How do you pronounce the letter "x" in most spanish words?
How do you pronounce the letter "x" in Spanish?
3 Answers
Letter X in Spanish has a h sound. Example: Mexico=mejico
Letter X in Nahuatl has an sh sound. Example: Xochimilco =shochimilco
I copied this from Lazarus' Reference article:
Between vowels or at the end of a word, it sounds like ks, as it does in English, although it is normal to relax the pronunciation, and make it sound like gs, and in Spain, sometimes like an s. This also happens in some English words, like exam. At the beginning of a word, it sounds like an s.
In medieval Spanish, the x was used completely differently: instead of having a ks sound, it represented the sound of the modern Spanish j, and this can be seen in a few place names, like Mexico, Oaxaca or Texas, that in modern Spanish should have been written as Méjico, Oajaca and Tejas, but since the original spelling is part of their heritage, they keep spelling these with an x even though it is pronounced like a Spanish j.
There are some 'x' sounds that actually are held over from some of the indigenous languages in the Americas that have different sound systems from Spanish.