Yeísmo should not be confused with Leísmo.
Spanish; Castilian: Yeísmo (pronounced as /es/; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme pronounced as /link/ (written (ll)) and its merger into the phoneme pronounced as /link/ (written (y)). It is an example of delateralization.
In other words, (ll) and (y) represent the same sound pronounced as /link/ when Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo is present. The term Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo comes from one of the Spanish names for the letter (y) (Spanish; Castilian: ye[1]). Over 90% of Spanish speakers exhibit this phonemic merger. Similar mergers exist in other languages, such as French, Italian, Hungarian, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese or Galician, with different social considerations.
Occasionally, the term Spanish; Castilian: lleísmo (pronounced as /es/) has been used to refer to the maintenance of the phonemic distinction between pronounced as //ʝ// and pronounced as //ʎ//.
Most dialects that merge the two sounds represented by (ll) and (y) realize the remaining sound as a voiced palatal approximant pronounced as /link/, which is much like (y) in English your. However, it sometimes becomes a voiced palatal affricate pronounced as /link/, sounding somewhat like (j) in English jar, especially when appearing after pronounced as //n// or pronounced as //l// or at the beginning of a word. For example, Spanish; Castilian: relleno is pronounced pronounced as /[reˈʝeno]/ and Spanish; Castilian: conllevar is pronounced pronounced as /[koɲɟʝeˈβaɾ]/ or pronounced as /[kondʒeˈβaɾ]/.
In dialects where pronounced as //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 pronounced as //l//, and the formant transitions to the following vowel are nearly twice as long. Replacing pronounced as //ʎ// with pronounced as //ʝ// can thus be considered a type of lenition since it results in a lower degree of closure.[2]
See also: Rioplatense Spanish. In most of Argentina and Uruguay, the merged sound is pronounced as a voiced postalveolar fricative pronounced as /link/; this is referred to as Spanish; Castilian: zheísmo.
The pronounced as /link/ sound itself may have originated in Argentina and Uruguay as an influence from the local Amerindian languages on the colonial Spanish spoken by the area's inhabitants of that time; the pronunciation then persisted after the mass 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 a mestizo majority (those of mixed Spaniard and Amerindian ancestry); in Buenos Aires, the pronounced as /link/ sound has recently been devoiced to pronounced as /link/ (Spanish; Castilian: sheísmo) among younger speakers.
Both Spanish; Castilian: zheísmo and Spanish; Castilian: sheísmo are types of Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo, which refers only to the lack of a phonemic distinction between pronounced as //ʎ// and pronounced as //ʝ//, not to any particular phonetic realization of the merged phoneme.
Comparatively, within the Ecuadorian Sierra region (spanning from the Imbabura to the Chimborazo Provinces, where the pronunciation of /ʎ/ as pronounced as /link/ 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 pronounced as /link/, rather than the original Spanish pronounced as /link/ sound, and (y) representing pronounced as /link/.[3] The shift from /ʎ/ to pronounced as /link/ in this region of Ecuador is theorized to have occurred long before the 20th century, and affected both Ecuadorian Spanish and Quechua; historically (through the early 17th century), Spanish speakers in this area had maintained distinctions between pronounced as /link/, /ʎ/, pronounced as /link/. This three-way distinction is still present in the Quechua of more southerly regions, such as the Azuay province, which uses the graphemes
Parts of Colombia, similarly to the Andean regions of Ecuador, maintain a distinction between (ll) representing pronounced as /link/ and (y) representing pronounced as /link/. This type of distinction is found in southern Antioquia Department and the southeast end of Norte de Santander Department. A greater portion of Andean Colombia maintains the distinction between pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/. Overall, Colombia presents great variety with regards to Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo.[5]
The same shift from pronounced as /link/ to pronounced as /link/ to pronounced as /link/ (to modern pronounced as /link/) historically occurred in the development of Old Spanish; this accounts for such pairings as Spanish Spanish; Castilian: mujer vs Portuguese Portuguese: mulher, Spanish; Castilian: ojo vs Portuguese: olho, Spanish; Castilian: hija vs Portuguese: filha and so on.
The distinction between pronounced as //ʝ// and pronounced as //ʎ// remains in the Philippines, Andean Ecuador and Peru, Paraguay, both highland and lowland Bolivia, and the northeastern portions of Argentina that border Paraguay.
The retention of a distinction between pronounced as //ʎ// and pronounced as //ʝ// is more common in areas where Spanish coexists with other languages, either with Amerindian languages, such as Aymara, Quechua, and Guaraní, which, except for Guaraní, themselves possess the phoneme pronounced as //ʎ//,[6] or in Spain itself in areas with linguistic contact with Catalan and Basque.
By 1989, several traditionally non-Spanish; Castilian: yeísta areas, such as Bogotá and much of Spain and the Canaries, had begun rapidly adopting Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo, in the span of little more than a single generation. In areas where Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo is variable, pronounced as /[ʎ]/ is lost more often in rapid and casual speech. There is also an idiolectal correlation between Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo and speech rate, with fast-speaking individuals being more likely to be Spanish; Castilian: yeísta.
Spanish; Castilian: Yeísmo has begun appearing in the speech of Ecuador's middle and upper classes.
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, but Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo 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 pronounced as //ʝ// and pronounced as //ʎ// only exists among the oldest age groups in the upper classes.
Although northern, rural areas of Spain are typically associated with lack of Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo, and Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo is typically thought of as a southern phenomenon, there are several isolated, rural, Asturleonese-speaking areas where Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo is found even among elderly speakers. These include the valley of Nansa, Tudanca, and Cabuérniga, all in Cantabria. This is evidence that the existence of Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo in the southern half of the Peninsula and beyond may be due to the arrival of Astur-leonese settlers, who already had Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo, and subsequent dialect levelling in newly reconquered southern communities.[7]
Spanish; Castilian: Yeísmo produces homophony in a number of cases. For example, the following word pairs sound the same when pronounced by speakers of dialects with Spanish; Castilian: yeísmo, but they are minimal pairs in regions with the distinction:
The relatively low frequency of both pronounced as //ʝ// and pronounced as //ʎ// makes confusion unlikely. However, orthographic mistakes are common (for example, writing Spanish; Castilian: llendo instead of Spanish; Castilian: yendo). A notable case is the name of the island of Catalan; Valencian: [[Mallorca]]: since Mallorcans tend to pronounce intervocalic /ʎ/ as /ʝ/, central Catalan scribes assumed the authentic (and correct) name Catalan; Valencian: Maiorca was another case of this and hypercorrected it to Catalan; Valencian: Mallorca. This new form ended up becoming the usual pronunciation, even for native Mallorcans.[8]