[y]→[ʃ]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 3/5

Palatal Hardening Fortition Sheísmo Romance Hellenic

Close front rounded vowel to Voiceless postalveolar fricative

A glide hardens and drifts toward a voiceless sibilant. This transition is most famously documented in modern dialects of South American Spanish, where it represents a radical shift in the sound of the entire language.

Phonetic Effects

Palatal Hardening, Fortition, Sheísmo

Language Examples

Rioplatense Spanish Romance

yo→sho— Development of the palatal glide into /ʒ/ (zheísmo) and then /ʃ/ (sheísmo) in Argentina and Uruguay.

Modern Greek (dialects) Hellenic

yerondos→sherondos— Fortition of /j/ to /ʃ/ in certain Aegean dialects.

Related Transformations

Reverse Other reduction Voicing shift

More Romance Shifts

[ã] → [õ] — Raising [a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction [ai] → [e] — Monophthongization

Sources & References

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