Modern tone to Spanish
Source: Agencies |
November 7, 2010, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SPANISH speakers will have to get used to a host of new spelling rules, including writing Irak instead of Iraq and Catar instead of Qatar, under proposals to modernize the language expected to be adopted this month in Mexico.
The Spanish Royal Language Academy said on Friday the new orthographic guide for the world's second-most spoken tongue is to be ratified by the language's 22 international academies when they meet on November 28 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
"It's the fruit of detailed and very reasoned research," said Salvador Gutierrez, a Spanish academic who helped coordinate the work. "The aim is to have coherent spelling and avoid linguistic dispersion."
The proposals include referring to the letter "y" as "ye" instead of the Greek "i" as it's been known for as long as anyone can recall.
The guardians of the language also decided that speakers in Latin America should no longer refer to "b"s and "v"s as long and short "b"s, respectively, but instead call them '"beys" and "ubeys" as Spaniards do.
The changes follow in the footsteps of the publication last year of the first Spanish grammar guidelines in nearly 80 years. That 4,000-page tome documents today's Spanish in all its richness and took 11 years to compile.
The Spanish Royal Language Academy said on Friday the new orthographic guide for the world's second-most spoken tongue is to be ratified by the language's 22 international academies when they meet on November 28 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
"It's the fruit of detailed and very reasoned research," said Salvador Gutierrez, a Spanish academic who helped coordinate the work. "The aim is to have coherent spelling and avoid linguistic dispersion."
The proposals include referring to the letter "y" as "ye" instead of the Greek "i" as it's been known for as long as anyone can recall.
The guardians of the language also decided that speakers in Latin America should no longer refer to "b"s and "v"s as long and short "b"s, respectively, but instead call them '"beys" and "ubeys" as Spaniards do.
The changes follow in the footsteps of the publication last year of the first Spanish grammar guidelines in nearly 80 years. That 4,000-page tome documents today's Spanish in all its richness and took 11 years to compile.
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