Old Spanish

Among the consonants, there were seven sibilants, including three voiceless/voiced pairs:

• Alveolar:
  • Voiceless alveolar affricate /t͡s̻/: represented by ⟨ç⟩, also by ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and by ⟨z⟩ in word-final position or before another consonant (where the voicing contrast was neutralized)
  • Voiced alveolar affricate /d͡z̻/: represented by ⟨z⟩
• Apicoalveolar:
  • Voiceless apicoalveolar fricative /s̺/: represented by ⟨s⟩ in word-initial and word-final positions and before and after a consonant, and by ⟨ss⟩ between vowels
  • Voiced apicoalveolar fricative /z̺/: represented by ⟨s⟩ between vowels and before voiced consonants
• Postalveolar:
  • Voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/: represented by ⟨x⟩
  • Voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ ~ Voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/: represented by ⟨j⟩, and (often) by ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩
  • Voiceless postalveolar affricate /t͡ʃ/: represented by ⟨ch⟩

The set of sounds is identical to that found in medieval Portuguese and almost the same as the system present in the modern Mirandese language.

The Modern Spanish system evolved from the Old Spanish one with the following changes:

1. The affricates /t͡s̻/ and /d͡z̻/ were simplified to laminodental fricatives /s̻/ and /z̻/, which remained distinct from the apicoalveolar sounds /s̺/ and /z̺/ (a distinction also present in Basque). The affricate [d͡ʒ] fell out of use as a positional variant of the fricative /ʒ/.
2. The voiced sibilants then all lost their voicing and so merged with the voiceless ones. (Voicing remains before voiced consonants, such as mismo, desde, and rasgo, but only allophonically.)
3. The merged /ʃ/ was retracted to /x/.
4. The merged /s̻/ was drawn forward to /θ/. In some parts of Andalusia and the Canary Islands, however (and so then in Latin America), the merged /s̺/ was instead drawn forward, merging into /s̻/.

Changes 2–4 all occurred in a short period of time, around 1550–1600. The change from /ʃ/ to /x/ is comparable to the fluctuation occurring in the sj-sound of Modern Swedish.

The Old Spanish spelling of the sibilants was identical to modern Portuguese spelling, which, unlike Spanish, still preserves most of the sounds of the medieval language, and so is still a mostly faithful representation of the spoken language. Examples of words before spelling was altered in 1815 to reflect the changed pronunciation:[3]

• passar 'to pass' versus casar 'to marry' (Modern Spanish pasar, casar, cf. Portuguese passar, casar)
• osso 'bear' versus oso 'I dare' (Modern Spanish oso in both cases, cf. Portuguese urso [a borrowing from Latin], ouso)
• foces 'sickles' versus fozes 'base levels' (Modern Spanish hoces in both cases, cf. Portuguese foices, fozes)
• coxo 'lame' versus cojo 'I seize' (Modern Spanish cojo in both cases, cf. Portuguese coxo, colho)
• xefe 'chief' (Modern Spanish jefe, cf. Portuguese chefe)
• Xerez (Modern Spanish Jerez, cf. Portuguese Xeres)
• oxalá 'if only' (Modern Spanish ojalá, cf. Portuguese oxalá)
• dexar 'leave' (Modern Spanish dejar, cf. Portuguese deixar)
• roxo 'red' (Modern Spanish rojo, cf., Portuguese roxo 'purple')
• fazer or facer 'make' (Modern Spanish hacer, cf. Portuguese fazer)
• dezir 'say' (Modern Spanish decir, cf. Portuguese dizer)
• lança 'lance' (Modern Spanish lanza, cf. Portuguese lança)

The Old Spanish origins of jeque and jerife reflect their Arabic origins, xeque from Arabic sheikh and xerife from Arabic sharif.

The voiced bilabial stop and fricative were still distinct sounds in early Old Spanish, judging by the consistency with which they were spelled as ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ respectively. (/b/ derived from Latin word-initial /b/ or intervocalic /p/, while /β/ derived from Latin /w/ or intervocalic /b/.) Nevertheless, the two sounds could be confused in consonant clusters (cf. alba~alva 'dawn') or in word-initial position, perhaps after /n/ or a pause. The two appear to have merged in word-initial position by about 1400 CE and in all other environments by the mid–late 16th century at the latest. In Modern Spanish, many earlier instances of ⟨b⟩ were replaced with ⟨v⟩, or vice versa, to conform to Latin spelling.[4]

At an archaic stage, there would have existed three allophones of /f/ in approximately the following distribution:[5]

• [ɸ] before non-back vowels, [j], [ɾ] or [l]
• [h] before the back vowels [o] and [u]
• [ʍ] or [hɸ] before [w]

By the early stages of Old Spanish, the allophone [h][lower-alpha 1] had spread to all prevocalic environments and possibly before [j] as well.[6]

Subsequently, the bilabial allophones of /f/ (that is, those other than [h]) were modified to the labiodental [f] in 'proper' speech, likely under the influence of the many French and Occitan speakers who migrated to Spain from the twelfth century onward, bringing with them their reformed Latin pronunciation.[7] This had the effect of introducing into Old Spanish numerous borrowings beginning with a labiodental [f]. The result was a phonemic split of /f/ into /f/ and /h/, since e.g. the native [ˈhoɾma] 'last' was now distinct from the borrowed [ˈfoɾma] 'form' (both ultimately derived from the Latin forma).[8] Compare also the native [ˈhaβla] 'speech' and borrowed [ˈfaβula] 'fable'. In some cases, doublets appear in apparently native vocabulary, possibly the result of borrowings from other Ibero-Romance varieties; compare modern hierro 'iron' and fierro 'branding iron' or the names Hernando and Fernando.

Old Spanish had ⟨ch⟩, just as Modern Spanish does, which mostly represents a development of earlier */jt/ (still preserved in Portuguese and French), from the Latin ⟨ct⟩. The use of ⟨ch⟩ for /t͡ʃ/ originated in Old French and spread to Spanish, Portuguese, and English despite the different origins of the sound in each language:

• leche 'milk' from earlier leite (Latin lacte, cf. Portuguese leite, French lait)
• mucho 'much', from earlier muito (Latin multum, cf. Portuguese muito, French moult (rare, regional))
• noche 'night', from earlier noite (Latin noctem, cf. Portuguese noite, French nuit)
• ocho 'eight', from earlier oito (Latin octō, cf. Portuguese oito, French huit)
• hecho 'made' or 'fact', from earlier feito (Latin factum, cf. Portuguese feito, French fait)

Old Spanish was generally written with some variation of the Latin script. In addition, the Arabic script was used by crypto-Muslims for certain writings in dialectal Spanish or Aragonese in a writing system called Aljamiado.[10]

The palatal nasal /ɲ/ was written ⟨nn⟩ (the geminate nn being one of the sound's Latin origins), but it was often abbreviated to ⟨ñ⟩ following the common scribal shorthand of replacing an ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ with a tilde above the previous letter. Later, ⟨ñ⟩ was used exclusively, and it came to be considered a letter in its own right by Modern Spanish. Also, as in modern times, the palatal lateral /ʎ/ was indicated with ⟨ll⟩, again reflecting its origin from a Latin geminate.

The Graeco-Latin digraphs (digraphs in words of Greek-Latin origin) ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨(r)rh⟩ and ⟨th⟩ were reduced to ⟨c⟩, ⟨f⟩, ⟨(r)r⟩ and ⟨t⟩, respectively:

• christiano (Modern Spanish cristiano)
• triumpho (Modern Spanish triunfo)
• myrrha (Modern Spanish mirra)
• theatro (Modern Spanish teatro)

Word-initial [i] was spelled ⟨Y⟩, which was simplified to ⟨I⟩.

O glorious Lord, Father who art in Heaven,
Thou madest Heaven and Earth, and on the third day the sea,
Thou madest the stars and the Moon, and the Sun for warmth,
Thou incarnatedst Thyself of the Blessed Mother Mary,
In Bethlehem Thou appearedst, for it was Thy will,
Shepherds glorified Thee, they gave Thee praise,
Three kings of Arabia came to worship Thee,
Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar; offered Thee
Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, for it was Thy will.
Thou savedst Jonah when he fell into the sea,
Thou savedst Daniel from the lions in the terrible jail,
Thou savedst Saint Sebastian in Rome,
Thou savedst Saint Susan from the false charge,
On Earth Thou walkedst thirty-two years, Spiritual Lord,
Performing miracles, thus we have of which to speak,
Of the water Thou madest wine and of the stone bread,
Thou revivedst Lazarus, because it was Thy will,
Thou leftest Thyself to be arrested by the Jews, where they call Mount Calvary,
They placed Thee on the Cross, in the place called Golgotha,
Two thieves with Thee, these of split paths,
One is in Paradise, but the other did not enter there,
Being on the Cross Thou didst a very great virtue,
Longinus was blind ever he saw Thee,
He gave Thee a blow with the lance in the broadside, where he left the blood,
Running down the arm, the hands Thou hadst spread,
Raised it up, as it led to Thy face,
Opened their eyes, saw all parts,
And believed in Thee then, thus saved them from evil.
Thou revivedst in the tomb and went to Hell,
For it was Thy will,
Thou hast broken the doors and brought out the holy fathers.
Thou art King of Kings and of all the world Father,
I worship Thee and I believe in all Thy will,
And I pray to Saint Peter to help with my prayer,
For my Cid the Champion, that God nurse from evil,
When we part today, that we are joined in this life or the next.