I am referring to the sounds made by the letters ⟨z⟩ and the soft ⟨c⟩ the way they’re said in Spain, like in the Spanish words zorro and cena. (This is the unvoiced dental fricative sound heard at the start of the English words thin, thaw, thank, thirty, and thigh, so /θ/ using the International Phonetic Alphabet.)
Latin America learned Spanish from Spain, so why does American Spanish not pronounce those consonants the same way they say them in Spain, having originally learned Spanish from people from Spain?
- Did Latin America somehow decide at some point to start pronouncing ⟨z⟩, ⟨c⟩, and ⟨s⟩ all the same way?
- Or did Spain begin speaking that way after Latin America was already speaking Spanish?
Which one changed how those sounds are said, Spain or America?