Yeísmo in Majorcan Spanish: phonetic variation in a bilingual context

Abstract

Abstract This article addresses a particular characteristic of the variety of Spanish spoken in Majorca (Balearic Islands, Spain): the /ʎ/-/j/ merger (yeísmo). This island is home to a Catalan-Spanish bilingual community, meaning that Spanish speakers are in close contact with a system (Balearic Catalan) which is supposed to largely retain the /ʎ/-/j/ contrast. Given this context, our focus is to acoustically verify whether there is an interference from Balearic Catalan to Spanish in the sense of inhibiting yeísmo or, at least, favouring phonetic realisations other than those found in mainland Spanish. Our study concludes that a transfer in terms of allophonic variation does exist: in Majorcan Spanish lenited sounds ([i̯], [j]) are more common than in mainland Spanish.