Why are there accents, hatches, and uves? The reasons we argue so much about spelling in networks

A Twitter battle comparable to that of the tortilla (with onion or without onion?) Is that of spelling.

When the topic comes up on networks, the debate goes through asking ourselves whether or not the rules are out of date, whether or not they are a fundamental part of our way of expressing ourselves or even if they are nothing more than a sample of classism.

The truth is that many spelling rules seem more or less conventional and arbitrary when we learn them in school.

Why does "truck" have a tilde, but not "motor"?

What is the h for ant for?

Why does drinking go with b and moving goes with v?

Is it not understood and does it sound the same if I write “catch” instead of “catch”?

The Spanish spelling is not an ornament.

It is not worth saying "I have bad spelling".

Spelling is everything.

It is thought, intelligence, rigor and delicacy.

A misspelling is the saddest thing in the world.

- Manuel Vilas (@Granvilas) September 2, 2020

Endeavoring to learn an outdated spelling system full of arbitrariness costs the educational system hundreds or thousands of hours (in any language).

We could learn to read and write much faster with a modern system and spend those hours on other more useful things.

- Andrés Benítez (@speechsci) September 2, 2020

All this effort has a meaning.

As Javier Bezos, a linguist at Fundéu, explains, a single spelling rule helps us to understand each other in writing effectively.

Using a single spelling helps us understand each other and, although all spelling can be improved, there is no reason to confront our language teachers and yell at them that “we have been deceived”.

Ferdinand III, king of Castile (1217-1252) and of León (1230-1252) had a similar opinion about the advantages of spelling.

In his

Francisco Moreno Fernández writes that this king made the decision that the royal chancellery should issue documents in Castilian, to the detriment of Latin and Leonese, and given the economic and demographic strength of Castile.

As more texts were produced in this language, the monarch began the work of fixing the spelling, "in order to order and facilitate writing", a work that was continued by his son, Alfonso X.

That is, before the

of the RAE arrived in 1741, people did not write the words as they saw fit.

As Lola Pons, a professor at the University of Seville and

collaborator, explains

in general, “writing traditions inherited from Latin and settled in the time of Alfonso X (1252-1284)” were followed.

The printing press has been helping to reduce variation since the end of the 15th century, but even so you could write

or

"and none of them was missing".

In addition to its spelling, the RAE published its first

in 1726 and its

in 1771, following Nebrija's of 1492. Nebrija, by the way, defended writing as it sounds: "So we have to write how we pronounce and pronounce how we write" .

Why does baca go with b and vaca with v?

Spanish spelling respects phonetics a lot.

Although not everything is written as it sounds, since the norm also takes into account the etymology.

For example,

comes from the French

and

from the Latin

In the case of B and V, most of the distinctions come precisely from Latin, as it happens with many of the words with h (man comes from

and fact, from

Apart from phonetics and etymology, written tradition has also been taken into account.

Bezos, from Fundéu, gives the example of “wonder”, which comes from the Latin

but is still written with v because it is the use that has become established.

This linguist reminds that you also have to maintain a balance between ease of writing and ease of reading, and that is why sometimes it is convenient to learn some rules.

“The more difficult the writing, the easier the reading.

And vice versa, the easier it is to write, the more problems there can be when reading ”.

For example, many Spanish-speakers pronounce the same

and

Although remembering which one goes with and which one can be a stumbling block when learning to write, in return it is very easy to identify these words when reading them, without having to worry about the context.

Both Moreno, in his book, and Pons recall that, despite the haches, bes, uves and tildes, the Spanish spelling gives fewer problems than the French or English.

You just have to remember those American series and movies in which you see the spelling bee for children and adolescents, which are non-existent in Spanish.

To give another example, we could not title an article on Spanish spelling in a similar way to this BBC text: “How English became in this mess”.

Not only is English the product of invasions and borrowings of all kinds (like almost all languages), but in its norm, etymology was given more importance than phonetics.

This was, for example, how the word

(debt) incorporated an unpronounced b (

).

British linguists believed it was important to make it clear that the word came from the Latin

First spelling of the Royal Spanish Academy.

RAE

When did the pharaoh say that?

In Pons's opinion, the Spanish spelling is "very good."

He gives as an example the reforms of the 18th and 19th centuries, which were simplifying the norm and eliminating unnecessary spellings.

As Moreno writes, in 1754 the use of ph (pharaoh and not

) was

and the rules of accentuation were established.

In 1763 the ss disappeared (process and not

).

And in 1815 the use of the qu (cheese and when not ordered

), the use of x was distributed (said and not

, but test) and

disappeared inside the word (air and no

) .

The last major reform was that of 2010, which Pons explains, "has impeccably regulated accents (it has been removed in was, gave, script ...)".

And yes, when saying "impeccable" he also refers to the accents of solo and demonstratives.

Bezos, from Fundéu, recalls in this regard that these orthographic reforms have sometimes been compared to “large-scale social experiments”.

In general, "there is usually more resistance to changes in the rules that have cost us more to learn and that deviate from the general rules."

The tilde de solo, which is an exception to the rules of accentuation, would be one such example.

According to the linguist, sometimes you have to wait a generation for the change to take hold.

It happened with went, went, saw and gave, which until 1959 were written with an accent despite being monosyllables.

Many speakers kept writing these accents until, finally, for one reason or another, they stopped writing altogether.

All these explanations do not prevent that the spelling rule also functions as a marker of linguistic status, and that it is used to show some contempt for the person who makes a mistake.

In this sense, Bezos recalls that there are many reasons why a person may not know a norm.

In the case of Fundéu, the institution tries to give some guidelines to help write correctly, but completely rejecting ridicule or criticism.

After all, we all make mistakes from time to time (although these mistakes are more serious in some cases, such as journalists).

Could there be more than one rule?

Could there be a different rule, for example, for the varieties of Spanish in which it is used?

At the end of the day, if in these areas it is pronounced "sien" (one hundred) and "certain" (true), and it is correct to do so, why can't they also write it with that?

We have had similar discussions and polemics for centuries, as Moreno recounts in his book.

The best known episode was that of Chile: its orthographic reform, official in this country between 1844 and 1927, was created by the Venezuelan linguist Andrés Bello and was also accepted in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

This proposal brought the written language even closer to the spoken language, writing, for example,

(by law),

(by around) and

(by pig).

Lola Pons points out that the existence of several norms would make it difficult to publish books and the accessibility of texts for “people with disabilities who use augmentative communication and need standards”.

Also, in her opinion, the current spelling is not "difficult to teach school."

In fact, the Chilean reform was abandoned (Bello himself asked that it be dismissed), but there are still literary proposals for deviations from the norm for aesthetic or linguistic reasons.

The most recent is that of

by Andrea Abreu, but we all remember that Juan Ramón Jiménez wrote hee and hee with jota (

and not genius), and he used that for the x (

and not exquisite).

There are also authors who require their editors to keep the tick of solo.

In the end, the RAE only recommends the educated rule to follow, but does not impose fines if someone decides to ignore it.

In 1997 Gabriel García Márquez went further and asked to retire the spelling, “terror of the human being from the cradle”.

He added: "Let's bury the cave haches, sign a boundary treaty between ge and jota, and put more use of reason in written accents."

However, his proposal remained in a theoretical approach and his books did not abandon the academic norm at any time.

Which we appreciate.

It is true that, as he said, it is very difficult to confuse "revolver" and "revolver", but that tittle makes things a little easier for his readers.

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