Cinco de mayo

El cinco de Mayo. The fifth of May. Traditionally a holiday in the United States that commemorates the victory in the Battle of Puebla, it brings out festivities inspired by genuine Mexican culture.

The Spanish name for the day is kept in English — "cinco de mayo" becomes synonymous with "Mexican-style celebration". Like other holidays in the US, this one too invokes a greeting of the "Happy.."-kind: "Happy Cinco de Mayo".

"Cinco de Mayo" is, thus, given an English pronunciation, in the same way as tortilla or patio. This is, then, the perfect opportunity to review not only its actual pronunciation in Spanish, but also to make a case study of a sound in this language that shows great variation throughout the Spanish-speaking regions: the <y> as in mayo, the phoneme /j/ ([ʝ]].

[ʝ]	Most common pronunciation in neutral discourse.
[ʤ]	Emphatic pronunciation in regions where the above pronunciation is usual in other contexts; most commonly heard at the beginning of an utterance, or when emphasis is added to a syllable.
[ɟ͡ʝ]	An alternative emphatic realization to the sound described immediately above.
[j]	The "original" phoneme before reinforcing became more prominent in the Hispanic regions; still heard in this fashion in places like the Southern part of the US by Chicanos (Mexican-Americans), where it is subject to weakening or deletion, especially when in proximity of /i/, e.g. gallina.
[ʒ]	Characteristic of the Rio de la Plata region (i.e. Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay).
[ʃ]	Again, heard in various parts of Rio de la Plata.

It is worth noting that all of the above applies, in most Spanish accents, to written <ll> as well, since it has merged with <y> (a merger known as yeísmo).

The video below covers most of the combinations possible in various regions — we're delving into Spanish dialectology now.