Lenition of Voiced Plosives In European Portuguese

In many dialects of European Portuguese, the voiced plosives /b, /d/ and /g/ lenite intervocalically. In this position they produce fricative allophones. A similar process occurs in Spanish. In Brazilian Portuguese, however, this process of lenition does not occur.

The lenition of voiced plosives occurs in the dialects of northern and central Portugal. It does not occur word-initially nor after nasal vowels. In these dialects, words such as alfabeto (alphabet), estado (state) and fogo (fire) are pronounced with intervocalic fricatives. 

The lack of intervocalic lenition in Brazilian Portuguese may reflect an earlier form of the Portuguese language. It is also possible that Brazilian Portuguese was influenced by the southern dialects that do not have intervocalic lenition. Lenition of voiced plosives differentiates the northern and central dialects of European Portuguese from the southern ones, and also distinguishes European Portuguese from Brazilian.