ː
 → p [p]
CUPPAM, CIPPUS, VAPPA,
SUPPORTĀRE, SUPPŌNĒRE
copa, cepo, guapo,
soportar, suponer
tt [t ]
ː
 → t [t]
CATTUM, GUTTAM, QUATTUOR,
LITTERAM, ATTENDĒRE,
ATTRAHERE, ATTRIBUERE, RATTUS
gato, gota, cuatro, letra,
atender, atraer, atrever,
rata
cc [k ]
ː
 → c [k]
VACCAM, PECCĀRE, SICCUS,
ACCŪSĀRE, OCCURRERE, BUCCAM
vaca, pecar, seco,
acusar, ocurrir, boca
Vocalization
The term "vocalization" refers to the change from a consonant to the vowel-like
sound of a glide. Some syllable-final consonants, regardless of whether they
were already syllable-final in Latin or brought into that position by syncope,
became glides. Labials (b, p, v) yielded the rounded glide [w] (which was in turn
absorbed by a preceding  round vowel), while the velar c ([k]) produced
the palatal glide [j] (which could palatalize a following [t] and be absorbed by
the resulting palatal affricate). (The forms debda, cobdo, and dubdar are
documented in Old Spanish; but the hypothetical forms * oito and *noite had
already given way to ocho and noche by the time Castilian became a written
language.)
[55][56][57]
Syllable-final
vocalization
Change Latin word Intermediate
form
Spanish word
p → w
baptistam,
capitālem
(none for baptistam),
cabdal
bautista, caudal
b → w dēbitam debda deuda
(u)b → w →
Ø
cubitum, dubitāre cobdo, dubdar codo, dudar

21. v → w cīvitātem cibdad ciudad
ct → ch octō, nōctem *oito, *noite ocho, noche
Betacism
See also: Betacism
Most Romance languages have maintained the distinction between a
phoneme /b/ and a phoneme  /v/: a voiced bilabial stop and a voiced,
usually labiodental, fricative, respectively. Instances of the /b/ phoneme could
be inherited directly from Latin /b/ (unless between vowels), or they could
result from the voicing of Latin /p/ between vowels. The /v/ phoneme was
generally derived either from an allophone of Latin /b/ between vowels or from
the Latin phoneme corresponding to the letter ⟨v⟩ (pronounced [w] in Classical
Latin but later fortified to the status of a fricative consonant in Vulgar Latin).
In most Romance-speaking regions,  /v/ had labiodental articulation, but
in Old Spanish, which still distinguished /b/ and /v/, the latter was probably
realized as a bilabial fricative [β]. The contrast between the two phonemes
was neutralized in certain environments, as the fricative [β] also occurred as
an allophone of /b/ between vowels, after a vowel, and after certain
consonants in Old Spanish.
[58]
 The similarity between the stop  [b] and
fricative [β] resulted in their complete merger by the end of the Old Spanish
period (16th century).
[59]
 In Modern Spanish, the letters ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ represent
the same phoneme (usually treated as /b/ in phonemic transcription), which is
generally realized as the fricative [β] except when utterance-initial or after a
nasal consonant, when it is realized as the stop [b]. The same situation prevails
in Northern Portuguese  and in Galician, but the other  Portuguese
dialects maintain the distinction. The merger of /b/ and /v/ also occurs in
Standard Catalan in eastern Catalonia, but the distinction is retained in most
varieties of Valencian and in some areas in southern Catalonia, in the Balearic
dialect, as well as in Algherese.
In Modern Spanish, from the 16th century onward, the choice of orthographic
⟨b⟩ or ⟨v⟩ depends mainly on the etymology of the word. The orthography
attempts to mimic the Latin spelling, rather than to keep the pronunciation-
based spelling of Old Spanish.
[8]
 Thus, Old Spanish  bever "to
drink", bivir/vivir "to live" become beber, vivir, respectively, following the Latin
spelling bibere, vīvere. The Spanish placename  Córdoba, often
spelled Cordova in Old Spanish (the spelling that prevailed in English until the
20th century), now reflects the spelling used by the city's Roman
founders, Corduba.
Latin f- to Spanish h- to null
See also: Phonetic change "f → h" in Spanish

22. F was almost always initial in Latin words, and in Spanish most phonemes /f/
followed by a simple vowel passed through a stage in which the consonant
eventually developed to [h] and then was lost phonologically. Spelling
conventions have  grapheme ⟨h⟩ used in words such
as humo 'smoke', hormiga 'ant', hígado 'liver' (compare Italian fumo, formica,
fegato, with /f/ intact), but in terms of both structure and pronunciation, the
initial consonant has been lost: /ˈumo/, /orˈmiɡa/, /ˈiɡado/. It is thought that
⟨f⟩ represented the labiodental [f] in Latin, which underwent a series
of lenitions to become, successively, bilabial [ɸ] and then glottal [h] (hence the
modern spelling), and it was then lost altogether in most varieties; ⟨h⟩ is
assumed to have been "silent" in Vulgar Latin. The first written evidence of the
process dates from 863, when the Latin name Forticius was written as Ortiço,
which might have been pronounced with initial [h] but certainly not [f]. (The
same name appears as Hortiço in a document from 927.) The replacement of ⟨f⟩
by ⟨h⟩ in spelling is not frequent before the 16th century, but that is thought
not to reflect preservation of /f/. Rather, ⟨f⟩ was consistently used to
represent /h/ until the phoneme /f/ reappeared in the language (around the
16th century, as a result of loanwords from Classical Latin). Then, it became
necessary to distinguish both phonemes in spelling.
The change from /f/ to /h/ occurred in the Romance speech of Old Castile,
eastern Asturian, and Gascon, but nowhere else nearby.
[60]
 Since much of this
area was historically bilingual with Basque, and Basque once had [h] but no [f],
it is often suggested that the change was caused by Basque influence.
However, this is contested by many linguists.
Most current instances of /f/ are either learned words (those influenced by
their written Latin form, such as forma, falso, fama, feria), loanwords of Arabic
and Greek origin, or words whose initial ⟨f⟩ in Old Spanish is followed by a
non-vowel (⟨r⟩, ⟨l⟩, or the  glide element of a  diphthong), as
in frente, flor, fiesta, fuerte.
[61][62][63]
 That, along with the effect of preservation
of /f/ regionally (Asturian fumu 'smoke', formiga 'ant', fégadu 'liver'), accounts
for modern doublets such as Fernando (learned) and Hernando (inherited)
(both Spanish for "Ferdinand"),  fierro (regional) and hierro (both
"iron"), fastidio and hastío (both Spanish for "boredom"),
and fondo and hondo (fondo means "bottom" and  hondo means "deep").
Also, hacer ("to make") is the root word of  satisfacer ("to satisfy"),
and hecho ("made") is the root word of  satisfecho ("satisfied")
(cf. malhechor and fechorías).
As mentioned above, /h/ was not lost in all varieties. As of the late 20th
century, word-initial ⟨h⟩ was pronounced as an  /h/ in lower-class,
predominantly rural speech in a number of western regions of Spain,
specifically western Andalusia and Extremadura, the Canary Islands, part of
western Salamanca, part of Cantabria, a northeastern area in León, and in the
Asturian language as spoken in eastern Asturias,
[60]
 as well as in much of Latin

23. America, where it similarly tends to be confined to lower-class and rural
speech.
[64]
 The distribution of this pronunciation throughout so much of
western Spain suggests that its spread was due in large part to the role of
eastern Asturians in the reconquest of these zones.
[60]
 At least in Latin America,
the Canaries, Andalusia, and Extremadura, this  /h/ is merged with the
phoneme /x~h/, which comes from medieval /ʃ/ and /ʒ/.
[65]
Examples
of Latin 'f-' to Spanish 'h-'
Conso
nants
Latin word Old
Spanish form
Modern
Spanish
 word
f- → h-
fabulāri, facere, 
faciendam, factum, famine
m,
farīnam, fēminam, 
fīcatum, fīlium, folia,
fōrmōsum, fūmum, 
fungum, furcam
fablar, fazer, 
fazienda, feito, fambr
e,
farina, fembra, 
fígado, fijo, foja,
formoso, fumo, 
fongo, forca
hablar, hacer, 
hacienda, hecho, hamb
re,
harina, hembra, 
hígado, hijo, hoja,
hermoso, humo, hongo, 
horca
Fabulāri is translated as "make stories", opposed to its Spanish
derivative hablar which means "speak" or "to talk".
Silent Latin h-
'H' is originally pronounced in Classical Latin, but became silent in Vulgar
Latin. Thus, words were spelled without any such consonant in Old Spanish;
in Modern Spanish, from the 16th century onward, it attempts to mimic the
Latin spelling rather than continue Old Spanish orthography.
Examples
Cons
onant
s
Latin word
Old
Spa
nis
h
for
m
Modern
Spanish
 word
h- →
∅
→ h-
habēbat, habēre, habuī, hodiē, 
hominem, honorāre, hospitālem, hu
merum
avié
;
ave
r;
ove;
oy;
había, haber, hube, hoy, 
hombre, honrar, hostal/hospital, 
hombro

24. om
ne,
omr
e,
om
bre;
onr
ar;
osta
l;
om
bro
Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants
Main article: Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives
During the 16th century, the three voiced  sibilant phonemes—dental /d ͡ z /,
apico-alveolar /z/, and palato-alveolar /ʒ/ (as in Old Spanish fazer, casa,
and ojo, respectively) lost their voicing and merged with
their voiceless counterparts: /t ͡ s /, /s/, and  /ʃ/ (as in  caçar, passar,
and baxar respectively). The character ⟨ç⟩, called ⟨c⟩ cedilla, originated in Old
Spanish
[66]
 but has been replaced by ⟨z⟩ in the modern language.
Additionally, the affricate /t͡s/ lost its stop component, to become a
laminodental fricative, [s̪].
[67]
 As a result, the sound system then contained two
sibilant fricative phonemes whose contrast depended entirely on a subtle
distinction between their places of articulation: apicoalveolar, in the case of
the /s/, and laminodental, in the case of the new fricative sibilant /s̪/, which
was derived from the affricate /t͡s/. The distinction between the sounds grew in
the dialects of northern and central Spain by paradigmatic dissimilation, but
dialects in Andalusia and the Americas merged both sounds.
The dissimilation in the northern and central dialects occurred with
the laminodental fricative moving forward to an  interdental place of
articulation, losing its sibilance to become [θ]. The sound is represented in
modern spelling by ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ and by ⟨z⟩ elsewhere. In the south of
Spain, the deaffrication of /t͡s/ resulted in a direct merger with /s/, as both
were homorganic,
[citation needed ]
 and the new phoneme became either
laminodental [s̪] ("seseo", in the Americas and parts of Andalusia)
or [θ] ("ceceo", in a few parts of Andalusia). In general, coastal regions of
Andalusia preferred [θ], and more inland regions preferred [s̪] (see the map
at ceceo).
During the colonization of the Americas, most settlers came from the south of
Spain; that is the cause, according to almost all scholars, for nearly all Spanish

25. speakers in the New World still speaking a language variety derived mainly
from the Western Andalusian and Canarian dialects.
Meanwhile, the alveopalatal fricative /ʃ/, the result of the merger of
voiceless /ʃ/ (spelled ⟨x⟩ in Old Spanish) with voiced /ʒ/ (spelled with ⟨j⟩ in
some words and in others with ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩), was moved backward in all
dialects, to become (depending on geographical variety) velar [x], uvular [χ] (in
parts of Spain) or glottal [h] (in Andalusia, Canary Islands, and parts of the
Americas, especially the Caribbean region).
[68][69]
Interchange of the liquids /l/ and /r/
One unusual feature of Spanish etymology is the way in which
the liquids /r/ and /l/ have sometimes replaced each other in words derived
from Latin, French and other sources. For example, Spanish milagro, "miracle",
is derived from Latin miraculum. More rarely, this process has involved
consonants like /d/ and /n/ (as in alma, from Latin anima). Here is an
incomplete list of such words:
ancla, "anchor", Latin ancora
albedrío, "will, whim, fancy", Latin arbitrium, "judgment, decision, will"
(arbitrio is a learned form, i.e.: loanword from Classical Latin)
algalia, "catheter", Ancient Greek: ἐργαλεία ergaleía, "tools"
alimaña, "pest", almaje "livestock", Latin animalĭa, "animals"
alma, "soul", Latin anima
alondra, "lark", Latin alaudula
altramuz, "lupin", Hispanic Arabic at-tarmūs
árbol, "tree", Latin arbor
Argelia, "Algeria (nation)"
azufre, sulfur, Latin sulphur
azul, "blue", Arabic: دروزلا lāzaward "lapis lazuli" (cf. medieval Latin azura,
French azure)
blandir, "to brandish", French brandir
bolsa, "bag, purse", Latin bursa
cárcel, "prison", Latin carcer (cf. English "incarcerate")
calambre, "cramp, electric shock", French crampe
Catalina, Latin Catharina (proper name; Catarina is a learned form; i.e.
loanword from Classical Latin)
chaflán, "chamfer", French chanfrein.
cilantro, "coriander", Latin coriandrum
cimbrar, "shake (a stick), sway, swish", Latin cymula, "sprout, shoot (of
plant)"
corcel, "steed, fast horse", French corsier
coronel, "colonel", French colonel, from Italian colonnello

26. Cristóbal, Germanic Christoffer, from Latin Christopherus (proper name)
cuartel, "quarter", French quartier
dintel, "lintel", Old French lintel
escolta, "escort", Italian scorta
espuela, "spur", Gothic *spaúra (cf. French éperon)
estiércol, "dung", Latin, stercus (stem stercor-)
estrella, "star", from Latin stella (cf. Italian stella, French étoile)
flete, "freight, cargo", French fret
fraile, "friar", Provençal fraire, from Latin frater, "brother"
franela, "flannel", French flanelle
frasco, "flask", Germanic flasko
guirnalda, "garland", older Spanish guirlanda, cf. French guirlande
golondrina, "swallow (bird)", Latin hirundo
lirio, "lily, iris", Latin lilium
mármol, "marble", Latin marmor
miércoles, "Wednesday", Latin Mercuri [dies], "Mercury's [day]"
milagro, "miracle", Latin miraculum
nivel, "level", Latin libellum, "little balance", from libra, "balance"
olor, "smell, scent", Latin odor
papel, "paper", Catalan paper, Latin papyrus
palabra, "word", Latin parabola
peligro, "danger", Latin periculum (cf. English "peril")
plática, "chat, conversation", Latin practica
quemar, "to burn", Latin cremare (cf. English "cremation")
quilate, "carat", Arabic: طاري
``ق
 qīrāṭ "carat" < Ancient Greek: κεράτιον "carob
seed" (cf. Italian carato)
recluta, "recruit", French recrute
regaliz(a), "liquorice", Late Latin liquiritia
roble, "oak", Latin robur, "strong"
sable, "sabre", France sabre
silo, "silo", Latin sirus from Greek siros, "pit for storing grain"
surco, "groove, furrow", Latin sulcus
taladro, "drill", Latin tarātrum < Celtic tarātron
temblar, "tremble", Latin tremulāre
templar, "temper, warm up", Latin temperō
tiniebla(s), "darkness", Latin tenebrae
Yeísmo
Main article: Yeísmo
Documents from as early as the 15th century show occasional evidence of
sporadic confusion between the phoneme  /ʝ/ (generally spelled ⟨y⟩) and the
palatal lateral /ʎ/ (spelled ⟨ll⟩). The distinction is maintained in spelling, but in
most dialects of Modern Spanish, the two have merged into the same, non-

27. lateral palatal sound. Thus, for example, most Spanish-speakers have the
same pronunciation for haya (from the verb haber) as for halla (from hallar).
The phonemic merger is called yeísmo, based on one name for the letter ⟨y⟩.
[70][71]
[72]
Yeismo is a trait of the Andalusian dialect, among others. Since more than half
of the early settlers of Spanish America came from Andalusia,
[73][74][75]
 most
Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas have yeísmo, but there are pockets
in which the sounds are still distinguished. Native-speakers of neighboring
languages, such as  Galician, Astur-
Leonese, Basque, Aragonese, Occitan and Catalan, usually do not
feature yeísmo in their Spanish since those languages retain the /ʎ/ phoneme.
A related trait that has also been documented sporadically for several hundred
years is rehilamiento (literally "whizzing"), the pronunciation of /ʝ/ as a sibilant
fricative [ʒ] or even an affricate [d ʒ ], which is common among non-native
Spanish speakers as well. The current pronunciation varies greatly depending
on the geographical dialect and sociolect (with [d ʒ ], especially, stigmatized
except at the beginning of a word).  Rioplatense
Spanish (of Argentina and Uruguay) is particularly known for the
pronunciation [ʒ] of both /ʝ/ and original /ʎ/. A further development, the
unvoiced pronunciation [ʃ], during the second half of the twentieth century
came to characterize the speech of "most younger residents of Buenos Aires"
and continues to spread throughout Argentina.
[76]
References
1. "History of Spanish language". Language Throne. Retrieved 2023-03-19.
2. "The Spanish Language | Rosetta Stone®". Rosetta Stone. 10 October 2020.
Retrieved 2 June 2021.
3. Stavans, Ilan (2017-04-26). "The Spanish Language in Latin America since
Independence". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American
History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.371. ISBN 978-0-19-936643-9.
Retrieved 2 June 2021.
4. Macpherson, I. R. (1980). Spanish phonology. Manchester: Manchester University
Press. p. 93. ISBN 0719007887.
5. Hussain, Hamid. "(DOC) Impact of Arabic on Spanish | Hamid Hussain -
Academia.edu". Archived from the original on 2022-08-30. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
6. Quintana, Lucía; Mora, Juan Pablo (2002). "Enseñanza del acervo léxico árabe de la
lengua española" (PDF). ASELE. Actas XIII: 705.: "El léxico español de procedencia
árabe es muy abundante: se ha señalado que constituye, aproximadamente, un 8% del
vocabulario total"