Something I've wondered ever since I started learning Spanish about 8 years ago.
One often hears that the sound for "ll" and "y" is merged in "most accents". Wikipedia's IPA for Spanish guide, for instance, says:
/ʎ/ merged with /ʝ/ in most dialects
In metropolitan areas of the Iberian Peninsula and some Central American countries, /ʎ/ has merged into /ʝ/; the actual realization depends on dialect. In Rioplatense Spanish, it has become [ʃ] or [ʒ].
I probably haven't seen any accent being described without an explanation to this effect:
se cayó ("he fell down") is homophonous with se calló ("he became silent")
Yes, I got that. However, in what accents are "ll" and "y" not merged? What does that sould like? How would someone with such accent say e.g. "calle" and "yo"? (Please link to audio examples if possible!)
Of course, someone from Madrid pronouncing "ll" and "y" identically most likely sounds very different compared to someone from Buenos Aires also pronouncing them identically (but using a voiceless [ʃ]). Is the same true for different areas where speakers do make the distinction? (In other words, do the actual speech sounds employed differ between several accents making the distinction?) Can you give examples of this?