Listen to /ʝ/

Listen to /ʎ/

What I find interesting about this is that this transition also happened in highly unrelated languages such as Hungarian, Greek and Swedish, not only in related Portuguese and French.

• In Hungarian, /ʎ/ in most dialects turned into /j/, but the spelling ⟨ly⟩ was preserved, hence lyuk [juk].
• In Swedish, /lj/ turned into /j/ in word-initial positions, but the spelling ⟨lj⟩ was preserved, hence ljus [ˈjʉːs].
• In Cypriot Greek, /lj/ is often pronounced as [ʝː], especially by younger speakers. In Standard Modern Greek, it always surfaces as [ʎ].

I guess people find it hard to pronounce /ʎ/ but are too inert to change the spelling.

Does the pink area in Spain include Madrid?

I don’t know, but where I live (Asturias) I never noticed any distinction between y and ll, despite being a mixed area.

If Bogota is a mixed area, surely that’s because of people from its northern regions like Cundinamarca and Boyacá coming into the city, because being there you don’t hear distinction very often at all.

Is that Mendoza in the Andes between Argentina and Chile? Super interesting how they’re a small pocket of distinction just there.

News this Spanglish user can use! Muthas grathias 🥳