Re: 'dyeus'

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Apparently water runs uphill in Mexico, then. Some speakers pronounce <yo> almost identically to English <Joe>, and the popular song <Mayonesa> was recorded with a very clear voiced affricate, not a mere approximant. (I am not familiar with Mexican dialects, and I do not know what part of Mexico the singers inhabit.)

In Mexico there are 3 pronunciations for <y> & <ll> /y^/ (i.e. "tense y" of you, not "lax y" of yes), /j^/ and z^/. The tense /y/ sound is, like almost all of Latin America, associated with the countryside, especially the North in Mexico --it is considered as a "hillbilly" pronunciation by most. /j/ -a laxer version of English <j> is spoken in Mexico City and areas west of it --it is definitely the standard, as heard on Televisa and Univisión. /z^/ is spoken in Mexico City and areas east of it. Other pronunciations include /s^/ in Buenos Aires and /L/ in a few backwater parts of the Andes -kept mainly because of it use in Runasimi ("Quechua"). /Z^/ is also common among the professional classes and associated with yuppies in Mexico and many other places. In southern South America, you normally hear /z^/ or, in Chile, often something like it such as /dzy^/ (soty of voiced /ç/, which sounds like something out of Polish rather than Spanish). Given the international prestige of Televisa and Univisión, /j^/ has pretty much become the Latin American standard.

For Spain, ask Tavi, but I heard /j, y, z^, L/ for <ll> and /j, z^, y/ for <y>, often in the same place. I heard /L/ from people from Valladolid but also the others from people from there whom I met in El Salvador. In Cáceres, I heard /j^/ and /y^/. In Madrid, I heard all the different pronunciations.

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