6 ms·

Spanish has five. Period. No exceptions. And crystal clear.

egwynn 9y ago
1. You deserve my downvote for claiming “no exceptions” in a linguistic matter. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Exact_number_of_allophones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Exact_number... There is no agreement among scholars on how many vowel allophones Spanish has.
- spanxx 9y ago
  Frontera tour link: > According to Eugenio Martínez Celdrán, however, systematic classification of Spanish allophones is impossible due to the fact that their occurrence varies from speaker to speaker and from region to region. According to him, the exact degree of openness of Spanish vowels depends not so much on the phonetic environment, but rather on various external factors accompanying speech. So parent point stands. That's my opinion as well as a Spaniard.
  - ithkuil 9y ago
    "no exceptions" sounds like the focus is on rules, in particular on orthography (correct writing). It's easy to ban exceptions if you make the rules. This is the realm of prescriptive linguistics. The very fact that there are individuals and whole group of people who actually talk differently can, has been, and still often is dismissed as either ignorance, class, personal idiosincrasies, ... There is a different way at looking at the thing: observing it objectively as other things in nature. This descriptive linguistics is endlessly fascinating to me, as it's less infected by human desires that have nothing to do with linguistics and all to do with politics. An example of where those two viewpoints begin to present reality in a quite different way and yet don't require to be a trained linguist to grasp it is the definition of where a dialect ends and a language begins.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  Allophones are not a great thing to cite in a dispute over how many vowels a language has. Unless you know you're in a context where people are talking about allophones specifically, no one will care.
nohat00 9y ago
Well, except for the 14 diphthongs and the fact that /e/ and /o/ are more like /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ in certain closed syllables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Vowels
- kolpa 9y ago
  Those diphthongs have the same sound as combining the sounds of the two letters used to spell them, though.
  - DonaldPShimoda 9y ago
    The sounds may be similar, but they are not identical. Diphthongs are considered to be single segments phonologically, and some pronunciation changes can occur in "blending" the component parts together. But I'm not sure I would go so far as to say all of the diphthongs should be counted as separate "vowels" in the language.

1. You deserve my downvote for claiming “no exceptions” in a linguistic matter. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Exact_number_of_allophones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Exact_number... There is no agreement among scholars on how many vowel allophones Spanish has.

spanxx 9y ago
Frontera tour link: > According to Eugenio Martínez Celdrán, however, systematic classification of Spanish allophones is impossible due to the fact that their occurrence varies from speaker to speaker and from region to region. According to him, the exact degree of openness of Spanish vowels depends not so much on the phonetic environment, but rather on various external factors accompanying speech. So parent point stands. That's my opinion as well as a Spaniard.
- ithkuil 9y ago
  "no exceptions" sounds like the focus is on rules, in particular on orthography (correct writing). It's easy to ban exceptions if you make the rules. This is the realm of prescriptive linguistics. The very fact that there are individuals and whole group of people who actually talk differently can, has been, and still often is dismissed as either ignorance, class, personal idiosincrasies, ... There is a different way at looking at the thing: observing it objectively as other things in nature. This descriptive linguistics is endlessly fascinating to me, as it's less infected by human desires that have nothing to do with linguistics and all to do with politics. An example of where those two viewpoints begin to present reality in a quite different way and yet don't require to be a trained linguist to grasp it is the definition of where a dialect ends and a language begins.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
Allophones are not a great thing to cite in a dispute over how many vowels a language has. Unless you know you're in a context where people are talking about allophones specifically, no one will care.

nohat00 9y ago

Well, except for the 14 diphthongs and the fact that /e/ and /o/ are more like /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ in certain closed syllables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology#Vowels

kolpa 9y ago
Those diphthongs have the same sound as combining the sounds of the two letters used to spell them, though.
- DonaldPShimoda 9y ago
  The sounds may be similar, but they are not identical. Diphthongs are considered to be single segments phonologically, and some pronunciation changes can occur in "blending" the component parts together. But I'm not sure I would go so far as to say all of the diphthongs should be counted as separate "vowels" in the language.