Why do the Spanish pronounce certain 'z' and 's' sounds as a 'th'?

Question

The most recent example being the Ryder Cup golfer Jose Maria Olazabal (pronounced Olathabal).

Answer 1

That sound is called the "theta", and it is very common in the Spanish of central Spain/Madrid, "el castellano".

The legend goes that centuries ago, the king of Spain had a lisp. People of the royal court that wanted to have his favor subscribed to the idea that, if the KING spoke Spanish like that, it must be the most proper and correct way to speak Spanish, so they started speaking with that as well, and it stuck! That's the legend...

Not all dialects of Spanish use the 'theta'. You don't hear it in North American Spanish nor Central American or Caribbean Spanish. Some South Americans do use it, however. Not all, but some.

Spanish is spoken in so many places in the world that there are slight differations depending on where you are.

Just as British English is different from American English, or Australian English...or heck...just as midwestern standard English is different from the way people that live in Boston, NYC, the deep south, and out west might speak.

Answer 2

The same reason Americans speak one way and British another. Its a dialect, I guess. It is called 'castellano' and I guess is the original spanish, it is spoken in Spain. In other countries however people may say 'vos' instead of 'tú'. Where I come from he would just be called Olazabal (no th sound)

Answer 3

In Spain they pronounce the C earlier E and that i because of the fact the TH in 3 in English. in addition they pronounce the Z in all of the situations because of the fact the TH in 3 in English. In all the different situations, they don't pronounce something like the TH in 3 in English. pronounced TH cielo, acero, haz, decir, zapato, hacía etc. not pronounced TH sientas, fiesta, sol, claro, hasta, nosotros, etc.

Answer 4

Hi, I heard the same answer that PEACHY gave, so I have always used the TH when speaking to folks from Spain, but never with my New World Friends. But even so, some polite expressions that I have, some of my Mexican and Puerto Rican friends have either laughed at or questioned.
Every one is a little different, so that is the SPICE of LIFE!

Answer 5

It's a linguistic process called lenition. Lenition is where sounds become less consonant-like between vowels. In Shoshoni, p is pronounced between vowels as v and t is pronounced as r. The stops become fricatives (less consonant-like) and voiced (more vowel-like). Spanish s and z are very strong consonants in a linguistic sense. They are sibilants, which makes them very unvowel-like. By losing the sibilance, they are pronounced as th between vowels, thus they become less consonant-like and more vowel-like. Nearly every language in the world has some type of lenition of consonants between vowels. It is one of the most common phonetic processes in the world.

Answer 6

For the same reason people who speak English pronounce 'ph' as 'f'. It's just the way things are.

Answer 7

They had a King with a lithp.

Answer 8

It is the castillion dialect.

Answer 9

No es mi culpa, asi me enseñaron.

Answer 10

And whats with the whole b / v thing?
Non entiende?