Re: phonetic interchangeability of ?b? and ?v.?

Lucas61

Lucas61

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retired English teacher (30 years)
Re: phonetic interchangeability of ?b? and ?v.?

I wouldn't call it confusion in speech because they are identical. But in writing, which is an arbitrary system, particularly spelling, then you could call it confusion or failure to understand which could reflect level of education in the written language. That's why in Mexico as well as the (Mexican) diaspora, one will ask the question, ?V de vaca or b de burro? in order to distinguish correct spelling, where choice does matter.

Woe to the person who doesn't distinguish this. I once saw a sign in front of a club:

Vaile
En
El Biernes

It appears that in Cuba a decision has been made to spell "Havana" (English) as "Habana" (Spanish), or as people refer to it, "La Habana." If you are looking on a map and it says "Havana" you are looking at an English map.
 
F

Frank the Tank

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Lucas61 said:
I wouldn't call it confusion in speech because they are identical. But in writing, which is an arbitrary system, particularly spelling, then you could call it confusion or failure to understand which could reflect level of education in the written language. That's why in Mexico as well as the (Mexican) diaspora, one will ask the question, ?V de vaca or b de burro? in order to distinguish correct spelling, where choice does matter.

Woe to the person who doesn't distinguish this. I once saw a sign in front of a club:

Vaile
En
El Biernes

It appears that in Cuba a decision has been made to spell "Havana" (English) as "Habana" (Spanish), or as people refer to it, "La Habana." If you are looking on a map and it says "Havana" you are looking at an English map.
Click to expand...

It is lack of education with a healthy dose of chopo-ism. People who do that are spelling phonetically.
 
Africaida

Africaida

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They sound exactly the same, it s normal, Spanish spelling is a lot more phonetic than many languages.
I do Habana/Havana mistake all the time.
 
rogerjac

rogerjac

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I have a little 3 year old. When she visited her grandmother she was taught to call her vo-vo pronounced that way in portuguese.....but she always pronounced it bo-bo......must be something in the water
 
drstock

drstock

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I wrote yesterday on another thread that for a long time I was trying to discover the meaning of a word I kept hearing :"Baina". Only yesterday did I discover that I should have been looking for "Vaina"!
 
L

LindseyKaufman

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I have several kids in my classes from Villa Carolina. When completing registration forms, every parent spells it Billa Carolina. I correct them, and they look at me like I am crazy, as if thinking "how could I question where they live?"

Lindsey
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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Crepuscular said:
Jist read the foam cup plastic wrapper.

Clearly vaso, yet Dominicans clearly say basso.
Their country though, so, I guess that makes rhem correct.
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They are correct, and would be also correct in all the countries in which Spanish is spoken.

In Spanish un baso and un vaso are pronounced exactly alike. This is the sound of the B in English, called in phonetics a bilabial semiexplosive consonant.

The b and the v in the words una botella and una vela are also pronounced exactly alike. This is what is called in phonetics a bilabial fricative, because air passes between the lips, just as it passes between the teeth and lips in the English V.

There is never any difference between the B and the V in Spanish. In the same posoition, both is pronounced exactly the same as the other.

In Spain they call the b be and the v uve. In other countries, they say be larga for B and be corta for V.
Be de burro and be de vaca is the most common way that people distinguish between the two.
 
C

Chirimoya

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It will take a while to be reflected in usage, but the RAE announced some changes in 2010:

Spanish spelling rules get updated
The Real Academia Espa?ola has announced that in December it will publish a new volume of spelling rules for the Spanish language. It’s the first spelling update the RAE has done since 1999, which was the same year that the ll and ch were officially dropped as individual characters in the Spanish alphabet. Among the new spelling changes are the following:

•The letter Y, formerly called “y griega,” will now be called “ye.”

•The letters B and V will be called by their formal names “be” and “uve” and not “b grande, b larga, b corta or b chica, all common ways of referring to those letters in Latin America.

•The prefix “ex” will be attached to words without a hyphen. For example: exnovio, exmarido, exdirector, etc.

•The words gui?n, truh?n and s?lo will no longer have an accent mark (la tilde).

•The letter Q will only appear in Spanish when it is paired with the letter U and followed by either the vowels E or I. (For example: quiosco, querer, etc.). In all other cases, the letters C or K will be used instead of Q. Iraq becomes Irak, Qatar becomes Catar, quorum becomes cu?rum.
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W

windeguy

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JDJones said:
Some of you have to start listening to "Teo Veras en la manana"

Lots of correctly spoken spanish there.
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I was told that b and v are not pronounced identically. One is "softer" in sound than the other. Subtle but definitely different.
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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windeguy said:
I was told that b and v are not pronounced identically. One is "softer" in sound than the other. Subtle but definitely different.
Click to expand...

Then they told you wrong. This is not the case. I have a PhD in Spanish, and I have taken courses in phonetics here and in Mexico.

As a rule when someone mentions the words "labiodental fricative: this means they have taken a course in Italian, in which this applies.

It is hardly a big deal, because you will not be misunderstood in any Spanish speaking country, but of you search around the Internet, you will find that the correct pronunciation of these two letters is as I have described.
 
E

Expat-in-Cabarete

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Lucas61 said:
That's why in Mexico as well as the (Mexican) diaspora, one will ask the question, ?V de vaca or b de burro? in order to distinguish correct spelling, where choice does matter.
Click to expand...

Same in my country (Uruguay) at least when I was a kid. But interestingly, v de vaca doesn't mean much as it could be b de baca (baca = car roof rack)
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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Context pretty much determines the meaning between cow and roof rack. Uruguay has many cows, and yet, uruguayos still rarely attach them to the roof of a vehicle.

The word gato can mean both cat and trigger, but this is also rarely confused because context makes the meaning clear.
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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Sounds like a good idea.

I bet at the core of this separation is the insistence of the RAE is that M?xico should be spelled M?jico. Mexicans like the idea of being from the only nation that has an X in its name.

At least the ones that have never heard of Luxemburgo.
 
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Lucifer

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And the fact that the RAE doesn't refer to "espa?olismo" if certain words are only used in Spain.
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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When I was in Madrid, I planned to visit the RAE. It is an impressive building. But alas, I had no professional credential as a profesor or catedr?tico, and they would not let me in.
 
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