An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas
I apologize if this question has been asked, I did a search and could not find a substantive answer here. It is fairly common knowledge that Spanish names in the Americas have "Z" instead of "S".
Comments
Paul, no I wasn't familiar with the book. It does seem to be a good one.
Henry, your welcome.
Emilie, familysearch will provide results for alternate spellings most of the time but every once in a while some are missed for whatever reason. Ph comes from Greek via Latin, as do Th and a version of Ch as in Christobal. I can definitely understand the difficulty in relating people's names with their Latin equivalent.
Joseph, in 1492 Antonio de Nebrija wrote that there was a difference in the pronunciation in Spanish but currently the Royal Academy of Spanish states there should be no difference in the pronunciation. http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltObtenerHtml?IDLEMA=78019&NEDIC=Si The ambiguous use of the v/b show us there was no agreed upon rule of spelling for those periods and the priests found no difference in the pronunciation.
Armando
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Thank you Armando, you have helped clear up a mystery for me: my mother was from New Mexico, descended from Pueblo Indians and the first Spaniards to explore the North. She used to talk about a big b and a little v, and I would get so frustrated explaining to her that neither was big or little, that they were distinct. I wrote them both in capital letters for her, and told her that those were "big" letters, and then I wrote them both in lower case and told her those were small letters. She didn't understand. She said that was the way she was taught. Since she was English speaking, I couldn't figure out who would have taught her that until I now recall that her father had hired a teacher from Mexico to home school his and the neighbor's kids in proper Castilian. It didn't take; she always spoke the dialect of her region.
Emilie
> To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
> From: fandemma@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 05:45:48 -0700
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] An "S" in
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Emilie,
My parents would say in spanish to distinguish the V from the B, "V de Vaca or B
de Burro".
To this day, this is still how I distinguish one from the other.
Thank you Armando, you have helped clear up a mystery for me: my mother was
from New Mexico, descended from Pueblo Indians and the first Spaniards to
explore the North. She used to talk about a big b and a little v, and I would
get so frustrated explaining to her that neither was big or little, that they
were distinct. I wrote them both in capital letters for her, and told her that
those were "big" letters, and then I wrote them both in lower case and told her
those were small letters. She didn't understand. She said that was the way she
was taught. Since she was English speaking, I couldn't figure out who would
have taught her that until I now recall that her father had hired a teacher from
Mexico to home school his and the neighbor's kids in proper Castilian. It
didn't take; she always spoke the
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V de vaca and b de burro, as well as b grande and v chica, is still used to
this day in Mexico to describe those letters when dictating the spelling of
a name or word. The correct way, in Mexico and Spain, is to say be for b and
uve for v.
Armando
On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Alicia Carrillo wrote:
> Emilie,
>
> My parents would say in spanish to distinguish the V from the B, "V de Vaca
> or B
> de Burro".
>
> To this day, this is still how I distinguish one from the other.
>
>
>
> Thank you Armando, you have helped clear up a mystery for me: my mother
> was
> from New Mexico, descended from Pueblo Indians and the first Spaniards to
> explore the North. She used to talk about a big b and a little v, and I
> would
> get so frustrated explaining to her that neither was big or little, that
> they
> were distinct. I wrote them both in capital letters for her, and told her
> that
> those were "big" letters, and then I wrote them both in lower case and told
> her
> those were small
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I also call B "be grande" and V "ve chica" since they do have different sizes when writing in lowercase, or "be de burro" and "ve de vaca".
B is also called "be labial" since it is supposed to be pronounced by joinng your lips (labios) while V would be "ve labiodental", since you have to pronounce it by touching your lower lip with your upper front teeth (dientes).
Indeed V is also called "uve" since it is the V that looks like an U.
In Mexico we pretty much pronounce both as B, just as we pronounce both Z and S as S, but in Spain they pronounce the differences.
Bictoriano Nabarro
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Muchas Gracias Victoriano,
Cada dia aprende uno algo nuevo.
Saludos de San Jose, Ca.
________________________________
From: "mnavarrovillalobos@yahoo.com.mx"
To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Wed, October 13, 2010 9:47:08 AM
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] B labial
I also call B "be grande" and V "ve chica" since they do have different sizes
when writing in lowercase, or "be de burro" and "ve de vaca".
B is also called "be labial" since it is supposed to be pronounced by joinng
your lips (labios) while V would be "ve labiodental", since you have to
pronounce it by touching your lower lip with your upper front teeth (dientes).
Indeed V is also called "uve" since it is the V that looks like an U.
In Mexico we pretty much pronounce both as B, just as we pronounce both Z and S
as S, but in Spain they pronounce the differences.
Bictoriano Nabarro
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A little late, but better late than never. The real diference stands on a portuguese vs. spanish origin. But remember that our ancestors weren't too strict with spelling, so it's not uncommon to find alternative writing in names and lastnames. For example: the last name Chavez was written Chaves in Portugal, and so was Gonçales, or Gonçalves, Alvares, etc. But don't mind, in old times, people would write it in any way.
DDII
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In a Nuestros Ranchos message from 2006, Corrine Ardoin made the following statement:
"Also, because spelling was done phonetically, you can determine where an
ancestor was from in Spain by how they spelled words, some of which are
regionally distinct by Spanish provinces, whether associated with the church
or nobility, etc., because of how they anunciated their words".
It seems that the use of "s" and "z" interchangeably was a regional thing, in Spain and Latin America. It was just customary to use "s" or "z", depending on where one lived.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
> To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
> From: henricvs@gmail.com
> Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 12:26:28 -0700
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas
>
> I apologize if this question has been asked, I did a search and could not find a substantive answer here. It is fairly common knowledge that Spanish names in the Americas have "Z" instead of "S". Chavez instead of Chaves. My rudimentary
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In English
There are three distinct subjects that are touched on. There is the subject
of pronunciation and phonetic spelling, the subject of the -ez versus -es
suffix, and also the subject of the surname Chavez. I'll start with
pronunciation. It hasn't always been the same in México or Spain. There have
been many changes over the centuries and therefore would be very hard to
distinguish which sound the writer intended at that time in that region and
which social class the person was from. In 1492 Antonio de Nebrija wrote the
first work dedicated to the Spanish language and its rules, also the first
for any Romance language, and dedicated it to Queen Isabel. What he wrote
about the z is that it's sole purpose is for the diction of words of Greek
origin "la y griega y la z solamente son para las dicciones griegas". It
seems that over time the z became used more and currently there is a
distinction of the c, s, and z used by a majority of Spain that began in the
16th century. Latin
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Thank you Armando. Excellent explanation. Thanks for the references as well.
Henry Chavez
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Yes, thank you, Armando. I always have to use interchangeably the s and z in order to find records in the indexes, such as for the name Zamora/Samora. I forgot to try Cerrato for Serrato.
Also, I have had trouble locating a Felipe, and I finally found him in the 1700s in La Barca spelled as Phelipe. So I figure the "ph" came from the Latin? Also, the Catholic church in El Paso Texas (Sacred Heart) has many forms printed in and fill-in information written in in complete Latin. I find my Marias as Mariam, Eligio as Eloia, Vicente as Vincentio, Petra as Petrum, etc. Doesn't make it easy to find people in the indexes.
> To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
> From: henricvs@gmail.com
> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 11:44:17 -0700
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas
>
> Thank you Armando. Excellent explanation. Thanks for the references as well.
>
> Henry Chavez
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Armando,
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks about the development of the Spanish language. Are you familiar with
David A. Pharies, "A Brief History of the Spanish Language", (2007)?
Paul Gomez
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Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:03:53
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Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas
In English
There are three distinct subjects that are touched on. There is the subject
of pronunciation and phonetic spelling, the subject of the -ez versus -es
suffix, and also the subject of the surname Chavez. I'll start with
pronunciation. It hasn't always been the same in México or Spain. There have
been many changes over the centuries and therefore would be very hard to
distinguish which sound the writer intended at that time in that region and
which social class the person was from. In 1492 Antonio de
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Armando, ex(c/s/z)elente! I'm also curious of the letters "b" (grande) and "v"
(chica). Other than the fact that "b" is pronounced with a slight touching of
the lips and the "v" without doing that), I've noted a common interchange of
those letters i.e. Banuelos / Vanuelos, Chabes/ Chaves, Borrego / Vorrego,
etc. Any thoughts of it's origins on that?
________________________________
From: Armando
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Sun, October 10, 2010 10:03:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas
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An "S" in Spain and "Z" in Americas