[ʃ]→[x]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 4/5
Voiceless postalveolar fricative to Voiceless velar fricative
The shift from the postalveolar fricative [ʃ] to the velar fricative [x] is a case of backing or retraction: the place of articulation moves from the postalveolar region back to the velum, usually with loss of sibilance. It recurs independently in the history of Spanish and, in deep time, as the endpoint of the Indo-European ruki law in Slavic.
Phonetic Effects
Backing, Retraction
Language Examples
Quixote [ʃ]→Quijote [x]— During the 16th–17th century reajuste de las sibilantes, Old Spanish /ʃ/ (spelled ⟨x⟩) retracted to velar /x/ (later spelled ⟨j⟩), a change complete by around 1650. Hence dixo → dijo, and the conservative spelling of México for /ˈmexiko/.
ruki *š→*x— The sibilant produced by the ruki law (*s → *š after *r, *u, *k, *i) was retracted all the way to velar *x in Slavic — further back than the *š retained in Baltic. PIE *wers- 'top' → ruki *werš- → Proto-Slavic *vьrxъ → Russian верх [vʲerx], against Lithuanian viršùs, which keeps š.
Related Transformations
More Backing Shifts
Sources & References
- Penny, R. (2002). A History of the Spanish Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Shevelov, G. Y. (1964). A Prehistory of Slavic. Carl Winter.
- Collinge, N. E. (1985). The Laws of Indo-European. John Benjamins.
- Ladefoged, P., & Maddieson, I. (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell.
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