Spanish Orthography & Alphabet

Spanish Orthography

• The writing system for Spanish exhibits a consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes.
• The pronunciation of words in Spanish can largely be predicted from their spelling.

Alfabeto Español (Spanish Alphabet)

• The Spanish Alphabet includes letters A through Z plus Ñ.
• The sequence "ch" represents the affricate /tʃ/ and was formerly a single letter called "che".
• The phonemes /θ/ and /s/ have merged in many dialects, known as "ceceo".
• Only a few loanwords like "hámster," "hachís," and "hawaiano" use the /x/ sound.
• When "ll" is written double, it represents the palatal lateral /ʎ/ in some dialects.
• In most dialects, due to historical merger called "yeísmo", "ll" represents the phoneme /j/, similar to the letter "y".
• The letter "q" is only used in the digraph "qu".
• The digraph "rr", appearing between vowels, represents the trill [r].

Acute Accent and Diaresis

• Acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú) mark vowel variants, while the "ñ" is a distinct letter from "n", affecting alphabetical sorting.
• In Spanish dictionaries, "piñata" appears after "pinza".

Distinction between the Historical Phonemes /s/ and /θ/

• This distinction is maintained in northern and central Spain.
• The phonemes have merged in Spanish America and most of southern Spain.
• Maintaining the phonemic contrast is termed "distinción" in Spanish.

Merged Phoneme

• Realized as [s] in the Spanish of the Americas and Canary Islands, and as [s] or [θ] in parts of Andalusia.
• Depending on realization, the use of the merged phoneme is called "seseo" or "ceceo."
• In "seseo" dialects, "casa" (house) and "caza" (hunt) are homophones, typically [kasa].
• In "distinción" dialects, they're pronounced differently, as [kasa] and [kaθa].

Pronunciation rules

• They are quite strict, though some letters have variable pronunciations.
• The symbol [s] is a voiceless sibilant, like the "s" in "sick".
• The symbol [θ] is a voiceless interdental fricative, like the "th" in "thick".
• A homophone is pronounced the same but differs in meaning, potentially in spelling (e.g., rose/rose, carat/carrot).
• Homophones with identical spellings are homographs and homonyms.

Yeísmo

• Traditionally, Spanish distinguished between /ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant, written "ll") and /j/ (voiced palatal fricative, written "y").
• These phonemes have merged into /j/ for most speakers in Spain and the Americas, resulting in identical pronunciations for "calló" (silenced) and "cayó" (fell).
• The use of the merged phoneme is called "yeísmo".

Vowel Reduction

• Although Spanish vowels are relatively stable, vowel reduction can occur in some regions.
• Vowel reduction involves devoicing or loss of unstressed vowels near voiceless consonants, notably /s/.
• Examples: "pesos" (money), "pesas" (weights), and "peces" (fish) can sound nearly identical as [pęs] with the second [s] behaving like a syllabic consonant.

Pronunciation of "x"

• The letter "x" usually represents /ks/.

Variations

• In IPA transcriptions, Castilian Spanish is generally used. Deviations can arise in words with /θ/, /ʎ/, and /x/.
• Words with "ll" can be transcribed with [j] in regions with "yeísmo."
• Words with "z" and soft "c" (before "i" or "e") can be transcribed with [s] in regions with "seseo".

Adoption of Affricates "tz" and "tl"

• Mexican Spanish and some other Hispanic American dialects adopted the voiceless alveolar affricate [ts] and a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate. These are represented by the digraphs <tz> and <tl>, as in the names Atzcapotzalco and Tlaxcala.

Spanish Greetings

• Greetings are covered; this lessons covers how to speak spanish and grammar/spelling rules
• This lesson also discusses the importance of not being discouraged if Spanish is hard

Greetings and Farewells

• Informal Greetings include "¿Qué tal?" (What's up?) and "¿Cómo estás?" (How are you?).
• Formal Greetings include "¿Cómo está usted?" (How are you?) and "¿Cómo le va?" (How's it going?).

Phrases and replies

• Replies: "Estoy bien. ¿Y tú/usted?" (I'm well. And you?)
• Returning Greetings: Repeat greeting and ask the same of them
• To Ask name formal or informal ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Cómo está usted?

Numbers in spanish

• Covers the numbers 0-1,000,000
• Covers rules around using 100 (Ciento)
• Rules involving mil