• zksmk@sopuli.xyzOPM
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    Listen to /ʝ/

    Listen to /ʎ/

    What I find interesting about this is that this transition also happened in highly unrelated languages such as Hungarian, Greek and Swedish, not only in related Portuguese and French.

    • In Hungarian, /ʎ/ in most dialects turned into /j/, but the spelling ⟨ly⟩ was preserved, hence lyuk [juk].
    • In Swedish, /lj/ turned into /j/ in word-initial positions, but the spelling ⟨lj⟩ was preserved, hence ljus [ˈjʉːs].
    • In Cypriot Greek, /lj/ is often pronounced as [ʝː], especially by younger speakers. In Standard Modern Greek, it always surfaces as [ʎ].

    I guess people find it hard to pronounce /ʎ/ but are too inert to change the spelling.

    • DigitalAudio@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      My real question would be: if it’s hard to pronounce, why did it appear long ago in so many different languages?

      Portuguese still keeps it, with /lh/ like trabalho which is different from /j/ like janeiro.

  • DigitalAudio@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    If Bogota is a mixed area, surely that’s because of people from its northern regions like Cundinamarca and Boyacá coming into the city, because being there you don’t hear distinction very often at all.

    Is that Mendoza in the Andes between Argentina and Chile? Super interesting how they’re a small pocket of distinction just there.