LL and Y distinction

Guest   Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:17 pm GMT
Are you from Argentina, Ian? It is kinda weird to use "sh" for both Y and LL letters.
furrykef   Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:51 pm GMT
<<It is spelled hierbas, and pronounced hierbas, but some people pronounce it like "yerbas". It is wrong and only accepted in informal situations>>

I'd have thought "hierbas" and "yerbas" would be pronounced exactly the same. "H" is silent, and I thought that there is no pronunciation difference between "i" and "y" in a diphthong. Obviously, Gabriel disagrees, but isn't it true in at least some dialects?

- Kef
Guest   Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:00 pm GMT
I pronounce hierbas like hierbas, but in some circumstances I would pronounce it as "yerba", only in informal circumstances. Ie is a diphtong like you said, and hence I don't see why you have to pronounce I like Y. It remains a vowel.
Ian   Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:39 pm GMT
<< Are you from Argentina, Ian? It is kinda weird to use "sh" for both Y and LL letters. >>

No. I haven't even been there.
I used to distinguish LL and Y in my pronunciation (well, actually since I started learning Spanish), but I spent too much time with Argentinians. The SH pronunciation is the only thing I adopted from them, though. I don't know why.
Gabriel   Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:58 pm GMT
<<I'd have thought "hierbas" and "yerbas" would be pronounced exactly the same. "H" is silent, and I thought that there is no pronunciation difference between "i" and "y" in a diphthong. Obviously, Gabriel disagrees, but isn't it true in at least some dialects?>>

I guess it would be true in most dialects, Kef. Other minimal pairs I have are:

hiena [jena] - llena [Sena]
hierro [jero] - yerro [Sero]
Guest   Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:34 pm GMT
Do you pronounce hierro like yerro?
Guest   Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:54 pm GMT
someone make a recording of the difference.
JGreco   Sat Nov 10, 2007 1:29 am GMT
My mother is from Southern Brazil and when I visited when I was young we frequently went into Argentina so yes I've been to Argentina plenty of times. To me Mendozan's actually have the Y sound for both "LL" and "Y" while I was in Buenos Aires and Mar de Plata all I heard was the standard "sh" pronunciation for "LL" and "Y" unless they were immigrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, or Peru.
Rodrigo   Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:48 pm GMT
I would like to apologise for not showing a universal picture but I saw some people a bit confused so I decided to simplify it considerably. I said what I hear in my dialect and to some extent on TV.

La grafía hierba es la más generalizada en la lengua culta; pero también es válida la variante yerba: «Descalzos sus pies para recibir el rocío que todavía impregnaba la yerba» (Moix Arpista [Esp. 2002]). La grafía con y- es admisible en todos los derivados de hierba (→ h, 4): hierbajo/yerbajo, hierbezuela/yerbezuela, etc.

2. En los países del Cono Sur se emplea la grafía yerba para designar las hojas de la planta denominada yerba mate, de la que se hace la infusión llamada mate: «Quedan tres frascos de Nescafé y cien bolsas de té. Sobra yerba» (Fogwill Cantos [Arg. 1998]).

A short summary/translation/personal opinion. Hierba is much more common and more formal but yerba can also be used, even in its derived forms. In the south of South America yerba is used only for the plant called yerba mate from which an infusion called mate is prepared.

My personal view on pronounciation is that hierba has a soft sound which in some dialects and in informal speech became harder so the new spelling was accepted. The dipthong hie in informal speech usually is pronounced with a hard sound, like hiervas (note, homophone to hierbas but is the subjunctive of hervir, boil) or hielo. I hope somebody who can understand X-SAMPA explains it better, I will try to post a recording.
Guest   Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:06 pm GMT
Hierba/Yerba, Hierro/Yerro, etc. have different sounds, because the Spanish "Y" doesn't sound like the English "Y"
Ian   Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:15 pm GMT
@ JGreco

I don't know if you paid attention that much to the way Mendozans conjugated the verbs.
In case you did, did you notice if they say:
vos hablái(s) instead of vos hablás
and
vos quer(e)ís instead of vos querés
?

Thank you very much!

Saludos,


Ian
JGreco   Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:36 am GMT
Yes I actually did because my mum always thought that the way they did that seemed closer to the Brazilian conjugation than to Castellano.
Ian   Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:45 am GMT
Thank you, JGreco!

Somehow what Mateo, who is living in Mendoza, said is different:

<< In Mendoza, as in all of Argentina (except minority regions in Northern Argentina that use a voseo mixto in comparison to the Buenos Aires standard), the voseo is accepted all across the country and IS the standard form. The voseo will never be vulgar usage in Argentina. The tuteo doesn't exist and sounds very funny. In Mendoza, you will only hear "vos", but the "s" is pronounced. [bos]. You will never hear any Chilean voseo conjugations like "cachái" or “tení”. The Argentines bear a certain passive hostility towards the Chileans and although you might hear an Argentine say "cachar", he will never conjugate one of his verbs using the Chilean paradigm.

By the way, the voseo in Mendoza is slightly different from the Buenos Aires standard. In the capital, you will only heard the voseo in the present indicative and in the positive imperative. In Mendoza, we also use the voseo in the subjunctive. “Quiero que me digás”, “es mejor que no vengás”, “no me mentás!” >>

But from what I understand, it's been a while since you were in Mendoza. So perhaps things have changed somehow. =)
Anyway, thank you for your reply, JGreco!

Que tengái un buen domingo! =)


Ian
Guest   Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:49 am GMT
Ian, despite the Chileans may not pronounce the final -s, you should spell it "tengáis". Spanish does not need to be phonetic when the underlying dialect does not pronounce all the letters of a given word. In fact despite the Spanish dialects have their unique pronounciation , spelling is the same for them all. Tengái is simply not a Spanish word.
furrykef   Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:39 am GMT
Guest, that creates a double standard, though. Why should we allow Argentinians to write "hablás", but force Chileans to write "habláis" instead of "hablaí"?

(I'm not disputing whether or not what you said is the most common practice; I wouldn't know that. I'm just pointing out that it's inconsistent, whether or not it's how most people do it.)