The current situation in the Spanish of El Salvador of the voiceless fricative palatal sound

In this work I discuss the current situation in the Spanish of El Salvador of the voiceless fricative palatal sound. The presence of this sound in Pipil, an orginal language already spoken in El Salvador before the Spaniards arrived, favored its maintenance in Salvadoran Spanish. Since Pipil is a language in extinction, some authors believe that this sound is also disappearing in Salvadoran Spanish. However, Pipil is not the only language with this sound that influences Salvadoran Spanish. Thus, we examine the linguistic distribution of this sound in El Salvador, the possible reasons of its maintenance and its implications for Spanish phonology in general.