3 ms·

"Oaxaca," just like it sounds

pessimizer 5y ago
That's a really good example. Was it supposed to be a bad one? The only glaring exception I run into in Spanish is "que" being pronounced "ke."
- lelandfe 5y ago
  In my learning, I've definitely found that holdover words with "X" are the strangest relative to what is taught. "Oaxaca" has at least two different pronunciations depending on where you are in Mexico, since the pronunciation has evolved over time. See also: xerez.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency. "ll" is the same way.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency Doesn't seem that way to me; the native speakers I’ve known tend to pronounce the X’s different ways in: México / Oaxaca vs. Xochilmilco vs. Ixtlan / Tepexpan
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        I'm not as familiar with American place names, but there's an obvious reason why those would have pronunciations that couldn't be spelled easily in Spanish. "X" in Mexican might be shorthand for sharp mystery consonant.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        In each of those, the “x” originates from Nahuatl where it had a sound of (or close to) English “sh”, which is also the sound “x” had (maybe still has, though I’m pretty sure there has been shift in Iberian accents/dialects since then) in certain Iberian regional accents of Spanish at the time, which is how “x” got into the Spanish spelling; it wasn't a stand-in for a mystery consonant.
        pezezin 5y ago
        Your comment is correct. As far as I know, "x" still sounds /ʃ/ in Galician, Basque and Catalan. In Spanish, it became /x/ centuries ago, and the spelling changed to J/G. Nowadays you only see the X in old-fashioned spellings like Quixote, Xerez o Ximenez. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del_idioma_espa%C3%B1ol https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis...
  - alanh 5y ago
    This is because such words are not derived from Latin like most Spanish words, but are from native languages.
darebak 5y ago
Yeah, but every language has those peculiarities in spelling. AFAIK Serbian Cyrillic is the closest one to "spell how you hear it" because every letter corresponds to a single sound and there's little deviation from this. With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ).
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ) People are extolling Italian here, but note that for those three sounds it uses the digraphs gl, gn, and gi.
qq66 5y ago
"Oaxaca" isn't Spanish, it's a Nahuatl loanword.

That's a really good example. Was it supposed to be a bad one? The only glaring exception I run into in Spanish is "que" being pronounced "ke."

lelandfe 5y ago
In my learning, I've definitely found that holdover words with "X" are the strangest relative to what is taught. "Oaxaca" has at least two different pronunciations depending on where you are in Mexico, since the pronunciation has evolved over time. See also: xerez.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency. "ll" is the same way.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency Doesn't seem that way to me; the native speakers I’ve known tend to pronounce the X’s different ways in: México / Oaxaca vs. Xochilmilco vs. Ixtlan / Tepexpan
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      I'm not as familiar with American place names, but there's an obvious reason why those would have pronunciations that couldn't be spelled easily in Spanish. "X" in Mexican might be shorthand for sharp mystery consonant.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        In each of those, the “x” originates from Nahuatl where it had a sound of (or close to) English “sh”, which is also the sound “x” had (maybe still has, though I’m pretty sure there has been shift in Iberian accents/dialects since then) in certain Iberian regional accents of Spanish at the time, which is how “x” got into the Spanish spelling; it wasn't a stand-in for a mystery consonant.
        pezezin 5y ago
        Your comment is correct. As far as I know, "x" still sounds /ʃ/ in Galician, Basque and Catalan. In Spanish, it became /x/ centuries ago, and the spelling changed to J/G. Nowadays you only see the X in old-fashioned spellings like Quixote, Xerez o Ximenez. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del_idioma_espa%C3%B1ol https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis...
- alanh 5y ago
  This is because such words are not derived from Latin like most Spanish words, but are from native languages.

darebak 5y ago

Yeah, but every language has those peculiarities in spelling. AFAIK Serbian Cyrillic is the closest one to "spell how you hear it" because every letter corresponds to a single sound and there's little deviation from this. With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ).

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ) People are extolling Italian here, but note that for those three sounds it uses the digraphs gl, gn, and gi.

qq66 5y ago

"Oaxaca" isn't Spanish, it's a Nahuatl loanword.