Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and (), the presence of only alveolar (), or, less commonly, the presence of only a denti-alveolar that is similar to (). While an urban legend attributes the presence of the dental fricative to a Spanish king with a lisp, the various realizations of these coronal fricatives are actually a result of historical processes that date to the 15th century. Origins. Castilian 'lisp'. A persistent urban legend claims  that the prevalence of the sound in Spanish can be traced to a Spanish king who spoke with a lisp, and whose pronunciation spread by prestige borrowing to the rest of the population. This myth has been discredited by scholars. traces the origins of the legend to a chronicle of Pero López de Ayala which says that Peter of Castile "lisped a little" (). However, Peter reigned in the 14th century and the sound began to develop in the 16th century (see below). Moreover, a true lisp would not give rise to the systematic distinction between and that characterizes Standard Peninsular  pronunciation. For example, a lisp would lead one to pronounce ('I feel') and ('hundred') the same (as ) whereas in standard peninsular Spanish they are pronounced and . For native speakers of varieties, in which is absent, the presence of this phoneme in speakers of European Spanish does not appear strange. However, learners of Spanish in North America, where people are more familiar with pronunciation, may misinterpret it as lisping. The misnomer "Castilian lisp" is used occasionally to refer to this aspect of Peninsular pronunciation (in both and varieties). Historical evolution. In the 15th century, Spanish had developed a large number of  sibilant phonemes: seven by some accounts, eight by others (depending on whether and are considered contrasting), more than any current dialect. During the 16th and early 17th centuries these phonemes merged differently as they evolved into those of the different modern dialects. There were four pairs of voiceless versus voiced sibilants: dental/alveolar affricates vs. (spelled or vs. ); dental/alveolar fricatives (spelled when intervocalic, otherwise) vs. (intervocalic only, spelled ); postalveolar affricates (spelled ) vs. ; and postalveolar fricatives (spelled ) vs. . Both and were spelled before or, and elsewhere. It is likely that deaffricated and merged with before the year 1500. The main  difference between the prestige dialect of north central Spain and dialects to the south (such as Andalusian Spanish) was that, in the north, the dental/alveolar continuants were more retracted than the affricates (the former pair can be represented as and and the latter as and ), keeping their phonemic distinction, while in the south they were homorganic. The first step away from that system was the deaffrication of in the first quarter of the 16th century. Because of a differing place of articulation, this still contrasted with in the prestige dialect of north central Spain, though it was a complete  merger for southern dialects. The second step was the devoicing of voiced sibilants. In the north, and were lost, but remained contrastive with its new pronunciation , because there had been no voiceless previously. This sound contrasted with two acoustically similar sounds: dentoalveolar and apicoalveolar . By 1600, , too, had deaffricated and merged with the earlier that had already developed from . Subsequent changes to the sound system of Spanish retained the contrasts while enhancing the segments by increasing articulatory distance amongst their rather subtle acoustic contrasts, an appropriate step due to the high productivity of these phonemes in differentiating frequently used minimal  pairs. The dentoalveolar one was moved "forward" to interdental , losing its former sibilance in the process (which increased its acoustic distance to the remaining sibilant ), and the prepalatal one was moved "backward" to velar also losing its former sibilance. All in all resulting in the three-way distinction found in modern Standard Peninsular pronunciation: In the south, the devoicing process and deaffrication of gave rise to new fricatives that were indistinguishable from the existing ones. The process of increasing articulatory distance still applied, however, and retracted to in the south just as it did in the north. In a number  of areas (particularly the southernmost provinces like Cádiz) developed into a non-sibilant apico-dental , perceptually similar to the interdental used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic /. In areas (particularly in the westernmost provinces like Seville and Huelva), the resulting phoneme developed a predorsal alveolar realization (like English ), perceptually similar to the apicoalveolar used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic . This variety was the pronunciation that most impacted Latin America, as many emigrants to the Americas were from Andalusian and Canarian ports. In addition, several generations of Spanish speakers had lived and grown in the Americas before appeared in Castilian . The development of the sibilants in Ladino (which split off from Castilian and other Peninsular varieties in the 15th century) was more conservative, resulting in a system closer to that of Portuguese. Distinction. Distinction () refers to the differentiated pronunciation of the two Spanish phonemes written and or (only before or , the so-called "soft"): This pronunciation is the standard on which Spanish orthography was based, and it is universal in Central and Northern parts of Spain, except for some bilingual speakers of Catalan and Basque, according to . Thus, in Spanish the choice between the spellings , , , , and , , , , is determined by the  pronunciation in most of Spain, unlike English, where it is often done according to etymology or orthographic conventions (although in English, soft c is always and never like s is, as with 'rise' vs. 'rice'). Lack of distinction. In many other Spanish-speaking regions and countries, however, the phonemic distinction between and does not exist. These varieties of Spanish are sometimes said to exhibit ('neutralization') as opposed to . Seseo. is a lack of distinction between /s/ and /θ/ with both being realized as . For example, the words ('house') and ('hunt') would be pronounced with the same sound. This can result  in ambiguity but can usually be interpreted depending on the context of which the sentence is spoken. is the most widespread pronunciation among Spanish speakers worldwide (around 90% of native Spanish speakers) and occurs in nearly all speakers in Hispanic America. While it is a minority pronunciation in Spain itself, is considered standard in all varieties of Latin American Spanish. It coexists with and in parts of Spain (e.g. in Canary Islands and in some areas of Andalusia). Traditional dialect atlases (e.g., ) show one variant or another used in adjacent regions. In Spain, is considered "more socially acceptable or perhaps  'less substandard' than ". The following table gives an example of the three pronunciation patterns discussed so far: Ceceo. is a phenomenon found in a few dialects of southern Spain in which and are not distinguished and there is only one coronal fricative phoneme realized as the voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant , a sibilant sounding somewhat like , but not identical. is found primarily in some varieties of Andalusian Spanish, although Hualde reports that there is some evidence of the phenomenon in parts of Central America. A publication of the University of Oviedo also notes that can be found in Argentina and Chile . Other linguists have noticed the use of in parts of Puerto Rico, Honduras, and Venezuela. A similar sound characterized as a "voiceless apico-or corono-post-dental slit fricative" has been observed in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela; In these places, ceceo is a largely rural pronunciation and is often stigmatized. Ceseo or seceo. Many speakers of and dialects in Spain show sociolinguistic variation in usage. In some cases, this variation may arise when a or speaker more or less consciously attempts to use in response to sociolinguistic pressure (hypercorrection). However, as, for instance, in the  case of the variation between the standard velar nasal and alveolar pronunciation of the nasal in "-ing" in English ("walking" versus "walkin"), the switching may be entirely unconscious. It is perhaps evidence of the saliency of three-way variation that inconsistent use has elicited evaluative comments by some traditional Spanish dialectologists. For instance, discussed it as "sporadic or chaotic switching [between and ] and the use of intermediate sounds impossible to determine with precision". proposes the synonymous terms and to refer to these "mixed" patterns, and notes surprise at a speaker who produced all four possible pronunciations of "Zaragoza" within the  space of a few minutes. In fact, sociolinguistic variation is typically highly structured in terms of how often each variant will appear given various social and linguistic independent variables. The Spanish spoken by the inhabitants of the Canary Islands is exclusively , but exclusive is quite rare in mainland Spain – even in areas, such as Seville, listed as being majority .