What's the Spanish Lisp? Where did it come from?Why do people speak Spanish?

If you study Spanish long enough, you'll hear a tale about Spanish King Ferdinand, who was said to speak with a lisp, causing Spaniards to imitate him in pronouncing thez and c.

The story is a great one, but it's just that.It's an urban legend that is repeated so often that people come to believe it.It has enough truth to be believed if one doesn't pay too much attention to the story.Looking at the story more closely would make one wonder why Spaniards don't say the letter s with a lisp.

One of the differences between Spain and most of Latin America is that the Z is pronounced like the English "s" in the West but not in Europe.When it comes before an e or i, the same is true of the c.The reason for difference has nothing to do with a long-ago king; the basic reason is the same as why U.S. residents pronounce many words differently than do their British counterparts.

All living languages evolve.Over time, when one group of speakers is separated from another, the two groups will develop their own quirks.Just as English speakers talk differently in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa, so do Spanish speakers in Spain and the Latin American countries.Regional variations in pronunciation can be heard even within one country.The only thing we're talking about is the "lisp."A difference in pronunciation is what we have.The pronunciation in Latin America is the same as it is in Spain.

There isn't always an explanation for how language changes.A graduate student who wrote to this site after the publication of an earlier version of the article said there was a plausible explanation for the change.Here's what he said.

Being confronted with people who know the origin of the lisp found in most of Spain is one of my pet peeves.You won't hear the 'lisping king' story from a Spaniard, but I have heard it many times from people who are cultured.

The ceceo is not a lisp.The sibilant's sound is mispronunciation of a lisp.The ceceo is used to represent the sounds made by the letters Z and c.

In medieval Castilian there were two sounds that evolved into the ceceo, the and the plaa.The cedilla made a sound.This sheds light on why those similar sounds may have evolved into the ceceo.

The student comment uses the term ceceo to refer to the pronunciation of the z.The term ceceo refers to how the s is pronounced in Spain, so that sinc would be pronounced like roughly "think" instead of "sink."The pronunciation of the s is substandard in most regions.When used precisely, ceceo does not refer to the pronunciation of the z, ci or ce.

The geographical differences in Spanish pronunciation are well-known, but they aren't the only ones.

Ysmo, the tendency for the ll and the y to share the same sound, is a well-known regional variation.Pollo and poyo are both pronounced the same in most areas.In parts of South America, the sound of the ll can be similar to the "s" inmeasure.Sometimes the sound is similar to the "j" or "sh" of English.