Spanish orthography

Spanish orthography is one of the most phonemic among those that are written with the Latin alphabet. For detailed information on the pronunciation not found here, see also Spanish phonology.

Alphabet

Letters and letter names

The Spanish language is written using the Latin alphabet, along with a few special characters: the vowels with an acute accent ("á, é, í, ó, ú"), the vowel "u" with diaeresis ("ü"), and "ñ". The letters "k" and "w" appear mostly in loanwords (such as "karate", "kilo" or "walkman").

The following letter names appear in preference order for speaking in Spanish from Spain. [ [http://mdcthalia.com/data/wikipedia/abecedario.mp3 Listen] to the Spanish alphabet recited by a Mexican speaker.]

This includes interrogative adverbs and pronouns, in direct and indirect questions and exclamatory sentences.:

Older conventions

At one time, the letter "x" was commonly used for the IPA|/x/ or IPA|/ʃ/ sound, most notably in the name Don Quixote, which never had the IPA|/ks/ pronunciation sometimes given to it by English speakers, and is written Don Quijote in modern Spanish. This usage is now obsolete, but see below on a Mexican variant.

The letter "ç", used at one time, has been replaced with "z" in modern Spanish.

Reform proposals

In spite of the regular orthography of Spanish (especially when compared to English), there have been several initiatives to reform its spelling: Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española. [cite web |url=http://www.spellingsociety.org/bulletins/b82/fall/spanish.php |title=The history of Spanish orthography, Andrea Bello's proposal and the Chilean attempt: Implications for a theory on spelling reform |publisher=The Simplified Spelling Society |author=Urdaneta, I. P. |date=1982] Another initiative, the Ortografia Fonetika Rasional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity.
Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing "-ge-" and "-gi" to "-je-" and "ji", but this is only applied in editions of his works or those of his wife, Zenobia Camprubí.
Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of the letter h, which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, while he got attention, no serious changes were adopted.The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes, such as allowing "este" instead of "éste" ("this one"), when there is no possible confusion.

Mexican Spanish will spell certain indigenous words with "x" rather than the "j" 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 IPA|/ʃ/ ("sh") sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is "México" (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling. [ [http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=M%E9xico DPD 1ª edición, 2ª tirada ] ] (The North American Spanish colloquial term "chicano" is shortened from "mechicano", which uses IPA|/tʃ/ in place of the IPA|/ʃ/ of contra-Madridian/rural Mexican Spanish IPA|/meʃikano/.)

ee also

* Inverted question and exclamation marks
* Ñ

References

External links

*" [http://bibliotecadigitalhispanica.bne.es/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=829244.xml&dvs=1200524718064~596&search_terms=Filolog%EDa&usePid1=true&usePid2=true A la nación española: Sobre reformas ortográficas] ", Mariano Cubí i Soler, Imprenta de Miguel i Jaime Gaspar, Barcelona, 1852 (Biblioteca Digital Hispánica).
* [http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa092099.htm#letters Collation in Spanish]
* [http://nd-bg.org/current_students/library_media/subjects/spanish_keyboarding.html How to type Spanish keys on American keyboard]
* [http://www.rae.es/rae/gestores/gespub000015.nsf/(voanexos)/arch7E8694F9D6446133C12571640039A189/$FILE/Ortografia.pdf "Ortografía de la lengua española"] published by the Real Academia Española (RAE).
* [http://www.donquijote.org/spanishlanguage/alphabet/ Spanish Alphabet] — Interactive Spanish Alphabet. You will learn how to pronounce all the letters by themselves and in several words.
* [http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/pronunciation/alphabet.html Spanish Alphabet - e Learn Spanish Language] — Site including .wav files with the pronunciations of all of the traditional 30 letters of the Spanish alphabet.
* [http://www.esfacil.eu/en-gb/general.html ¡Es fácil! - learn Spanish] — General Spanish grammar with the alphabet and word stress.
* [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Spanish/Pronunciation Spanish/Pronunciation] — Wikibook with extensive coverage of the Spanish letter pronunciation.