Spanish
Spanish (also Castilian) is a Romance language, native to Spain but spoken throughout Central and South America, and the United States. Worldwide its native speakers number comparably to English; by most accounts, Spanish-speakers outnumber English-speakers.
Phonology
Spanish has six plosive phonemes:
| bilabial | dental | velar | |
| voiceless | /p/ | /t/ | /k/ |
| voiced | /b/ | /d/ | /g/ |
The voiced plosives generally are articulated as plosives under certain conditions, such as initially, or after certain other phonemes. Under other circumstances they are fricatives [β ð ɣ] or even approximants.
There are either three or four voiceless fricatives, depending on dialect:
In most dialects, mainly American ones, /θ/ is merged into /s/. /x/ is often pronounced as [h], though it still acts phonemically velar by turning a preceding /n/ into [ŋ]. In some dialects final /s/ weakens to [h].
SAMPA lists two affricates:
- /ʧ jj/
/ʧ/ is usually pronounced as palatal [cç]. /jj/ can be pronounced as lightly as [j] and as strongly as [ɟʝ].
There are three phonemic nasals:
[ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ after velars, and word-finally in some dialects.
The liquids are:
In some dialects, mainly American ones, /ʎ/ has merged into /jj/.
The semivowels are /j w/, and the vowels are the basic five-vowel set /a e i o u/.
Orthography
Spanish orthography is regular in the sense that the pronunciation of a word can always be correctly divined from the spelling. However, silent letters and the falling together of some original phonemes mean that it is sometimes not possible to know the spelling of a word knowing only the pronunciation.
