Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives

[1] Lundeberg (1947) traces the origins of the legend to a chronicle of Pero López de Ayala which says that Peter of Castile "lisped a little" ("ceceaba un poco").

The misnomer "Castilian lisp" is used occasionally to refer to the presence of [θ] in Peninsular pronunciation (in both distinción and ceceo varieties).

In the 15th century, Spanish had developed a large number of sibilant phonemes: seven by some accounts,[2] eight by others[3] (depending on whether /d͡ʒ/ and /ʒ/ are considered contrasting), more than any current dialect.

[4] In a number of ceceo areas (particularly the southernmost provinces like Cádiz) /s/ developed into a non-sibilant apico-dental [θ̺], perceptually similar to the interdental /θ̟/ used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic ⟨c⟩/⟨z⟩.

In seseo areas (particularly in the westernmost provinces like Seville and Huelva), the resulting phoneme developed a predorsal alveolar realization [s̻] (like English ⟨s⟩), perceptually similar to the apicoalveolar [s̺] used by Standard Peninsular speakers for orthographic ⟨s⟩.

[9] The development of the sibilants in Ladino (which split off from Castilian and other Peninsular varieties in the 15th century) was more conservative, resulting in a system closer to that of Portuguese.

[20][21] A similar sound characterized as a "voiceless apico-or corono-post-dental slit fricative" has been observed in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela;[22][23] In these places, ceceo is a largely rural pronunciation and is often stigmatized.

[27] The following table gives an example of the three pronunciation patterns discussed so far: Many speakers of ceceo and seseo dialects in Spain show sociolinguistic variation in usage.

In some cases, this variation may arise when a ceceo or seseo speaker more or less consciously attempts to use distinción in response to sociolinguistic pressure (hypercorrection).

It is perhaps evidence of the saliency of three-way ceceo-seseo-distinción variation that inconsistent use has elicited evaluative comments by some traditional Spanish dialectologists.

For instance, Dalbor (1980) discussed it as "sporadic or chaotic switching [between [s] and [θ]] and the use of intermediate sounds impossible to determine with precision".

[28] Obaid (1973) proposes the synonymous terms ceseo [θeˈseo] and seceo [seˈθeo] to refer to these "mixed" patterns, and notes surprise at a speaker who produced all four possible pronunciations of Zaragoza ([θaɾaˈɣoθa], [saɾaˈɣosa], [θaɾaˈɣosa] and [saɾaˈɣoθa]) within the space of a few minutes.

[29] In fact, sociolinguistic variation is typically highly structured in terms of how often each variant will appear given various social and linguistic independent variables.