# Why don't they serve breakfast at ethnic restaruants? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088 "2012-03-17T23:14:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/41 "2012-03-20T14:22:21Z")
> [@JBDivmstr](#): > > (Not _everyone_ knows that the double ‘L’ is pronounced as a ‘Y’ in Spanish.) This seems to be the case with most dialects of Spanish, but wasn’t there a recent thread claiming that some Spanish speakers pronounce these letters differently? (Specifically, ‘y’ would be [j] while ‘ll’ would be [ʎ].) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/42 "2012-03-21T07:23:39Z")
The two phonemes used to be different, but the difference is disappearing in general, and has disappeared already in many places. In my phonetics class (9th grade Spanish), the book listed both phonemes; nobody in my year pronounced them differently (about 220 students) and the teacher needed to concentrate to do it. My mother, who trained as a teacher specializing in Humanities subjects, claims she can: she _can_, but she only does it when she’s thinking about it, most of the time her _poyos_ (supports) sound exactly like her _pollos_ (chickens). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/43 "2012-03-21T07:34:19Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > This seems to be the case with most dialects of Spanish, but wasn’t there a recent thread claiming that some Spanish speakers pronounce these letters differently? (Specifically, ‘y’ would be [j] while ‘ll’ would be [ʎ].) [Here’s a Wiki article on _yeísmo_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye%C3%ADsmo), which addresses where the dialects that make the distinction are. I’m most familiar with it in Argentinian Spanish, where the “ll” becomes something like a “zh” sound. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/44 "2012-03-21T09:29:08Z")
The Argentinians sort of go the other way, tho, at least the ones I know: they pronounce _pollo_ almost as _posho_, and _apoyarse_ almost as _aposharse_; rather than distinguish the two phonemes they use a different one. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/45 "2012-03-21T14:39:57Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The Argentinians sort of go the other way, tho, at least the ones I know: they pronounce _pollo_ almost as _posho_, and _apoyarse_ almost as _aposharse_; rather than distinguish the two phonemes they use a different one. You know what? You’re totally right. I forgot that the “y” also gets shifted to the same phoneme as the “ll” – either /ʃ/ or /ʒ/. So, like you say, “y” and “ll” are the same sounds in those languages, although a different sound than is usual. (As an aside, the same sort of thing happened in Hungarian. Except in certain dialects, “ly” and “j” are the same sound /j/, although historically, the same sort of distinction was made between them as between Spanish “ll” and “y.” So Hungarian also has undergone their own version of yeísmo.) ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088/46 "2012-03-21T18:04:22Z")
Thanks for the precision. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-they-serve-breakfast-at-ethnic-restaruants/616088.md?page=2)