/ɲ/ and /ʎ/ versus /nj/ and /lj/ in Romance

[Particles the Greek]

Are there any minimal pairs?

[Thry]

I'm sure there are, but I have to go and can't summon simple examples right now.

Thought, for instance:
paella "paella"
pa' Elia "for Elia"

I have /ʝ/ anyway... but they're clearly distinct.

[linguoboy]

What about liana vs llana?

[Thry]

I've only ever heard [li."a.na], never ["lja.na]

[tezcatlip0ca]

Billar vs biliar?

Also, it's always [ljana] here in northern Mexico, never [li.ana]. Of course, we have no /ʎ/ phoneme.

[zompist]

French magner / manier.

[vec]

Of course, we have no /ʎ/ phoneme.

Who does, these days?

[Thry]

Billar vs biliar?

works

[Particles the Greek]

So, yes. Are there sufficiently few to make a merger likely?

[Dewrad]

Of course, we have no /ʎ/ phoneme.

Who does, these days?

Italian. Also contrastive with /lj/. olio /ˈoljo/ vs Oglio /ˈoʎo/ (phonemically, that is: phonetically internal /ʎ/ is pretty much always [ʎː]).

[Thry]

So, yes. Are there sufficiently few to make a merger likely?

Not happening any time soon in my Spanish, if at all... but it could. Sometimes I misspronounce "antonio" as "antoño" but it's noticeable and people laugh when such a thing happens. Maybe in some dialects it's happening?

[vec]

I repeat my question from above (where I was not being facetious).

In every dialect of Spanish I have heard, historical /ʎ/ has become [j], [ʝ], [ʒ] or [ʃ] and I have never ever heard it pronounced [ʎ] except on this one audio course I tried from the seventies.

[zompist]

The Universtity of Chicago dictionary has a nice map showing areas where /ʎ/ is preserved: the Peruvian Andes, plus Bolivia and Paraguay. Note that the first two areas are also where Quechua and Aymara are spoken, and both distinguish l and /ʎ/ as well.

[Imralu]

A friend of mine from Barcelona pronounces it in both Spanish and Catalan, although I'm only hearing her conscious pronunciation when telling me individual words. I don't speak either language to hear whether she's pronouncing it in fluent speech.

[Thry]

Some people in Spain do have /ʎ/, either as an idiosincrasy from interference cos they're bilingual or some dialect that keeps it (mostly northern ones).