Spanish orthography

Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes; in other words, the pronunciation of a given Spanish-language word can largely be predicted from its spelling and to a slightly lesser extent vice versa. Spanish punctuation includes the use of inverted question and exclamation marks: .

Spanish uses capital letters much less often than English; they are not used on adjectives derived from proper nouns (e.g. ''francés'', ''español'', ''portugués'' from ''Francia'', ''España'', and ''Portugal'', respectively) and book titles capitalize only the first word (e.g. '' La rebelión de las masas'').

Spanish uses only the acute accent, over any vowel: . This accent is used to mark the tonic ( stressed) syllable, though it may also be used occasionally to distinguish homophones such as ''si'' ('if') and ''sí'' ('yes'). The only other diacritics used are the tilde on the letter , which is considered a separate letter from , and the diaeresis used in the sequences and —as in ''bilingüe'' ('bilingual')—to indicate that the is pronounced, , rather than having the usual silent role that it plays in unmarked and .

In contrast with English, Spanish has an official body that governs linguistic rules, orthography among them: the Royal Spanish Academy, which makes periodic changes to the orthography. The currently valid work on the orthography is the ''Ortografía de la lengua española'', published in 2010.

Alphabet in Spanish

The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the Latin script with one additional letter: , for a total of 27 letters. Although the letters and are part of the alphabet, they appear only in loanwords such as ', ', ' and ' (tungsten or wolfram) and in sensational spellings: '' okupa'', '. Each letter has a single official name according to the Real Academia Española's new 2010 Common Orthography, but in some regions alternative traditional names coexist as explained below. The digraphs and were considered single letters of the alphabet from 1754 to 2010 (and sorted separately from and from 1803 to 1994).

The digraph represents the affricate . The digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called ''che''.

The phonemes and are not distinguished in most dialects; see ''seseo''.

With the exception of some loanwords: ', ', ', which have .

The digraph (e.g. ') represents the palatal lateral in a few dialects; but in most dialects—because of the historical merger called yeísmo—it, like the letter , represents the phoneme .

The exact realization of nasals in syllable-final position depends on phonetic attributes of following consonants (even across word boundaries) so that can represent a nasal that is labial (as in ''ánfora''), palatal (as in ''cónyuge''), velar (as in ''rincón''), etc. In rare instances, word-final is used, but there is no actual pronunciation difference.

Used only in the digraph .

The digraph , which only appears between vowels, represents the trill .

Old orthography with the letter representing has been preserved in some proper names such as ''México''.

For details on Spanish pronunciation, see Spanish phonology and Help:IPA/Spanish.

When acute accent and diaeresis marks are used on vowels (, , , , , and ) they are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but is considered a separate letter from . This makes a difference when sorting alphabetically: appears in dictionaries after . For example, in a Spanish dictionary ' comes after '.

There are five digraphs: ("che" or "ce hache"), ("elle" or "doble ele"), ("doble erre"), ("ge u") and ("cu u"). While ''che'' and ''elle'' were each formerly treated as a single letter, in 1994 the tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, by request of UNESCO and other international organizations, agreed to alphabetize and as ordinary sequences of letters.

Thus, for example, in dictionaries, ''chico'' is alphabetized after ''centro'' and before ''ciudad'', instead of being alphabetized after all words beginning with ''cu-'' as was formerly done.

Despite their former status as unitary letters of the alphabet, and have always been treated as sequences with regard to the rules of capitalization. Thus the word ' in a text written in all caps is ''CHILLÓN'', not *''ChILlÓN'', and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written ''Chillón'', not *''CHillón''. Sometimes, one finds lifts with buttons marked ', but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules.

This is the list of letters from most to least frequent in Spanish texts: ; the vowels make up around 45% of the text.

Alternative names

;B and V
:The letters and were originally simply known as ' and ', which in modern Spanish are pronounced identically. In Old Spanish, they likely represented different sounds but the sounds merged later. Their usual names are ''be'' and ''uve''; in some regions, speakers may instead add something to the names to distinguish them. Some Mexicans and most Peruvians generally say '' '' / '' chica'' ('big B' / 'little V'); Argentines, Uruguayans and Chileans, ''be larga'' / '' corta'' ('long B' / 'short V'). Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter; e.g., ''b de '' / ''v de '' ('b as in ' / 'v as in '); Colombians tend to say for B and '' '' for V. In Venezuela, they call B ''b de '' and V ''v de '', or ' and ' ('tall B' / 'short V'). Regardless of these regional differences, all Spanish-speaking people recognize ''be'' as the official name of B.
;R
:The digraph is sometimes called or . It is sometimes suggested that the name of the letter be when it is single, and when it is double, but the dictionary of the Real Academia Española defines the name of as . is considered obsolete. The name was used when referring specifically to the alveolar tap and referring to the alveolar trill . The two contrast between vowels, with the latter being represented with , but the sounds are otherwise in complementary distribution so that a single may represent either. As a referent to the trill sound rather than the phoneme, can refer to a single or double .
;W
: In Latin American Spanish, is sometimes called , , or . In Colombia, Mexico, and in some Central American countries, because of English acculturation, the letter is usually called (like English "double u"). In Spain it is usually called .
;I
:Because of its origin, is occasionally known as ("Latin i") to distinguish it from , which is known as ("Greek i").
;Y
:The most common name for in Spain is , but in Latin American Spanish it has been commonly superseded by , in an effort to standardize on a one-word name, as opposed to a name consisting of two words. Using as the only name for the letter is one of the newest proposed changes specified by the 2010 new common orthography.
;Z
:The name for is (formerly also spelled , pronounced the same). In older Spanish, it was called or , and the diminutive form of this word, ''cedilla'', is now used in both Spanish and English to refer to the diacritic mark exhibited in the letter .

Other characters

Besides the letters, other characters are specially associated with Spanish-language texts:
* The currency symbols of Spanish-language countries: (centavo), ( colón), ( peseta), (peso), ( Paraguayan guaraní)
* , abbreviation of ''cada una'' ('each one')
* and are used in abbreviations like ''1.º'', ''1.ª'' ('first') or D.ª (" doña"); in ordinal numbers they match the grammatical gender of the noun being modified: masculine and feminine . ''N.º'' (''número'', 'number') can be represented as one character .
* is the symbol of the arroba, a pre-metric unit of weight (about 11.502 kg, 25.3 pounds).
* and are used at the beginning of interrogative and exclamatory sentences, respectively. They are also used in the middle of a sentence if only part of the sentence is a question or exclamation: es, Juan se puso a comer y ¡recórcholis! ("John started eating and wow!")

Orthography

Orthographic principles

Spanish orthography is such that the pronunciation of most words is unambiguous given their written form; the main exception is the letter , which usually represents or , but can also represent or , especially in proper nouns from times of Old Spanish, as in or '' Pedro Ximénez'' (both ). These orthographic rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of other Romance 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, as a result of decisions by the Royal Spanish Academy. The main issues are:
*the use of both and for ;
*the use of both and for before and ;
*the silent ;
*for the speakers who have merged and , the various use of , or in different words;
*the use of , or before a vowel for (although many speakers distinguish some or all of these combinations);
*for some speakers, the use of both and for before consonants (in a few Greek-derived words, is used for word-initial from etymological ξ);
*the occasional use of accents to distinguish two words that sound the same, such as ''tú'' /''tu'', ''sí'' / ''si'', and ''más'' / ''mas''.

In addition, for speakers in Latin America and south of Spain:
*the use of and for .

The use of and , and , and the silent is mostly based on etymology. In particular, using in many cases is not a living continuation of Old Spanish (which often had in place of intervocalic as a result of Vulgar Latin merger, as in other Romance languages), but an artificial restitution based on Latin: 'horse' is spelled as Latin and unlike French , Italian , Portuguese , or Catalan . The letter is used in place of Latin and (in a few words also ): <, <, <. Additionally, is a purely orthographical sign used before word-initial rising diphthongs. However, in some words RAE mandated counteretymological spellings because of established tradition of usage, e. g. <.

The ''Ortografía'' includes a series of "rules of thumb" on using the letters , , , , , and . For example, verbs ending in ''-bir'' are spelled with , except , , , and their derivatives.

In some Spanish verbs, the same stem is spelled differently before different verb endings. This is required to keep the regularity of the conjugated forms in terms of sound, when a letter represents different sounds, or to avoid unusual combinations, such as ''-ze-'' or ''-zi-'':
* : ''c''—''qu'': ' > ' (-car), ' > ' (-quir).
* : ''z''—''c'': ' > ' (-zar), ' > ' (-cer).
* : ''g''—''j'': ' > '. But in verbs ending in ''-jar'', the ''j'' is kept before ''e'': ' > ' (not ).
* : ''g''—''gu'': ' > ' (-gar), ' > ' (-guir).
* : ''gu''—''gü'': ' > ' (-guar).

Likewise, words with a stem ending in ''z'' change this letter to ''c'' before ''e'' and ''i'' in their forms and derivatives: ' — ', ' — '.

Letter-to-sound correspondences

Consonants

Vowels

The phoneme is realized as an approximant in all contexts except after a pause, a nasal, or a lateral. In these environments, it may be
realized as an affricate (). The approximant allophone differs from non-syllabic in a number of ways; it has a lower F2 amplitude, is longer, can only appear in the syllable onset (including word-initially, where non-syllabic normally never appears), is a palatal fricative in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g. ''viuda'' 'widow' vs ''ayuda'' 'help'). The two also overlap in distribution after and : ''enyesar'' ('to plaster') ''aniego'' ('flood'). Although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like ''abyecto'' ('abject') vs ''abierto'' ('opened'). There are some alternations between the two, prompting scholars like to postulate an archiphoneme , so that ''ley'' would be transcribed phonemically as and ''leyes'' as .

In a number of varieties, including some American ones, a process parallel to the one distinguishing non-syllabic from consonantal occurs for non-syllabic and a rare consonantal . Near-minimal pairs include ''deshuesar'' ('to debone') vs. ''desuello'' ('skinning'), ''son huevos'' ('they are eggs') vs ''son nuevos'' ('they are new'), and ''huaca'' ('Indian grave') vs ''u oca'' ('or goose').

Doubling of vowels and consonants

Vowels in Spanish can be doubled to represent a hiatus of two identical vowels: ''leer, chiita, loor, duunviro''. This especially happens in prefixed and compound words: ''portaaviones, sobreesfuerzo, microorganismo''. However, in this case simplification of double vowels is also mostly allowed: ''portaviones, sobresfuerzo, microrganismo''. Simplification is not allowed when it would change the meaning: ''archiilegal'' ('arch-illegal') but ''archilegal'' ('arch-legal').

The only consonant letters that can be doubled in the Spanish orthography are , (as the digraphs and , respectively), (only when they represent different sounds: e.g. ''acción, diccionario''), (e.g. ''innato, perenne, connotar, dígannos''), and (in a few words with the prefix ''sub-'': ''subbase, subbético''). Exceptions to this limitation are ''gamma'' (and its derivatives ''gammaglobulina, gammagrafía''), ''digamma, kappa, atto-'', as well as unadapted foreign words (including proper names) and their derivations (see below). When a double consonant other than ''nn'' or ''bb'' would appear on a morpheme border, it is simplified: ''digámoselo'' for ''digamos+se+lo'', ''exilofonista'' for ''ex+xilofonista''. However, the combination ''sal+le'' is pronounced with a prolonged ''l'' and has no correct spelling according to the current orthography.

Optional omission of a consonant in consonant combination

In some words, one of consonants in a consonant combination may optionally be omitted. This includes Greek-derived words such as /, / (mostly pronounced without consonant clusters foreign to Spanish but more commonly spelled with them) and other words such as /, /, /.

The letter Y

The letter is consistently used in the consonantal value. The use of the letter for a vowel or a semivowel is very restricted. The diphthongs are usually written at the end of words (e. g. ''hay, ley, voy''), though exceptions may occur in loanwords (e.g. ''bonsái, agnusdéi''). The spelling is used at the end of some words, where it is pronounced as a falling diphthong, such as ; the word may also be pronounced with a raising diphthong. The letter is conserved in rarely used encliticized verbal forms like , (it is more normal to say ''te doy, las hay''). The letter is used for the vowel in the conjunction ''y'' and in some acronyms, like ''pyme'' (from ''pequeña y mediana empresa''). Otherwise, for a vowel or semivowel occurs only in some archaically spelled proper names and their derivations: ''Guaymas, guaymeño'', and also ''fraybentino'' (from ''Fray Bentos'' with regular usage of in a word-final diphthong). Derivatives of foreign proper names also conserve : ''taylorismo'', from ''Taylor''.

Special and modified letters

The vowels can be marked with an acute accent——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 diacrítica'' in Spanish). The accented is found only in some proper names: ''Aýna, Laýna, Ýñiguez''.

A silent is used between and or to indicate a hard pronunciation, so that represents and represents . The letter ( with diaeresis) is used in this context to indicate that the is not silent, e.g. ' . 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 (', to be pronounced as three syllables).

Also a silent always follows a when followed by or , as in ' and ', but there is no case for the combination , with fulfilling this role (as in '). There are no native words in Spanish with the combination nor ; again, is used instead ('). When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as ', the is not silent, so is never needed after . Prior to the introduction of the 2010 ''Common Orthography'' words such as ' ('quorum'), ' ('quasar') or ' ('Qatar') were spelled with ; this is no longer so.

Keyboard requirements

To write Spanish on a typewriter or to set type, the special characters required are , , , , , , , , , , and . The uppercase , , , , and are also prescribed by the RAE, although occasionally dispensed with in practice.

As implemented on the mechanical typewriter, the keyboard contained a single dead key, with the acute accent in the lowercase position, and the diaeresis in the uppercase position. With these, one could write , , , , , and . A separate key provided . (A dead key "~" is used on the Spanish and Portuguese keyboards, but on the Latin American keyboard the "~" is not a dead key). The inverted marks and completed the required minimum. When an additional key was added to electro-mechanical typewriters, this was used for and , though these are not required. (These symbols are used for ordinal numbers: for ''primero'', for ''segunda'', etc.)

As implemented in the MS-DOS operating system and its successor Microsoft Windows, a / pair—not required in Spanish but needed for Catalan, Portuguese, and French—is typically added, and the use of the acute accent and diaeresis with capital letters (, , , , , ) is supported. Although not needed for Spanish, another dead key with (the grave accent) in lowercase position and (the circumflex accent) in uppercase position was included. Also available is (the "flying point", required in Catalan). To make room for these characters not on the standard English keyboard, characters used primarily in programming, science, and mathematics— and , and , and , and and —are removed, requiring special keystroke sequences to access.

Stress and accentuation

Stress in Spanish is marked unequivocally through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, or (not preceded by another consonant) and on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than or or in a consonant group. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. The written accent may thus appear only in certain forms of a word and not others, for example ''andén'', plural ''andenes''. In many cases, the accent is essential to understanding what a word means, for example ''hablo'' ('I speak') as opposed to ''habló'' ('he/she/you spoke').

For purposes of counting syllables and assigning stress in Spanish, where an unmarked high vowel is followed by another vowel the sequence is treated as a rising diphthong, counted as a single syllable—unlike Portuguese and Catalan, which tend to treat such a sequence as two syllables. 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 ( or ) with another vowel (as in or ), and a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowels (as in or ). Hence Spanish writes (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on ' (all three languages stress the first ). The letter is not considered an interruption between vowels (so that is considered to have two syllables: ''ahu-mar''; this may vary in some regions, where is used as a hiatus or diphthong-broking mark for unstressed vowels, so the pronunciation would be then ''a-hu-mar'', though that trait is gradually disappearing).

An accent over the high vowel ( or ) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, and have two syllables each.

If the diphthongs are written at the end of words, the letter is considered a consonant letter for the purpose of accentuation: , .

A word with final stress is called oxytone (or in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called paroxytone ( or ); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third-to-last syllable) is called proparoxytone (). 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 . (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 as .) All proparoxytones and ''sobresdrújulas'' have a written accent mark.

Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as , , ) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the ''-mente'' ending (thus , , ), and do not gain any if they do not have one (thus from ). In the pronunciation of these adverbs—as with all adverbs in —primary stress is on the ending, on the penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective—whether marked, as in ''fácilmente'', or not marked, as in ''libremente''—may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb.

Some words which according to the general rules should be monosyllabic, such as , may also be pronounced as disyllabic. Pre-1999 orthographic rules treated such words as disyllabic, thus ''guión''. The orthographic rules of 1999 admitted the two accentuations ''guion'' and ''guión'', corresponding to two different pronunciations. The orthographic rules of 2010 declared that for orthographic purposes such words should be considered monosyllabic, so the correct spelling is now ''guion''.

Accentuation of capital letters

The Real Academia Española indicates that accents are required on capitals (but not when the capitals are used in acronyms).

Differential accents

In eight cases, the written accent is used to distinguish stressed monosyllabic words from clitics:

The written accent in the word ''té'' is conserved in its plural: ''tés''.

However, names of letters and musical notes are written without the accent, even if they have homonymous clitics: ''a, de, e, o, te, u; mi, la, si''.

The written accent is also used in the interrogative pronouns to distinguish them from relative pronouns (which are pronounced the same but unstressed):

: 'Where are you going?'
: 'Where you cannot find me.'

The use of in the word (meaning 'or') is a hypercorrection. Up until 2010, was used when applied to numbers: ('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 (zero) and (the letter).

The differential accent is sometimes used in demonstrative pronouns (e. g. 'this one') to distinguish them from demonstrative determiners (e. g. 'this') and in the adverb 'only' to distinguish it from the adjective . However, the current position of the RAE is not to use accent in these words regardless of their meaning (as they are always stressed), except in cases of possible ambiguity (and even then it is recommended to rephrase, avoiding the accented spellings of these words entirely).

These diacritics are often called or in traditional Spanish grammar.

Foreign words

Loanwords in Spanish are usually written according to Spanish spelling conventions (''extranjerismos adaptados''): e.g. ''pádel, fútbol, chófer, máster, cederrón'' ('CD-ROM'). However, some foreign words (''extranjerismos crudos'') are used in Spanish texts in their original forms, not conforming to Spanish orthographic conventions: e.g. ''ballet, blues, jazz, jeep, lady, pizza, sheriff, software''. The RAE prescribes ''extranjerismos crudos'' to be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available:
:
:
:
Spanish-speakers use both English-style and angled quotation marks, so the above example could also be written as follows:
:

This typographical emphasis is prescribed by the RAE since 1999. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

This typographical emphasis is not used for foreign proper names and their derivations with the suffixes ''-iano, -ismo, -ista''; nor is it used for some Spanish derivations of ''extranjerismos crudos'', such as ''pizzería''.

According to the current ''Ortografía'', Latin expressions (e. g. ''curriculum vitae, grosso modo'') are treated as unadapted foreign words, so they are also typographically emphasized. From 1870 to 2010, Latin expressions in Spanish texts were accentuated according to the Spanish orthographical rules (e. g. ''currículum vítae'') and not typographically emphasized. Some Latin expressions have become single words in Spanish: , . These words are not typographically emphasized.

For foreign names from non-Latin-script languages, using Spanish orthographic transcription is recommended: '' Al-Yazira'', '' Menájem Beguín''.

Capitalization

Capitalization in Spanish is sparse compared to English.

In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e.g. ''Sr. López'', but '' López''); the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc. (except when the title contains only two words, then the second word is also sometimes capitalized); and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, celebrations, periodicals, etc. Some geographical names have a capitalized article: ''El Salvador'', but ''los Estados Unidos''. Capitalized article is also used in names of periodicals, such as ''El País, El Nuevo Diario''. Some nouns have capital letters when used in a special administrative sense: ''Estado'' 'state' (sovereign polity), but ''estado'' 'state' (political division; condition). Nomenclature terms in geographical names are written in lowercase: ''el mar Mediterráneo'' 'the Mediterranean Sea'. According to the current ''Ortografía'', geographical names of the type "nomenclature term + adjective from another name of the same geographical object" are not capitalized at all: ''la península ibérica'' 'the Iberian Peninsula', because ''ibérica'' comes from ''Iberia'', another name of the same peninsula (although mainly used in a historical context).

Adjectives from geographical names, names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor (in standard style) are days of the week and months of the year.

Writing words together and separately

The following words are written together:
* prefixed words, such as ;
* adverbs ending in ''-mente'', such as ;
* compound words from verbs and nouns, such as ;
* the conjunction ('because') and the noun ('reason');
* indefinite pronouns such as ;
* combinations of verbs with enclitic pronouns, such as 'delivering it to me' from 'delivering' + 'me' + 'it'.

The following word combinations are written separately:
* compound adverbs such as ;
* the interrogative ('why');
* combinations of prefixes and word combinations: (but , ).

Coordinated compound adjectives are written with a hyphen: .

Syllabification

Spanish words are divided into syllables using the following rules:

1. A vowel between two consonants always ends the first syllable and the second consonant begins another: ''pá-ja-ro''. Put differently, if a vowel follows a consonant, the consonant, not the vowel, must begin the new syllable.

2. If a vowel is followed by two consonants, the syllables divide between the consonants: ''can-tar, ver-ter, án-da-le''. However, ''ch, ll, rr'' and combinations of ''b, c, d, f, g, k, p, t'' plus ''r'' or ''l'' do not divide: ''pe-rro, lu-char, ca-lle, pro-gra-ma, ha-blar''. Exceptionally, ''r'' and ''l'' after a consonant can begin a new syllable in prefixed or compound words: ''sub-ra-yar, sub-lu-nar, ciu-dad-re-a-le-ño''.

3. Two vowels may form a hiatus or a diphthong (see the section " Stress and accentuation" above): ''pa-e-lla, puen-te, ra-íz''. Three vowels may sometimes form a triphthong: ''es-tu-diáis''.

4. The silent ''h'' is not taken into account when syllabifying words. Two vowels separated by an ''h'' may form a hiatus or a diphthong: ''ahu-mar, de-sahu-cio, bú-ho''.

The combination ''tl'' in the middle of words may be divided into syllables in two ways: ''at-le-ta'' or ''a-tle-ta'', corresponding to the pronunciations ð̞ˈle.t̪a(more common in Spain) and ˈt̪le.t̪a(more common in Latin America).

These rules are used for hyphenating words at the end of line, with the following additional rules:

1. One letter is not hyphenated. So, the word ''abuelo'' is syllabified ''a-bue-lo'', but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is ''abue-lo''.

2. Hiatuses are not divided at the end of line. So, the word ''paella'' is syllabified as ''pa-e-lla'', but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is ''pae-lla''. This rule includes hiatuses with an intervening silent ''h'': ''alcohol'' is syllabified as ''al-co-hol'', but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is ''al-cohol''. On the other hand, the name ''Mohamed'' contains a pronounced ''h'', so the hyphenation ''Mo-hamed'' is accepted. See also rule 3 containing an exception to this rule.

3. Prefixed and compound words may be divided phonetically (corresponding to the above rules) or morphologically (the border between morphemes is considered a border between syllables): ''bie-nestar'' or ''bien-estar'', ''inte-racción'' or ''inter-acción'', ''reins-talar'' or ''re-instalar''. This rule is not valid for compounds in which one part is not used as an independent word or for words with unproductive prefixes: ''pun-tiagudo'' (not *''punti-agudo''), ''arzo-bispo'' (not *''arz-obispo'').

4. Unusual combinations containing the letter ''h'' are not permitted at the beginning of a line: ''sulfhí-drico'' (not *''sul-fhídrico''), ''brah-mán'' (not *''bra-hmán'').

The letter ''x'' between vowels phonetically represents two consonants separated by a syllable border, but hyphenation at the end of line is permitted before the ''x'': ''ta-xi, bo-xeo''.

Words written with hyphen are hyphenated by repeating the hyphen on the following line: ''teórico-/-práctico''. Repeating the hyphen is not necessary if the hyphenated word is a proper name where a hyphen is followed by a capital letter.

Abbreviations, symbols, acronyms

Abbreviations are written with the period: ''art.'' for . Contractions are written in the same way: ''admón.'' for , or sometimes using superscript letters: ''D.ª'' for . Hyphenating abbreviations (including contractions) at the end of line is not allowed and putting them in separate lines with terms they accompany is not allowed. Abbreviations are not capitalized if the original word is written in lowercase, but there are some traditional exceptions: ''Ud.'' or ''Vd.'' for , ''Sr.'' for . Rarely, abbreviations are written using the slash: ''c/'' for , ''b/n'' for .

One-letter abbreviations are pluralized by doubling the letter: ''pp.'' for . More-than-one-letter abbreviations are pluralized by adding ''s'': ''vols.'' for . The ending ''-es'' is used for contractions if it appears in the corresponding complete word: ''admones.'' for . Traditional exceptions: the plural of ''pta.'' () is ''pts.'', that of ''cent.'' () and ''cént.'' () is ''cts.'', and that of ''Ud.'' or ''Vd.'' () is ''Uds.'' or ''Vds.''

Letter symbols such as those of chemical elements or measurement units are written following international conventions and do not require the abbreviation period: H (), kg (). For some notions, Spanish-specific symbols are used: O ( 'west'), sen ( 'sine').

Acronyms are written in all capitals and read by letters ( for ''organización no gubernamental'' 'non-governmental organization') or as words ( for ''Organización de las Naciones Unidas''). Some acronyms read as words are written as normal words, including proper names of more than four letters such as ''Unesco, Unicef'' or common nouns such as . Some acronyms read by letters may also be spelled according to their pronunciation: . Acronyms written in all capitals are not pluralized in writing, but they are pluralized in speech: ''las ONG'' as o.e.neˈxes'the non-governmental organizations'.

Numerals

Numbers may be written in words (''uno, dos, tres...'') or in figures (1, 2, 3, ...).

For the decimal separator, the comma and the point are both accepted (3,1416 or 3.1416); the decimal comma is preferred in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, but the decimal point is preferred in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Both marks are used in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, and El Salvador.

For the thousands separator, the currently standard mark is the thin space (123 456 789). Formerly, the point was sometimes used, but now it is not recommended.

When written in words, numbers up to 30 are nowadays written as a single word, e.g. ', '. The corresponding ordinal numbers may be written as a single word or separately, e.g. ' (''decimosexta, decimosextos, decimosextas'') or ' (''décima sexta, décimos sextos, décimas sextas''). Numbers more than 30 (cardinal and ordinal) are usually written separately, e.g. ', ', but one-word spellings such as ', ' are also accepted by the current ''Ortografía''.

Whole hundreds are also written as single words, e.g. '.

Fractionary numbers such as ' are written as a single word.

Daytime is written in the 24-hour format, using the colon (18:45) or the point (18.45). Dates are expressed in the day-month-year format, with the following options possible: 8 de mayo de 2015; 8-5-2015; 8-5-15; 8/5/2015; 8.5.2015; 8-V-2015. Leading zeros in the day and the month (08.05.2015) are not used, except in computerized or bank documents.

Roman numerals (I, II, III, ...) are used for centuries (e. g. ''siglo '') and for regnal numbers (e. g. ''Luis XIV''). Roman or Arabic numerals may be used for historical dynasties (e. g. ''la dinastía'' or ''la 18.ª dinastía''); volumes, chapters, or other parts of books (e. g. ''tomo , tomo 3.º, 3.^er tomo'', or ''tomo 3''); celebrations (e. g. ''XXIII Feria del Libro de Buenos Aires'', or ''23.ª Feria...''). Roman numerals are typeset in small capitals if they would not be capitalized when written in words.

History

The Real Academia Española has reformed the orthographic rules of Spanish several times.

In Old Spanish, was used to represent the voiceless palatal sound (as in ' 'he/she said'), while represented the voiced palatal (as in ' 'son'). With the changes of sibilants in the 16th century, the two sounds merged as (later to become velar ), and the letter was chosen for the single resulting phoneme in 1815. This results in some words that originally contained now containing , most easily seen in the case of those with English cognates, such as ''ejercicio'', "exercise". When Cervantes wrote '' Don Quixote'' he spelled the name in the old way (and English preserves the ), but modern editions in Spanish spell it with . For the use of in Mexico—and in the name ''México'' itself—see below.

The letter ( c-cedilla)—which was first used in Old Spanish—is now obsolete in Spanish, having merged with in a process similar to that of and . Old Spanish ', ', ' became modern ', ', '.

Words formerly spelled with or (such as ', ', and ') are now written with and (', ', ', respectively). The sequences and do not occur in modern Spanish except some loanwords: ', ', '; some borrowed words have double spellings: ''/''. A notable case is the word ' used in biochemistry, meaning "enzyme", as different from ' meaning "on", "over" or "on top of" something.

The old spellings with , , and remained in use until the eighteenth century. They were replaced by , , and , respectively in 1726. and continued to be used in some words due to their etymology (e.g. ', '), but this usage was largely reduced during the 1860—1880s, so these words became ' and '. The letter was replaced by in 1815, although word-final remained until 1832 (e.g. ', now '). The combinations and were originally used only in a few etymological cases (e.g. ', ') and also in diminutives ('); in the ''Ortografía'' of 1815, and were replaced by and in some words (e.g. ') but by and in other words (e. g. '); the ''Diccionario'' of 1817 used mostly and (e.g. ') but and word-initially (e.g. '); in the ''Diccionario'' of 1832, and in words that did not have ''g'' in Latin were changed to , (e.g. ', from Latin ', became '), but word-initial unetymological and remained; the ''Diccionario'' of 1837 stated explicitly that from then on, and were to be written only in words where they are justified by etymology.

Old Spanish used to distinguish /s/ and /z/ between vowels, and it distinguished them by using for the former and for the latter, e.g. ' ('bear') and ' ('I dare to'). In orthography, the distinction was suppressed in 1763.

Words spelled in modern Spanish with , (e.g. ', ', ') were written with , up until 1815. In some words, was written (e.g. → ), and was written (e.g. → ). To distinguish pronounced and , sometimes was used for the latter, e. g. , (these forms appeared in the ''Ortografía'', but the ''Diccionario'' did not put the diaeresis in these words).

In 1726, most double consonants were simplified (e.g. → , → )—but the of a prefix before the of a root was differentiated to in 1763 (e.g. " → "). And the Graeco-Latin digraphs , , and were reduced to , , and , respectively (e.g. → , → , → , → ). This was mostly done in 1754, but some exceptions persisted until 1803.

An earlier usage had as a word initial . It is only maintained in the archaic spelling of proper names like '' Yglesias'' or ''Ybarra''. Although the RAE has always used the word-initial ''I'' as needed, the use of ''Y'' is occasionally found in handwriting and inscriptions up to the middle of the 19th century. The usage of for the vowel in words of Greek origin was abolished in 1754 (e.g. → ). The usage of in non-word-final diphthongs was abolished in 1815 (e.g. → ).

In early printing, the long s was a different version of used at the beginning or in the middle of a word. In Spain, the change to use the familiar round ''s'' everywhere, as in the current usage, was mainly accomplished between the years 1760 and 1766; for example, the multi-volume '' España Sagrada'' made the switch with volume 16 (1762).

From 1741 to 1815, the circumflex was used over vowels to indicate that preceding and should be pronounced /k/ and /ks/ respectively and not /tʃ/ and /x/, e.g. ', '.

The use of accent marks in printing varies by period, due to reforms successively promulgated by the Spanish Royal Academy. In early RAE publications (RAE statutes of 1715, ''Diccionario de autoridades'' of 1726), the acute accent was used extensively (e. g. ''Real Académia Españóla''), although it was not used in paroxytones with two or more consonants after the stressed vowel, in most two-syllable paroxytones, and in some other words. (However, the ''Diccionario de autoridades'', unlike the RAE statutes and later RAE publications, does not put accents on the capital letters.) In the ''Orthographía'' of 1741, the default stress is defined as paroxytone in words ending in , , , or , and in verbal forms ending in , and as oxytone in words ending in , , or other consonants. Since the ''Ortografía'' of 1754, the default stress is defined as paroxytone in words ending in vowels and oxytone in words ending in consonants, with some grammar-based exceptions, such as differential accents, plurals ending in , and verbal forms ending in or ; but other words ending in or were accented according to the general rule: ''capitan, jóven, demas, mártes''. In 1880,Gramática de la lengua castellana (1880.) - Real Academia Española.
/ref> the rules were simplified: grammatical considerations were no longer taken into account, except for differential accents. As a result, many words spelled previously without the accent gained it. These include words with final stress ending in ''-n'' (e.g. ', ', ', ', '—but future-tense verb forms like ', ' had already been spelled with the accent); words ending in which are not plurals (e. g. ', ', '); verbs in the imperfect tense (e.g. ', '); the possessives ''mío'' and ''mía'' and the word '. On the other hand, some words lost their accent mark, e. g. → , → . Meanwhile, one-letter words other than the conjunction ''y''—namely the preposition ''a'' and the conjunctions ''e'' (the form of ''y'' before an sound), ''o'', and ''u'' (form of ''o'' before —were written with the grave accent (''à, è, ò, ù'') in early RAE publications and with the acute accent (''á, é, ó, ú'') from 1741 to 1911. The accent-marked infinitives such as ', ', ' began to outnumber the unaccented form around 1920, dropped the accent mark again in 1952,Nuevas normas de prosodia y ortografia, 1952.
/ref> and regained it in 1959.Nuevas normas de prosodia y ortografia, 1959.
/ref> Monosyllabic preterite verb forms such as ' and ' were written with accent marks before 1952.

The ''Ortografía'' 1754 and later editions also stated that surnames ending in ''-ez'' are not accented, though pronounced as paroxytones, e. g. ''Perez, Enriquez''. The ''Prontuario'' 1853 and later editions did not mention surnames ending in ''-ez'' explicitly (but ''Perez'' occurs in capitalization rules), but stated that oxytone surnames are accented (e. g. ''Ardanáz, Muñíz'') except when homonymous to nouns, adjectives, geographical names, or verb infinitives (e. g. ''Calderon, Leal, Teruel, Escalar''). The ''Gramática'' 1870Gramática de la lengua castellana (1870.) - Real Academia Española.
/ref> stated that surnames ending in consonant and traditionally written without the accent are sometimes pronounced as paroxytones (e. g. ''Gutierrez, Aristizabal'') and sometimes as oxytones (e. g. ''Ortiz'') and recommends following the general rule for accentuation of surnames. The ''Gramática'' 1880 follows the general rule for accentuation of surnames: ''Enríquez, Fernández''.

Since 1952, the letter is no longer considered an interruption between syllables, so the spellings such as ', ', ' became ', ', '. The spelling ' was not changed, as pronouncing this word with a diphthong (/de.ˈsau.θjo/ instead of the former pronunciation /de.sa.ˈu.θjo/) came to be considered the norm.

History of differential accents:

* ''Ortografía'' 1754: ''dé, sé, sí''.
* ''Ortografía'' 1763: ''dé, sé, sí, él, mí''.
* The word ''tú'' is accented in the ''Diccionario'' since 1783.''Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española'' (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). Madrid: Real Academia Española. 1783.
* Accented interrogatives appear in the ''Diccionario'' from 1817.''Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española''
(in Spanish) (5th ed.). Madrid: Real Academia Española. 1817.
* The word ''té'' is accented in the ''Diccionario'' from 1832; the accent disappeared after 1880 and reappeared in 1925.
* The word ''más'' is accented in the ''Prontuario'' since 1853.Prontuario de ortografía de la lengua castellana. 4.ª ed. corregida y aumentada. Madrid: Imprenta Nacional. 1853.
* The ''Prontuario'' 1853 also added ''luégo'' (as an adverb) and the verb forms ''éntre, pára, sóbre''; the ''Gramática'' 1870 also added ''nós'' (as majestic 'we'), and the musical notes ''mí, lá, sí''. These accents were abolished by the ''Gramática'' 1880.
* The ''Gramática'' 1870 also mentions the obsolete pronoun ''ál'' ('another thing'), which is also mentioned in the ''Diccionario'' since 1869.
* The demonstrative pronouns ''éste, ése, aquél'' appear accented since the ''Prontuario'' 1853. However, the norms of 1952 stated that they may be not accented except in the case of ambiguity and also extended the possibility of accentuating to other similar words such as ''otro, algunos, pocos, muchos''; this extension was abolished by the revision of 1959.
* The adverb ''sólo'' is mentioned by the ''Prontuario'' 1853, but not by the ''Gramática'' 1870. The ''Gramática'' 1880 states that the word is accented "by the common usage" (''por costumbre''). The norms of 1952 made the accent on ''sólo'' mandatory, but their revision of 1959 stated the accent in ''sólo'' is not normally needed, but can be used in the cases of ambiguity. The ''Ortografía'' 1999 states that the accent in ''sólo'' may be used, but it is necessary only in the cases of ambiguity. The ''Ortografía'' 2010 recommends not to accent the demonstratives and ''solo'', but the ''DLE'' 2014 states that they may be accented in cases of ambiguity.
* Additionally, the words (normally pronounced with a diphthong) and (normally pronounced with a hiatus) were originally not distinguished, but they appear in the ''Prontuario'' 1853 as ''áun'' and ''aún''. Since the ''Gramática'' 1880, they are spelled ''aun'' and ''aún''.

The names of numbers in the upper teens and the twenties were originally written as three words (e.g. '' '', '' y ''), but nowadays they are spelled as a single word (e.g. ', '). For the numbers from 21 to 29, the "fused" forms are accepted since 1803''Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española'' (in Spanish) (4th ed.). Madrid: Real Academia Española. 1803. and became common over the second half of the 19th century. For those from 16 to 19, the one-word forms became accepted in 1925 and took the lead in the 1940s. The ''Diccionario panhispánico de dudas'' (2005) labeled the separate spelling as obsolete. Fusing of number-names above 30 (e.g. ', ') is rare, but accepted by the ''DPD'' 2005 and the ''Ortografía'' 2010 besides the usual separate spelling: ', '.

In the 18th century, the letter was used in a few loanwords and also in the word ''kalendario'' (following the Latin spelling ''Kalendae''); however, the first edition of the ''Diccionario de la lengua castellana'' (1780) already spelled ''calendario''. The fourth edition of the ''Diccionario de la lengua castellana'' (1803) stated that may be in any case replaced by or and did not give any words beginning with , while still including the letter in the alphabet. In the eighth edition of the ''Ortografía de la lengua castellana'' (1815), the letter was deleted from the Spanish alphabet. However, the letter was reinstated in the fourth edition of the ''Prontuario de ortografía de la lengua castellana'' (1853), and its use in loanwords was reallowed.

The letter was formerly considered unneeded for writing Spanish. Previous RAE orthographies did not include in the alphabet and restricted its use to foreign proper names and Visigothic names from Spanish history (the use of in Visigothic names stems from the Middle Ages, although at that time was not considered a letter but a ligature of two s or s). However, in the ''Ortografía'' of 1969, RAE included into the Spanish alphabet, allowing its use in loanwords.

In 1999, the written accent was added to a few words ending on the stressed diphthong ''au'' or ''eu'': became . Before 1999, the combinations of accented verb forms with enclitic pronouns conserved the written accent, but now they do not if the general rules of accentuation do not require it: → ( + ), → ( + ).Ortografía de la lengua española. RAE, 1999.
/ref>

Reform proposals

In spite of the relatively regular orthography of Spanish, there have been several initiatives to simplify it further. 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.
Another proposal, ''Ortografía R̃asional Ispanoamerikana'', remained a curiosity.
Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing and to and , 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 in 1997, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of , which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted.
The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes in the orthography (see above).

A Mexican Spanish convention is to spell certain indigenous words with 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 (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling. The American Spanish colloquial term is shortened from , which uses in place of the of rural Mexican Spanish .Rolando J. Diaz. Mechica: Indigenous Origin of the Chicano Hybrid Identity.
/ref>

Punctuation

Punctuation in Spanish is generally similar to punctuation in English and other European languages, but has some differences.

Spanish has the unusual feature of indicating the beginning of an interrogative or exclamatory sentence or phrase with inverted variants of the question mark and exclamation mark ( �and �, respectively. Most languages that use the Latin alphabet (including Spanish) use question and exclamation marks at the end of sentences and clauses. These inverted forms appear additionally at the beginning of these sentences or clauses. For example, the English phrase "How old are you?" has just the final question mark, while the Spanish equivalent, begins with an inverted question mark.

The inverted question and exclamation marks were gradually adopted following the Real Academia's recommendations in the second edition of the ''Ortografía de la lengua castellana'' in 1754. Originally, the usage of inverted marks at the beginning was recommended only for large sentences, but the ''Gramática'' of 1870 made them mandatory for all interrogative or exclamatory sentences.

The inverted question and exclamation marks may be used at the beginning of a clause in the middle of a sentence, for example: ('If you cannot go with them, would you like to go with us?').

Sentences that are interrogative and exclamative at the same time may be written with two signs on each side: ¿¡...!? or ¡¿...?! or with one sign on each side: ¡...? or ¿...!

However, parenthesized signs to show doubt or surprise are written as single signs: (?) (!). Doubtful dates may be written with single or double signs: 1576? or ¿1576?

The period indicates the end of the sentence.

The comma is used for separating appositions, subordinate clauses, interjections, tags in tag questions, vocatives, and discursives. It is also used in enumerations, but the serial comma is not used in Spanish: ('Spain, France(,) and Portugal'). There are some cases in which the comma after a coordinating conjunction, such as complex sentences. Circumstantial complements are usually not separated by a comma.

The semicolon is used for a more significant pause then the comma. It may mean an intermediate division between the comma and the period or separate parts of a sentence which already contain commas.

The colon is used for generalizing words before enumerations, for exemplifications, before the direct speech. Sometimes it can be used for juxtaposing clauses (similar to the semicolon), after discursives, and in titles of the type "general: special". The colon is the standard mark in Spanish for addressing people in letters (''Estimado profesor:'', ''Querido amigo:''); using the comma in this case is considered nonstandard.

The parentheses are used to include parenthetical information. When an entire sentence is parenthesized, the period is placed after the parentheses: ''(Esta es una frase parentética)''.

The square brackets are used for writing editor's words inside citations and instead of parentheses inside parentheses.

The dash may be used to write direct speech in dialogues, as a quotation dash. Two dashes can sometimes introduce parenthetical constructions. The dash can also be used as a marker in enumerations. The combination "period+dash" may be used to separate the name of the topic and other information, or to separate characters' names and their lines in theatrical works.

The quotation marks (for citations, direct speech, words in unusual form or meaning) are used in three styles: angled quotation marks (« ») for the outer level, double quotation marks (“ ”) for the inner level, single quotation marks (‘ ’) for the third level. This is the system preferred in Spain, whereas Latin American publications often do not use the angled quotation marks. When a closing quotation mark occurs together with another punctuation mark, it is placed after the quotation mark.

The ellipsis is used for marking a sudden pause or suspension in thought and for incomplete citations. The combination "ellipsis+period" is simplified to the ellipsis, but the abbreviation point remains before the ellipsis. When an ellipsis occurs together with another punctuation mark, then the comma, the semicolon, and the colon are placed after the ellipsis, but other punctuation marks may be placed before or after the ellipsis depending on the structure of the sentence.

Arabic alphabet

In the 15th and 16th centuries, dialectal Spanish (as well as Portuguese and Ladino) was sometimes written in the Arabic alphabet by Moriscos. This form of writing is called aljamiado.

See also

* Inverted question and exclamation marks
* Spanish manual alphabet
* Chilean manual alphabet

References

Bibliography

*

*

*

''Ortografía de la lengua española''
published by the Real Academia Española (RAE).

External links

*
A la nación española: Sobre reformas ortográficas
', Mariano Cubí i Soler, Imprenta de Miguel i Jaime Gaspar, Barcelona, 1852 (Biblioteca Digital Hispánica).
Spanish Alphabet Pronunciation
nbsp;– simplified for beginners to Spanish letter pronunciation.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spanish Orthography
Orthography
Indo-European Latin-script orthographies