S-aspiration in Spanish
Many dialects of Spanish aspirate or “debuccalise” the phoneme /s/. In some cases this means realising the phoneme as /h/, but in other cases it means not pronouncing the phoneme at all. For me (a second-language learner of Spanish), this is the single most relevant feature for determining whether I can understand someone’s accent or not 😢
Dialects where S-aspiration is common:
- Andalusian Spanish
- Caribbean Spanish
- Rioplatense Spanish
- Chilean Spanish
- Central American Spanish (except for Costa Rica)
- coastal speech in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
- eastern and southern Bolivian
Dialects where S-aspiration is uncommon or absent:
- Castilian Spanish
- Mexican Spanish (except some coastal areas)
- Andean Spanish