x is pronounced four different ways in Spanish: like j in México, like the English “sh” in Xcaret, like s in xenofobia and like English “x” in extremo.
The first two are not productive now in normal Spanish words: they are only used in old spellings that have irregularly been retained, and in loanwords from indigenous languages. But they do exist.
Well, yes. I was speaking about standard Spanish from Spain.
Xenofobia is an s, yes, and excursión is "ks"
In fsct, Méjico is the traditional way to write Mexico in Spanish grom Spain until it was accepted the other form a few years ago. I still write "Méjico" myself.
Since less than 10% of Spanish speakers are from Spain, there’s no reason to assume you were specifically talking about that one country when referring to the Spanish language in general.
And anyway, as you point out, even in Spain the form México is accepted now.
I thought it is perfectly reasonable to talk about spanish from Spsin the same you talk about English from England.
After all, it is where they come from originally and have their own spelling (colour vs color, etc.)
An x in standard spanish has always been the two sounds I told you and that mexican deviation is specific to Mexico.
Yes, it is over 100 million speakers but I was still assuming the root language in its original place as the reference. Sorry if I did not express it correctly.
I get your point, but FWIW, México is not a Mexican deviation; it's just an older Spanish spelling. E.g. Jiménez was once spelled Ximénez and there are probably lots of other examples.
The "root language spoken in its original place" absolutely did pronounce X like modern J.
The first two are not productive now in normal Spanish words: they are only used in old spellings that have irregularly been retained, and in loanwords from indigenous languages. But they do exist.