Pronunciation guide for medieval Galician-Portuguese

The goal of this guide is not to teach a ‘perfect’ medieval Galician-Portuguese accent; that is, to all intents and purposes, unachievable. Rather, it is to help the performer to sound at least as competent and comprehensible in the language as the foreign trobadors and jogrars that must have visited the court of Alfonso X in the 13th century and (one assumes) managed not to make fools of themselves in the royal presence.

I make full use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the table here. Whilst this may be unfamiliar to some readers, it is without a doubt the only way to achieve any sort of precision, and for anyone who is likely to make a habit of singing in medieval languages, it is worth investing a bit of study time so that you can then make sense of other guides and resources. To assist with this, each of the symbols in the Sound (IPA) column is linked where possible to the Wikipedia page that explains it. In all cases though, I have tried to relate the sounds of medieval Galician-Portuguese to those of modern English and Spanish (Castilian) or, where it seems useful, to other major modern European languages.

Remember that the pronunciation rules given below assume that the spelling is that of my edition. If you try to apply them directly to Mettmann's text, for example, you will find gaps—such as how to pronounce the letter y, word-final -m, forms like menĩez, reỹa, estrãya, patriarcha etc.—and the results will not be quite right. Caveat cantor.

Word stress

The position of the stress in any word of two or more syllables can be identified from the following simple rules, in descending order of precedence:

Words with an acute accent have the stress on the marked syllable, e.g. ángeos [ˈãnʤe.os], porén [poˈɾẽ], duodécima, nïún [ni.ˈũ] aprendí, razón, Cádiz
Words ending in a consonant other than n or s are stressed on the final syllable, e.g. aquel, trobar, quiser, sennor, perdiz
Words ending in any of the ‘falling’ diphthongs ai, ei, eu, iu, oi, ou and ui are also stressed on the final syllable, e.g. mamou [maˈmou̯], connoceu [koɲoˈʦeu̯], romeu [rroˈmɛu̯] guariu [gu̯aˈriu̯]
All other words are stressed on the syllable before last, e.g. oge, bẽeita [beˈei̯.ta], frores, devemos, começaron.

Hiatus or diphthong?

When the table below states that a particular pair of vowels can form a diphthong, this does not imply that they do so in every word. In cases where two vowels look as if they might be a diphthong but are in fact in separate syllables—i.e. they are in ‘hiatus’—the text of this edition always marks the weak vowel (i or u) with an acute accent if it is stressed (e.g. María, rúas) or a trema if it is unstressed (e.g. pïadoso, nïún, Génüa). For maximum clarity, this use of the trema is also extended to words like Gabrïel and nïente even though ie is not a native diphthong in medieval Galician-Portuguese, since speakers of Spanish (for example) might easily read them incorrectly otherwise. If you are ever in any doubt—which is perhaps most likely with words like bestia that follow the rules but are unmarked—you can of course always click the button to switch on syllable bullets for the definitive answer (in this case bes•tia with a diphthong).

Please remember that the trema is not like a German umlaut and doesn't change the quality of the vowel sound!

Vowels

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	Comments	To be avoided
a	[a]	As in Spanish ama or English tap. Do not over-lengthen into the sound of a [ɑː] in English father. Also, the vowel must keep its clear [a] quality even in unstressed syllables, in contrast to modern Portuguese, so do not let it drop to a ‘schwa’ [ə] (like the final a in English Anna). There are two diphthongs with a as the nucleus, both containing the semivowel [i̯]: ai = [ai̯] as in Spanish hay or English eye. ia = [i̯a] as ia in Spanish bestia or ya in English yak	[ɑː], [ə]
ã	[ã], [aŋ]	Either as a nasalised a, or a followed by [ŋ], the sound of ng in English sang. Do not pronounce as French an which has a different underlying vowel [ɑ̃]. It is also incorrect to treat any tilde as an n that begins the next syllable: irmão is [irmã.o] (or [irmaŋo]) never [irmano]. See also Change 13 on the Spelling page for details of the cases where my spelling system replaces an original ã with the sequence -ann-.	[a], [an], [aɲ], [ɑ̃]
e	[e], [ɛ]	Unstressed e is always pronounced as close (high-mid) [e], like the e in Spanish madre. When stressed, e can represent either close [e] or open (low-mid) [ɛ], depending on the Latin vowel from which it originated. The rules for determining which is which are complex, unfortunately, but the distinction is important to the integrity of the rhyming schemes of the Cantigas, and is therefore marked in the IPA transcriptions of my texts as well as in the rhyme tables. Having said that, meaning rarely if ever depends solely on the distinction between these two sounds (what linguists call a ‘low functional yield’), so if as a performer you find it too burdensome to maintain, I'd suggest the following simple approach to dealing with e: Native speakers of modern Galician and Portuguese should use their intuition: if you can identify the modern counterpart of a medieval word, using the corresponding choice of [e] or [ɛ] should serve you well (though it won't be perfect). Other performers can just use whichever of [e] or [ɛ] comes more naturally according to their native language. In losing the distinction you will most likely be doing no worse than the average medieval Castilian visitor to Galicia. I'd recommend that you study the rhyming schemes anyway, and make the most you can of the open/close distinction at least in cases where it really matters, such as the refrain of CSM 427, stanza XI of CSM 5, and so on. There are three diphthongs with e as the nucleus, with two spellings: ei = [ei̯] approximately as ey in Spanish rey or ay in English hay. eu = [eu̯] or eu = [ɛu̯] both similar to Spanish deuda or Europa, but the first with close [e] and the second with open [ɛ]. There are no easy English equivalents, but do not let either diphthong turn into the sound of eu in Europe or ew [ju] in few.	[ju] for eu
ẽ	[ẽ], [eŋ]	Either as a nasalised e, or e followed by [ŋ], the sound of ng in English sing. (Note that all the evidence seems to suggest that e was always close when nasal in the period of the Cantigas, with [ɛ̃] never occurring.) Do not pronounce as in French en which has a different underlying vowel [ɑ̃]. You should also resist any Portuguese-influenced tendency to turn plain [ẽ] into a diphthong [ẽĩ̯]. (I have seen the latter pronunciation recommended elsewhere, but do not know of any evidence for it being correct in the 13th century.) See also Change 13 on the Spelling page for details of the cases where my spelling system replaces an original ẽ with the sequence -enn-.	[en], [ɑ̃], [ẽĩ̯]
i	[i]	As in Spanish bicho or English machine. One diphthong occurs with i as the nucleus: iu = [iu̯] This sound is quite common as the 3rd personal singular preterite verb ending (conjugation III), e.g. pariu, viu. Try not to turn it from a falling diphthong into a rising one: the pronunciation [i̯u] or [ju] (= English you) is technically incorrect, even when the diphthong follows another vowel as in saiu, which is [sa·iu̯] not [sa·i̯u] or [sa·ju]. Having said that, if this is the worst mistake you make, you will be doing very well indeed!
ĩ	[ı̃], [iŋ]	Either as a nasalised i, or i followed by [ŋ], the sound of ng in English sing. Do not pronounce [ɛ̃] as in standard French vin which has a quite different underlying vowel. See also Change 12 on the Spelling page for details of the special cases where my spelling system replaces Mettmann's ĩ and ỹ with the sequence -inn-.	[in], [ɛ̃]
o	[o], [ɔ]	Unstressed o is always pronounced as close (high-mid) [o], like the o in Spanish vino. When stressed, o has two possible values, paralleling e above: it can represent either close [o] or open (low-mid) [ɔ], depending on the original Latin vowel. However, in this case the distinction seems to be much less important to the rhyming schemes, and therefore I have not yet marked it in the IPA transcriptions of my texts or in the rhyme tables, although I plan to in the near future. Again, I suggest the following simple approach: Native speakers of modern Galician and Portuguese should try to identify the modern counterpart of the medieval word, and use the corresponding choice of [o] or [ɔ]. Other performers can just use whichever of [o] or [ɔ] comes more naturally. Like [e] vs. [ɛ], meaning rarely depends on this distinction alone. There are three diphthongs with o as the nucleus: oi = [oi̯] as oy in Spanish hoy or English toy. ou = [ou̯] as in English (RP) mould or the Galician city Ourense. io = [i̯o] as io in Spanish ocio, nación or yo in English yoghurt.	[au] for ou [u] for ou
õ	[õ], [oŋ]	Either as a nasalised o, or o followed by [ŋ], the sound of ng in English song. See also Change 13 on the Spelling page for details of the cases where my spelling system replaces an original õ with the sequence -onn-.	[on]
u	[u]	As in Spanish mucho, or intermediate in length between the vowels in English put and lunar. One diphthong occurs with u as the nucleus: ui = [ui̯] Like iu, this is a falling diphthong, not a rising one, so try to avoid the pronunciation [u̯i] or [wi].
ũ	[ũ], [uŋ]	Either as a nasalised u, or u followed by [ŋ], the sound of ng in English sung. Note that [ŋ] is also the sound of modern (official) Galician nh in unha (= [u.ŋa]), such that the latter word sounds very like its medieval ancestor ũa (or hũa), a very common word in the Cantigas. (Portuguese speakers should note that their nh equates not to official Galician nh, but rather to ñ.)	[un]

Consonants

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	Comments	To be avoided
b	[b]¹	As in English bat or Spanish nombre. When b falls between vowels, modern Galician and Spanish performers will naturally pronounce it as a fricative [β], and although the evidence is unclear as to whether this was already common in the period of the Cantigas (see Note 1 below), I would certainly consider it acceptable. See also v below.
c + a, o, u qu + e, i	[k]	As in Spanish casa and queso, or the unaspirated c in Eng. scan. Try if possible to avoid pronunciation as the aspirated c in Eng. cat, which is followed by an extra puff of breath. Note that the spelling qu' is used consistently in this edition to indicate the [k] sound when a final -ca or -co elides its vowel before a word beginning with e- or i-, for example riqu' e poderoso (from rico+e). This is [rike], never [rikwe] or [riku e]. Similarly, biqu' inchado is [bikinʧado].	[k^h], [kw]
qua	[kwa]	As in Portuguese quadro, English quack or the cua- in Spanish cuando. Avoid the sound [kwɒ] as in Eng. quad or quantity. (The sequence quo never occurs in the Cantigas.)	[ka], [kwɒ]
c + e, i ç + any vowel	[ʦ]²	As ts in Eng. bits, or the German z in Zimmer. Beware that this is not the sound of c before e or i in modern Spanish or Galician ([θ], [s] = Eng. th or s), nor Portuguese [s], and definitely not Italian [ʧ] (= Eng. ch).	[θ], [s], [ʧ]
ch	[ʧ]	As in Spanish chico or English chips. Do not pronounce ch as sh [ʃ] in English ships. The latter sound is written x (see below) and the two letters must be carefully distinguished, in contrast to modern Portuguese where ch and x have merged into one.	[ʃ]
d	[d̪]	As Spanish d in mundo or molde, or English d in dog. I am not aware of any evidence that -d- between vowels was already pronounced in medieval Galician-Portuguese as a fricative [ð] (= Eng. th in rather), but I couldn't claim that it is wrong to do so. For most modern Galician and Spanish performers a [ð] in this position will come naturally, and therefore I would consider it quite acceptable, especially as it cannot be confused with any other sound.
f	[f]	As in Spanish fama or English fire.
g + a, o gu + e, i	[g]	As g in Spanish galgo and guía, or English goal. Paralleling qu' above, the spelling gu' is used consistently in this edition to indicate the hard [g] sound when a final -ga or -go elides its vowel before a word beginning with e- or i-, for example logu' enton (from logo+enton). Do not pronounce this as [logwenton] or [logu enton]. Similarly, fogu' infernal (from fogo infernal) is never [fogwinfernal].	[gw]
g + e, i	[ʤ]	As the affricate g in English gem or general (never as in get). This is the same sound as j below. Pronunciation as fricative g [ʒ] as in Portuguese gelo or French gîte is also acceptable, as sources vary somewhat on the question of how early the sound change [ʤ] → [ʒ] happened in medieval Galician-Portuguese. My own preference for [ʤ] is mainly for consistency with the affricate pronunciations of ç (= c + e, i), z and ch. Do not pronounce as Spanish g [x] in the same position (e.g. general, elige).	[g], [x], [ʃ]
gua	[gwa]	As in Spanish lengua, or the gw in the name Gwen followed by a. (Like quo, the sequence guo never occurs in the Cantigas.)	[ga]
j	[ʤ]	As the j in English just. Pronunciation as j [ʒ] in Portuguese joelho or French jouer is also acceptable; see g + e, i above. Do not pronounce as modern Spanish j (= [x]) in joven, or German j (= [j]) in jeder.	[x], [j], [ʃ]
k	[k]	As in Spanish kilo or English kettle. This letter is used exactly once in all of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, in the Greek phrase kirieleison.
l	[l]	As in Spanish leche or the 'clear' l in English leek. This sound does not change when the l is at the end of a syllable, so take care not to pronounce it as the velarized 'dark' l [ɫ] in English cool.	[ɫ]
ll	[ʎ]	As the ‘standard’ (but increasingly rare) pronunciation of Spanish ll in calle or llegar, the lh in Portuguese ovelha, or the ll in Catalan lluna. More or less the same as lli in English million, especially when this word is pronounced with just two syllables. Do not pronounce as a long or doubled l, or split the ll across two syllables. Spanish-speaking performers should avoid ‘yeísmo’ which merges ll and y into [ʝ] in the modern language, and has recently begun to encroach on modern Galician.	[l], [l·l], [ʝ]
m	[m]	As in Spanish madre or English mouse. In this edition, m only appears in syllable-final position before b or p (see spelling change 9), so pronunciation as [m] is always correct. Original word-final m is normalized to n instead.
n- syll. initial -n syll. final before d, t	[n]	As in Spanish nombre and quando, or English name.
-n syll. final elsewhere and word-final	[ŋ]	As the ng in English sing, or as nasalization of the preceding vowel without changing its oral quality. For example word-final -an is [aŋ] or [ã]. In this edition, n never appears in syllable-final position before b or p (see spelling change 9), but is replaced by m to indicate the correct pronunciation (see also m above).	[n]
nn	[ɲ]	As ñ in Spanish señor. Do not pronounce as a long or doubled n, or split the nn across two syllables.	[n], [nː], [n·n]
p	[p]	As Spanish p in padre, or the unaspirated p in Eng. span. Try to avoid pronunciation as the aspirated p in Eng. pat.	[p^h]
q	See above under c.
r word-initial rr any pos.	[r]	As the strongly trilled (rolled) r in Spanish roble or perro. Note that only word-initial single r has this pronunciation: other syllable-initial single r's are pronounced [ɾ] as indicated below. Do not weaken to an English approximant r sound [ɹ].	[ɾ], [ɹ]
r non-word-init.	[ɾ]	As the tapped r in Spanish abre or pero. Again, do not weaken to an English approximant r sound [ɹ].	[r], [ɹ]
s word-initial s final or before a consonant ss any position	[s]	Unvoiced, as in Spanish sabor or English sing. Do not pronounce ss as a long or doubled s, or split it across two syllables. Also, avoid the influence of modern Portuguese and Galician dialects and do not pronounce s as [ʃ] (Eng. sh) or [ʒ] at the end of a syllable (or indeed anywhere else).	[ʃ], [ʒ], [z], [sː], [s·s]
s between vowels in word	[z]	Voiced, like the s in English rose or the z in zebra.	[s], [ʃ], [ʒ]
t	[t̪]	As Spanish t in tener, or the unaspirated t in Eng. star. Try to avoid pronunciation as the aspirated t in Eng. tar.	[t^h]
v	[β]¹	As the fricative v in Spanish lavar. When v is at the beginning of a word, or falls after an n, modern Galician and Spanish speakers will tend to pronounce it as [b], with the result that b and v are not distinguished. As mentioned under b above, it is not clear whether this lack of distinction was already current in the period (see Note 1 below), but again, I would consider it acceptable. Pronunciation of v as [v], as in English and modern Portuguese, is probably not historically defensible: the excerpt quoted in Note 1 below states that “in Galician, as in Castilian [Spanish], in Catalan (generally), in Gascon or in Basque, it seems that there never was a labiodental”. Once again, though, I would deem it entirely respectable and defensible for English and Portuguese performers to consistently pronounce b as [b] and v as [v], not least because this would have been perfectly comprehensible in the period, and was quite likely to be used at the time by visitors from other countries.	[w]
x	[ʃ]	In all positions, as x in modern Portuguese xarope or modern Galician xunta, or the sh in English ship. There seem to be no clear-cut cases where x should be pronounced as [ks] in the Cantigas. The only possible candidates are the words Ale(i)xandria and Aleixi (= Roman emperor Alexius), but even here I would assume a nativized pronunciation of x as [ʃ] in conjunction with the nativized diphthong ei.	[ks]
z	[ʣ]³	As dz in Eng. adze, or the ds in fads. This is the voiced counterpart of the voiceless ç (= [ʦ]) and must be carefully distinguished from it. Beware that this letter does not have the sound of z in modern Spanish and Galician (= [θ] or [s]), nor that of English z in zebra. Also, as for s, avoid all modern Portuguese-influenced pronunciations of syllable-final z as [ʃ] or [ʒ].	[ʦ], [s], [θ], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]

Notes

The first three of the following notes are all direct quotations from [NOMIG] Normas Ortográficas e Morfolóxicas do Idioma Galego, 20th edition, published by the Instituto da Lingua Galega in February 2005. The primary purpose of this document is to regulate the modern Galician language, which is an enterprise fraught with political difficulties, and I certainly don't mean to take sides by citing this particular source! However, the document does contain some useful background information on the medieval Galician-Portuguese language which I have found very useful and relevant. Apologies for the lack of translation (that's a small project for the future) but most people familiar with one or more Iberian Romance languages should be able to figure it out (and anybody wanting to perform the Cantigas should at least have a go with the modern language!)

“No galego medieval as grafías b e u (consonántico) non eran arbitrarias; a cada unha delas correspondíalle unha pronuncia e unha etimoloxía diferentes: b procede de -P-, B- e -BB- latinos (saber, boca, abade) e u de V-, -V-, -B-, -F- e -PH- latinos (uiño, leuar, caualo, devesa, Estevo). Estas grafías concordan máis ou menos coas que perviven aínda hoxe nalgúns idiomas como o francés e o portugués; pero nestas dúas linguas o v é labiodental e por iso practicaron sempre a distinción gráfica entre b/v; en galego, como en castelán, en catalán (en xeral), en gascón ou en vasco, parece que nunca houbo labiodental. Posiblemente houbo primeiro unha diferenza entre o fonema /b/, bilabial oclusivo (representado graficamente por b), e /β/, bilabial fricativo (representado graficamente por v); esta oposición medieval (calquera que fose o trazo pertinente da correlación) posteriormente desfonoloxizouse. Coa perda desta oposición as grafías b e v representaban un fonema único, que se realiza como [b] ou [β] segundo o contexto, en distribución complementaria: bilabial oclusivo en posición inicial ou tras nasal e fricativo noutras posicións. Por esta circunstancia xa nos textos galegos medievais aparecen grafías erradas (b por v as máis das veces). Desde o século XV aumentan estas confusións; modernamente eliminouse a distinction gráfica medieval por ser irrelevante, restituíndose unha grafía etimolóxica: b cando a palabra latina tiña B, BB ou -P- e v cando tiña V, -F- e -PH-.”
“O c latino pronunciábase [k] en calquera posición: COLLUM [kollum], CERAM [ke:ram]. Nas linguas románicas occidentais, incluída a galega, conservouse como [k] ante a, o, u, pero ante e, i transformouse en [ts] no galego antigo: cinco ['tsiŋko], cera ['tseɾa].”
“A letra z non existía no alfabeto romano; foi introducida no latín para representar o son [dz] dos préstamos gregos (baptizare) e máis tarde foi adoptada para o son románico [dz] procedente das sonorizacións e asibilacións de C + e, i (fazer, juizo) e doutras similares; este son [dz] pasou a [s] ou [θ] no galego moderno.”