How did the "ll" become a "eya" sound in Spanish?

Question

Why are two l's pronounced that way? How did that accent develop?

Answer 1

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthrea...

Sort of explains it I guess. =)

Answer 2

Good question, although I would say the sound is "eye" not "eya". (You might be thinking of the word "ella" that contains the double l.)

Anyway, I think this is about as hard as asking why the letter "c" makes a "ka" sound, or why the letter "s" sounds like a snake hissing. For someone who's spoken English their whole lives we don't question our own alphabet or sounds, but in the same way native Spanish speakers don't either.

One cool thing about the letter "ll" in Spanish though is that it has slightly different pronunciations depending on where the speaker is from. Almost all South Americans pronounce it with a VERY light "j" sound. They do this with the letter "y" as well. For example if I want to get a native speaker to correctly pronounce "Judy" I'll write "Yudi".

BUT in Argentina the "ll" is pronounced like we say "sh". Try looking up a YouTube video or something where you hear Argentinians speaking and listen for all the "sh" sounds.