Why don't Spanish words start with “sp”?

Question

I've noticed that there aren't any words in Spanish that start with sp. Latin words are altered to include an e in front of the sp. Even loan words are often modified to esp...:

• spaghetti => espagueti
• Sparta => Esparta

I've even heard (but for obvious reasons, not read):

• Sprite => Esprite

The Real Academia Española's Diccionario de la Lengua Española lists a few English loan words that start sp:

• speech
• sponsor
• sport
• spot
• spray
• sprint

(It seems like several of these are technical terms related to broadcasting, but otherwise I can't see why these spellings were not altered.)

Finally, when I looked at the title of this very question, I noticed perhaps the strangest spelling change:

• Español => Spanish

So why don't Spanish words (in general) start with the sp sound?

Answer 1

It’s a basic rule of Spanish phonotactics. In a nutshell, the structure of a Spanish syllable does not allow it:

(C₁ (C₂)) (S₁) V (S₂) (C₃ (C₄))

A Spanish syllable consists of an optional onset, consisting of one or two consonants; a required nucleus, consisting of a vowel optionally preceded by and/or followed by a semivowel; and an optional coda, consisting of one or two consonants.

Now take “spa” (as in Spanish) as an example syllable. First in the onset can be any consonant (here [s]), but a second consonant is allowed only if the first is [p], [t], [k], [b], [d], [ɡ], or [f]. Furthermore, the second consonant can only be [l] or [r]. “Spa” satisfies neither of these rules, therefore it cannot occur as a syllable in a (native) Spanish word.

It just happens that the most common words which do begin with [sp-] in English begin with [esp-] in Spanish, because that was usually the original spelling. English got a lot of these words via Old French; the initial [e] was reduced to [ə] and typically dropped thereafter.

Obviously Spanish speakers have the physical ability to pronounce words beginning with [sp] and other such consonant clusters. But when learning (or borrowing words from) another language, our pronunciation is often coloured by our native tongue, hence “Esprite”.

Answer 2

Spanish words can't begin with sibilant blends, so when such a word is made or borrowed, an "e" is usually prepended to mesh with the pattern of Spanish pronunciation. It's not just "sp."

Some English cognates, either with common Latin origins or borrowed anglicisms:

• esbelto (svelte)
• escasez (scarcity)
• esfera (sphere)
• eslogan (slogan)
• esmog (smog)
• esnob (snob)
• espinacas (spinach -- that's an Arabic one for variety!)
• esquina (square)
• estandar (standard)

So it's not just "sp."

Some of these words come from English -- like smog, snob, and slogan (the last one from Gaelic) -- and others like esfera are Greek σφαῖρα via Latin sphaera. All of those add the "e" only in Spanish. Some of the other Latin words like exquadra (squared off) or exvellere (stretched, svelte) have the Latin ex- (out of) prefix.

This is a common enough pattern that it should be a part of every Spanish translator's toolkit. If you ever need to help a native Spanish speaker with foreign pronunciation, you will find that the idea of launching into sibilant blends without a softening initial vowel is foreign enough to be a shock at first.

Spain note: As for Spain and España, the original Latin name for Iberia was Hispania, so it was the English version that dropped the characteristic vowel rather than the Spanish version that added it. It's an interesting reversal of the usual pattern where Latin words added the vowel as part of the evolution of the Spanish language and English kept them bare.

Answer 3

In spanish all syllables must have at least a "vowel sound" because without a vowel a consonant can't be pronounced. With vowel sound we can also add the letter "Y" in words like whisky (for syllable ky).

So as all words starting with the sound "ESP"/"SP" should be divided in two syllables so S should be the first and P should belong to the next one. As the first syllable is S there should be an E before the S so that consonant can have a sound, for instance:

ESPAÑA --> ES - PA - ÑA 
ESPECIAL --> ES- PE- CIAL 

All of this is just because the sound in english for S in Spanish is written ES, because S by itself doesn't have a sound (except you mean the letter S, but that is called "ese").

---

UPDATE: WHY SP sound always is 2 syllables:

Because of the rules for forming syllables in Spanish. I select some of them which affect this case

1. A consonanat can't form by itself a syllable --> so S can't be alone

Now the word could be:

-ESP + Vowel (CASE 1) e.g. ESPAÑA
-ESP + Consonant(L/R)+vowel  (CASE2) e.g. ESPLENDOR, ESPRAY,

1. When there is a VOWEL + CONSONANT + CONSONANT + VOWEL the syllable one ends in the first consonant and the other in the second, except for these groups: bl, br, dr, cr, cl, fr, fl, gr, gl, pl, pr, tr y dr --> For CASE 1 As "SP" is not in the group the syllables must be ES - P...

2. When there are 3 consonants in a row the first two consonants go in the same syllable and the 3rd in the next one. But if the 3rd consonant is an L or an R the first consonant goes in the first syllable and the 2 next consonants in the next syllable. --> For CASE 2 this means that ES belongs to the first syllable and PR/PL to the second one.

   So this is how S and P can't belong to the same syllable.

Answer 4

This doesn't answer the question directly but adds some related information.
In Spanish dialects where an S preceding a consonant, is pronounced as an english H *, this wouldn't even be possible to pronounce, imagine pronouncing a word like Hpecial or Hparta

* Argentina, Uruguay, parts of Spain and Central America, I think.