A Brief Guide to the Pronunciation of Old Spanish

The truth of the matter is that we don't know precisely how Old Spanish was pronounced. The guidelines below represent a summary of the best approximations linguists have been able to come up with, based on what we know about the pronounciation of spoken Latin and of Spanish and other modern Romance languages, the spelling mistakes of medieval scribes, place names, and a few other hints here and there.

One nice thing is that the pronunciation of Spanish hasn't changed that much since medieval times, especially when we compare it to the changes undergone by English or French. This is due, in part at least, to the fact that Spanish was one of the first European languages to have a relatively standardized spelling system. The standard spellings tended to keep pronunciation more stable as well.

ç = [ts] as in English "rats"

z = [dz] as in English "adds"

An "s" by itself between vowels = [z] as in "buzz"

Two "s" between vowels = [s] as in English "hiss"

An "i" or a "j" between two vowels = [zh] as in "azure" or, later, [sh] as in "shoot"

An "x" = [sh] as in "shoot"