Spanish Orthography Essay Example

Spanish Orthography Essay The Spanish language is written using the  Spanish alphabet, which is the  Latin alphabet  with one additional letter,  ene  ? n? , for a total of 27 letters. [1]Although the letters ? k? and ? w? re part of the alphabet, they appear only in  loanwords  such as  karate,  kilo,  waterpolo  and  wolframio  tungsten. Each letter has a single official name according to the  Real Academia Espanolas new 2010 Common Orthography,[1]  but in some regions alternative traditional names coexist as explained below. Spanish Alphabet| Letter| A| B| C1| D| E| F| G| H| I| Name| a| be, be larga| ce| de| e| efe| ge| hache| i| IPA| /a/| /b/| /k/,  /? /2| /d/| /e/| /f/| /? /,  /x/| silent3| /i/| Letter| J| K| L| M| N| N| O| P| Q| Name| jota| ka| ele| eme| ene| ene| o| pe| cu| IPA| /x/| /k/| /l/4| /m/| /n/| /? | /o/| /p/| /k/5| Letter| R6| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z| Name| erre| ese| te| u| ve, uve, ve corta| uve doble, ve doble, doble ve, doble u[2]| equis| i griega, ye| zet a| IPA| /? /,  /r/| /s/| /t/| /u/| /b/| /? w/,/b/| /ks/,  /x/,  /s/| /? /,  /i/| /? /2| ^1The sequence ? ch? represents the affricate  /t? /. The digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called  che. ^2  The phonemes  /? /  and  /s/  have merged in many dialects; see  ceceo. ^3  With the exception of some loanwords:  hamster,  hachis,  hawaiano, which have /x/. ^4  When ? l? is written double (e. g. calle), it represents the  palatal lateral  /?   in a few dialects; but in most dialects—because of the historical merger called  yeismo—it, like the letter ? y? , represents the phoneme  /? /. ^5  Used only in the digraph ? qu?. ^6  The digraph ? rr? , which only appears between vowels, represents the trill  [r]. For details on Spanish pronunciation, see  Spanish phonology  and  Wikipedia:IPA for Spanish. When  acute accent  and diaeresis marks are used on vowels ? a e i o u u? they are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ? n? is considered a separate letter from ? n?. This makes a difference when sorting alphabetically; ? n? appears in dictionaries after ? ?.For example, in a Spanish dictionary  pinata  comes after  pinza. There are five digraphs: ? ch? (che  /  ce hache), ? ll? (elle  /  doble ele), ? rr? (doble erre), ? gu? (ge u) and ? qu? (cu u). [3]  While  che  and  elle  were formerly considered separate letters,[1]  in 1994 the tenth congress of the  Association of Spanish Language Academies  agreed to  alphabetize  ? ch? and ? ll? as ordinary pairs of letters in the dictionary by request of  UNESCO  and other international organizations. Thus ? ch? now comes between ? cg? and ? ci? , instead of being alphabetized between ? c? and ? d? as was formerly done. 4]  Despite their former status as separate letters of the alphabet, ? ch? and ? ll? have always been correctly capitalized as two Latin letters. The word  chillon   in a text written in all caps is  CHILLON, not *ChILlON, and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written  Chillon, not *CHillon. Sometimes one finds  lifts  (elevators) with buttons marked *LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according toRAE  rules. In Spanish text, the letters are ranked from most to least common ? E A O S R N I D L C T U M P B G V Y Q H F Z J N X W K? ,[5]  and the vowels take around 45% of the text.Alternative names[edit] Be and uve[1] The letters ? b? and ? v? were originally simply known as  be  and  ve. However, there is no longer any distinction between the sounds of these letters—their accepted names are  be  anduve;[6][7]  in some regions, speakers may instead add something to the names to distinguish them. Some  Mexicans  and most  Peruvians  generally say  be grande  /  ve chica  (big B / little V);Argentines, Uruguayans and Chileans,  be larga  /  ve corta  ( long B / short V). Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter; e. g. ,  be de burro  /  ve de vaca  (b as in  burro / v as nvaca);  Colombians  tend to say  be grande  for B and  ve pequena  for V. Regardless of these regional differences, all Spanish-speaking people recognize  be  as the official name of B. Erre[1] The digraph ? rr? is sometimes called  doble erre  or  erre doble. It is sometimes suggested that the name of the letter  r  be  ere  when it is single, and  erre  when it is double, but the dictionary of the  Real Academia Espanola  defines the name of ? r? as  erre. Ere  is considered obsolete. [8]  The name  ere  was used when referring specifically to the  alveolar tap  /? /  and  erre  referring to thealveolar trill  /r/.The two contrast between vowels, with the latter being represented with ? rr? , but the sounds are otherwise in  complementary distribution  so that a single ? r ? may represent either. As a referent to the trill sound rather than the phoneme,  erre  can refer to a single or double ? r?. Doble uve[1] In  America, it is sometimes called  doble ve,  ve doble,  doble uve. Because of the English acculturation, in Colombia and Mexico the letter is usually called  doble u  (like English double u). In Spain it is usually called  uve doble. I Because of its origin, it is occasionally known as  i latina  (Latin ? i? ) to distinguish it from  i griega  (Greek ? ? ). I Griega[1] The most common form in Spain is  i griega, but it has been superseded by  ye, more common in Latin America, in an effort to standardize on a single-word name as opposed to a two-worded one. Using  ye  as the only name for the letter is one of the newest proposed changes specified by the 2010 new common orthography. Its aim is to standardize on a single-word name for this letter. [1] Zeta[1] The variant  ceta, which has the same pronunciation , used to be accepted by RAE, but now it is not. [9]  In older Spanish, it was called  zeda  or  ceda, which are the origin of the word  cedilla, which is also used in English. Orthography[edit] Spanish orthography is such that the pronunciation of most words is unambiguous given their written form; the main exception is the letter ? x? , which usually represents  /ks/  or  /s/, but can also represent  /x/  or  /? /, especially in proper nouns from times of  Old Spanish, as in  Mexico  or  Pedro Ximenez  (both  /x/). These orthographic rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of otherRomance languages  of the  Iberian Peninsula, such as  Portuguese,  Catalan  and  Galician.The converse does not always hold, i. e. for a given pronunciation there may be multiple possible spellings. The main issues are: * the use of both ? b? and ? v? for  /b/; * the use of both ? j? and ? g? for  /x/  before ? e? and ? i? ; * the silent ? h? ; * for the speakers who have merged  /? /  and  /? /, the various use of ? y? , ? ll? or ? hi? in different words; * the use of ? hu? , ? gu? or ? bu? before a vowel for  /w/  (although many speakers distinguish some or all of these combinations) * for speakers not in central and northern Spain, the use ? /z? and ? s? for  /s/; * the occasional use of accents to distinguish two words that sound the same. Consonants[edit] Consonants| Letter| Context| IPA| Examples| English approximation| b  or  v| word-initial after a pause, or after  m  or  n| [b]| bestia; embuste;  vaca; envidia| best| | elsewhere (i. e. after a vowel, even across a word boundary, or after any consonant other than  m  or  n)| [? ]| bebe; obtuso; vivir; curva; mi  bebe; mivaca[10]| between  baby  and  bevy  (like English  v  but using both lips instead of lips and teeth)| c| before  e  or  i| [?   (central and northern Spain) or  [s](elsewhere)  [11]| cereal; encima| thing (central and northern Spain), cereal (elsewhere)| | elsewhere| [k]| casa;  claro; vaca; escudo| scan (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English  /k/  at the beginning of a word, e. g. in  can)| ch| everywhere[12]| [t? ]| ocho;  chicharo| church| d| word-initial after a pause, or after  l  or  n| [d]| dedo; cuando; aldaba| dead| | elsewhere| [? ]| dadiva; arder; admirar; midedo; verdad[10]| this| f| everywhere| [f]| fase; cafe| face| g| before  e  or  i| [x] r  [h]| general| loch, or the  ch  in German  Bach; a strong  h-sound| | not before  e  or  i, and either word-initial after a pause, or after  n| [? ]| gato;  grande; vengo| got| | not before  e  or  i, and not in the above contexts| [? ]| trigo; amargo; signo; migato[10]| between a light  go  and  ahold| gu| before  a  or  o, and either word-initial after a pause, or after  n; but only in some dialects| [? w]| guante; lengua| language| | before  a  or  o, and not in the above contexts| [? w]| agua; averiguar[10]| somewhat like  wall| | before  e  or  i, and either word-initial after a pause, or after  n| [? | guerra| got| | before  e  or  i, and not in the above contexts| [? ]| sigue[10]| between a light  go  and  ahold| gu| before  e  or  i, and either word-initial after a pause, or after  n; but only in some dialects| [? w]| pinguino| penguin| | before  e  or  i, and not in the above contexts| [? w]| averigue;  guero[10]| somewhat like  wall| h| everywhere[13]| (silent[14])| hoy;  hacer; prohibir;huevo;  hielo| honor| hi| before a vowel| [? ]| hierba;  hielo| you (but often more strongly pronounced, sometimes resembling  g  in  genre)| hu| before a vowel| [w]| hueso;  huevo| when (sometimes turn to /gw/ or /bw/)| j| everywhere| [x] r  [h]| jamon; eje; reloj;[15]| loch, or the  ch  in German  Bach; a strong  h-sound| k| (only occurs i n a few loanwords)| [k]| kilo| scan (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English  /k/  at the beginning of a word, e. g. in  can)| l| everywhere| [l]| lino; alhaja; principal| lean| ll| everywhere| [? ]  in some dialects [? ]  in some dialects| llave; pollo| somewhat like  million  (in some dialects, simplified to a strongly pronounced  you resembling  g  in  genre, both of which in some dialects are distinctly separate)| m| everywhere except word-finally| [m]| madre; comer; campo[16]| mother| | word-final| [n]| album| boon| | everywhere but before other consonants| [n]| nido; anillo; anhelo; sin| need| | before other consonants[16]| [m] [n] [? ] [? ]| convertir mundo enyesar cinco| jumbo under canyon sink| n| everywhere| [? ]| nandu; cabana[16]| roughly like  canyon| p| everywhere| [p]| pozo; topo; esposa| spouse (unaspirated, see above for  /k/)| qu| (usually only occurs before  e  or  i)| [k]| quise| scan (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English  /k/  at the beginning of a word, e. g. n  can)| r| word-initial, morpheme-initial,[17]  or after  l,  n  or  s| [r]| rumbo; honra; Israel| trilled r| | elsewhere| [? ]| caro; cabra; bravo; carta; amor| ladder  in  American English| rr| (only occurs between vowels)| [r]| carro| trilled r| s| before a voiced consonant (e. g. l,  m,  d)| [z]| isla; mismo; desde; deshuesar[18]| prison| | everywhere else| [s]| saco; casa; deshora; espita[18]| sack| sh| (in words from English)| [? ]  or  [t? ]| sherpa| shack| t| everywhere| [t]| tamiz; atomo| stand (unaspirated, see above for  /k/)| tl| (mostly from Nahuatl)| [t? | tlapaleria; cenzontle; Popocatepetl| somewhat like  cat-like| tz| (from loanwords)| [ts]| quetzal; Ertzaintza; abertzale; Patzcuaro| cats| w| in words of English origin| [w]| waterpolo| when (sometimes turn to /gw/ or /bw/)| | in words of German origin and in Visigothic names| [b]| wolframio;   Wamba| best| x| between vowels, in most words| [ks]| exacto; taxi| taxi| | word-initially or before a consonant| [ks]  or [s]| xenofobia; extremo[18]| sack| | in some words borrowed from Nahuatl, mostly place names| [x]  or [h]| Mexico; Oaxaca| loch, or the  ch  in German  Bach; a strong  h-sound| | in a few words from Basque, Catalan, etc. | [? ]| Xela| shade| y| as a vowel or semivowel| [i] or  [j]| y, hoy| lee, boy| | as a consonant| [? ]| ya;  yerba; ayuno[10]| you (but often more strongly pronounced, sometimes resembling  g  in  genre)| z| (usually does not occur before  e  or  i)| [? ]  (central and northern Spain) or  [s](elsewhere)[11]| zorro; paz| thing (central and northern Spain), cereal (elsewhere)| Vowels[edit] Vowels| Letter| IPA| Examples| English approximation| a| [a]| azahar| spa| e| [e]| vehemente| bet| i| [i]| dimitir; mio;| see| | | y| | o| [o]| boscoso| between  coat  (American more than British) and  caught| u| [u]| cucuruc ho; duo| food| | Semivowels[19]| IPA| Spelling| Examples| English approximation| [j]| i  before a vowel| aliada; cielo; amplio; ciudad| you| [w]| u  before a vowel (but silent in  qu, also  gu  before an  e  or  i)| cuadro; fuego; Huila[20]  arduo| wine| Special and modified letters[edit] Use of different letters for the same sound| sound| before ? e/i? | elsewhere| /? / or /s/| ? c? or ? z? (in some loanwords) or ? s? | ? z? or ? s? | /k/| ? qu? or ? k? (in some loanwords)| ? c? or ? ? (in some loanwords)| /kw/| ? cu? | /x/| ? g? or ? j? or ? x? (in Mexico)| ? j? or ? x? (in Mexico)| /? /| ? gu? | ? g? | /? w/| ? gu? | ? gu? | The vowels can be marked with an  acute accent  (? a, e, i, o, u? ) for two purposes: to mark  stress  if it does not follow the most common pattern, or to differentiate words that are otherwise spelled identically (called the tilde  diacritica  in Spanish). A silent ? u? is used between ? g? and ? e? or ? i? to indicate a hard ? g? pronunciation, so that ? gue? represents  /? e/  and ? gui? represents  /? i/. The letter ? u? (? u? ith diaeresis,) is used in this context to indicate that the ? u? is not silent, e. g. pinguino  /pin? gwino/. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over either vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the meter (viuda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This is analogous to the use of ? i? innaive  in English. Also a silent ? u? always follows a ? q? when followed by ? e? or ? i? , as in  queso,  quimica, but there is no case for the combination *? qu?. There are no native words in Spanish with the combination ? ua? nor ? quo?. When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as  statu quo, the ? u? is always pronounced, so ? u? is never needed after ? q?. Prior to the introduction of the 2010 Common Orthography words such as  cuorum  (quorum),  cuasar  (quasar) or  Catar  (Qatar) w ere spelled with ? q? , however this is no longer so. Stress and accentuation[edit] Written Spanish unequivocally marks  stress  through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, ? n? or ? s? nd on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than ? n? or ? s?. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. Unlike Portuguese or Catalan, Spanish rules count most syllables in rising diphthongs, not vowels, to assign written accents. A syllable is of the form  XaXX, where  X  represents a consonant, permissible consonant cluster, or no sound at all, and  a  represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. A diphthong is any sequence of an unstressed  high vowel  (? i? or ? u? ) with another vowel (as in  gracias  or  nautico).And a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowel s (as in  cambiais  or  buey). Hence Spanish writes  familia  (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on  familia  (all three languages stress the first ? i? ). The letter ? h? is not considered an interruption between vowels (so thatahumar  is considered to have two syllables:  ahu-mar). An accent over the  high vowel  (? i? or ? u? ) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i. e. , it signals a  hiatus): for example,  tia  and  pais  have two syllables each.A word with final stress is called  oxytone  (or  aguda  in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called  paroxytone  (llana  or  grave); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third-to-last syllable) is called  proparoxytone  (esdrujula). A word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier does not have a common linguistic term in English, but in Spanish receives the name  sobresdrujula. (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the last three syllables, except in the case of a verb form with  enclitic  pronouns, such asponiendoselo. All proparoxytones and  sobresdrujulas  have a written accent mark. Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as  facil,  geografico,  cortes) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the  -mente  ending (thus  facilmente,  geograficamente,cortesmente), and do not gain any if they do not have one (thus  libremente  from  libre). In the pronunciation of these adverbs — as with all adverbs in  -mente  Ã¢â‚¬â€ primary stress is on the ending, on the  penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective — whether marked, as in  facilmente, or not marked, as in  libremente  Ã¢â‚¬â€ may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb.Accentuation of capital letters[edit] Further information:  es:Acentuacion de las mayusculas The Real Academia Espanola indicates that accents should still be written on capitals. [21] Differential accents[edit] Blackboard  used in a university classroom showsstudents efforts at placing ? u? and  acute accent  diacriticused in Spanish orthography. In a number of cases, homonyms are distinguished with written accents on the stressed (or only) syllable: for example,  te  (informal object case of you) vs. te  (tea);  se  (third person reflexive) vs. e  (I know or imperative be);  tu  (informal your) vs. tu  (informal subject case of you). When relative and interrogative pronouns have the same letters (as is often the case), the interrogative pronoun is accented and the relative pronoun is not: ? A donde vas? Where are you going? A donde no puedas encontrarme. Where you cannot find me. The use of  o  is poetic for the vocative:  ? O senor! The use of ? o? for the word  o  (meaning or) is a  hypercorrection. Up until 2010, ? o? was used when applied to numbers:  7 o 9  (7 or 9), to avoid possible confusion with the digit 0.The tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies deemed the use of an accent unnecessary, as typewriting eliminates possible confusion due to the different shapes of ? 0? (zero) and ? o? (the letter). [1] These diacritics are often called  acentos diacriticos  or  tildes diacriticas  in traditional Spanish grammar. Capitalization[edit] Capitalization in Spanish is sparse compared to English. In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e. g. Sr. Lopez, but  senor Lopez), the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc. and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, etc. Names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor (in standard style) are days of the week and months of the year. [22] Older conventions[edit] In  Old Spanish, ? x? was used to represent the voiceless palata l sound  /? /  (as in  dixo  he/she said), while ? j? represented the voiced palatal  /? /  (as in  fijo  son). With the  changes of sibilants  in the 16th century, the two sounds merged as  /? /  (later to become velar  /x/), and the letter ? j? as chosen for the single resulting phoneme. When  Cervantes  wrote  Don Quixote  he spelled the name in the old way (and English preserves the ? x? ), but modern editions in Spanish spell it with ? j?. For the use of ? x? in Mexico — and in the name  Mexico  itself — see below. The letter ? c? (c-cedilla) — which was first used in Old Spanish — is now obsolete in Spanish, having merged with ? z? in a process similar to that of ? x? and ? j?. Old Spanish  coracon,cabeca,  fuerca  became modern  corazon,  cabeza,  fuerza. Words formerly spelled with ? ze? or ? zi? such as  catorze,  dezir, and  vezino) are now written with ? ce? and ? ci? (catorce,  decir,  vecino, respectively). The sequences ? ze? and ? zi? do not occur in modern Spanish except some loanwords:  zeugma,  zigurat; some borrowed words have double spellings:  zinc/cinc. [23] The old spellings with ? x? , ? c? , ? ze? , and ? zi? remained in use through the fifteenth century. They were mostly replaced by ? j? , ? z? , ? ce? , and ? ci? , respectively around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; since the eighteenth century, only the newer forms have been used. 24]  The  first edition  of  Don Quixote  (1605), however, used the conservative spellings. Old Spanish used to distinguish /s/ and /z/ between vowels, and it distinguished them by using ? ss? for the former and ? s? for the latter, e. g. osso  (bear) and  oso  (I dare to). Words spelled in modern Spanish with ? cua? (e. g. cuando,  cuatro, etc. ) were written with ? qua? up until around 1815. [25] In the second half of the 18th century, most double consonants were simplified (e. g. gram matica  Ã‚  gramatica,  addicion  Ã‚  adicion)—but the ? m? of a prefix before the ? m? of a root was differentiated to ? ? (e. g. commover  ;  conmover). And the Graeco-Latin digraphs ? ch? , ? ph? , ? (r)rh? and ? th? were reduced to ? c? , ? f? , ? (r)r? and ? t? , respectively (e. g. christiano  cristiano,  triumpho  Ã‚  triunfo,  myrrha  Ã‚  mirra,  theatro  Ã‚  teatro). The use of accent marks in publishing varies with different historical periods, due mainly to reforms promulgated by the  Spanish Royal Academy. For example, many of the words that are today standardly written with an accent mark appeared more often without it up until around 1880. These include words with final stress ending in  -n  (e. . capitan,  tambien,  jardin,  accion,  comun  Ã¢â‚¬â€ but not future-tense verb forms like  seran,  tendran);[26][27]  verbs in the imperfect tense (e. g. tenia,  vivian);[28]  the possessives  mio  and  mia;[29]à ‚  and the word  dia. [30]  Meanwhile, one-letter words other than the conjunction  y  Ã¢â‚¬â€ namely the preposition  a  and the conjunctions  e  (the form of  y  before an [i] sound),  o, and  u  (form of  o  before [o]) — are generally written with accent marks from the mid-1700s to about 1910. [31][32]  The accent-marked infinitive  oir  begins to outnumber the unaccented form around 1920. 33]  Monosyllabic preterit verb forms such as  dio  and  fue  were usually written with accent marks before the 1950s. [34] The names of numbers in the upper teens and the twenties were originally written as three words (e. g. diez y seis,  veinte y nueve), but nowadays they have come to be spelled predominantly as a single word (e. g. dieciseis,  veintinueve). For the numbers from 21 to 29, the fused forms emerged over the second half of the 19th century. [35]  For those from 16 to 19, the one-word forms took the lead in the 1940s. [ 36]  Fusing of number-names above 30 (e. . treintaicinco,  cuarentaiocho)[37]  is rare. Reform proposals[edit] See also:  Bello orthography In spite of the regular orthography of Spanish (especially when compared to English), there have been several initiatives to  reform its spelling:  Andres Bello  succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the  Real Academia Espanola. [38]  Another initiative, the  Ortografia Fonetika Rasional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity. Juan Ramon Jimenez  proposed changing ? ge? and ? gi? to ? je? and ? i? , but this is only applied in editions of his works or those of his wife,  Zenobia Camprubi. Gabriel Garcia Marquez  raised the issue of reform during a congress at  Zacatecas, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of ? h? , which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted. The Academies, howev er, from time to time have made minor changes, such as allowing  este  instead of  este  (this one), when there is no possible confusion. Mexican Spanish  convention is to spell certain indigenous words with ? x? rather than the ? ? that would be the standard spelling in Spanish. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the  voiceless postalveolar fricative  /? /  sound or another  sibilant  that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is  Mexico(see  Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Espanola recommends this spelling. [39]  (The North American Spanish colloquial term  chicano  is shortened from  mechicano, which uses  /t? /  in place of the  /? /  of contra-Madridian/rural Mexican Spanish  /me? i? kano/).