Information about Spanish Alphabet
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.
The following letter names appear in preference order for speaking in Spanish from Spain.[1]
The vowels with accents and diaeresis are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ñ is considered a letter in its own right, and so it appears in dictionaries after n. Therefore, for example, in a Spanish dictionary piñata comes after pinza.
The digraphs ch and ll have traditionally also been treated as letters of the alphabet, since 1803.[2] However, 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, while keeping them as distinct letters for the alphabet and other purposes. Thus for example ch now comes between ce and ci, instead of being alphabetized between c and d as formerly.[3]
Their being regarded as separate letters was not supposed to affect capitalization. Therefore, the word chillón in a text written in all caps should be CHILLÓN and 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 LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules.
The two digraphs have specific names, che and elle, which are habitually used in spelling. For example, chillón is spelt out as che, i, elle, o con acento, ene. Some Spanish speakers spell ch as ce hache, while ll is sometimes spelled out as doble ele.
The pronunciation of the letters c (before e or i) and z varies. Generally speaking, in central and northern Spain, c ['θe] and z ['θe.ta] are clearly distinguished from s ['e.se]. In Spanish speaking regions of North and South America, and in the southern part of Spain, c and z are pronounced identically to s. The names of the letters are thus pronounced ['se], ['se.ta], and [.e.se]. A minority of speakers pronounce all three letters as [θ]; see Ceceo for a detailed discussion.
While the same pronunciation could be misspelt in several ways — there are homophones, because of the language's silent h, vacillations between b and v, and between c and z (and between c, z, and s in Latin America and some parts of the Peninsula) — the orthography is far more coherent than, say, English orthography.
The letter ü (u with diaeresis) is used between g and e or i to indicate that it should be pronounced (that is, gu = [gw]). Otherwise, gue and gui are pronounced with a hard g and ignoring the medial u. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over the first vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the metre (viüda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This is analogous to the archaic use of ï in naïve or ö in coöperate in English.
The letter ñ indicates the palatal nasal /ɲ/.
Note that unlike Portuguese or Catalan, Spanish rules count syllables, not vowels, to assign written accents. A syllable is of the form XaXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant blend, or no sound at all and a represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. Diphthongs and triphthongs are any combination of the following: two vowels, one of which is either i or u; or three consecutive vowels, the first and last of which include i or u; the letter h is not considered an interruption between vowels. Hence, Spanish writes familia and Portuguese and Catalan have famÃlia, while all stress the first i.
An accent over the close vowel (i or u) of a diphthong breaks up the diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, tÃa, and paÃs have two syllables each.
A word with final stress is called oxytone (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 last syllable) is called proparoxytone (esdrújula). 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 sobresdrújula. All proparoxtyones and sobresdrújulas have written accent marks.
(The second donde is pronounced with less stress, therefore lacks a written accent.)
The use of ó is poetic for the vocative: ¡Ó señor! The use of ó for the word o (meaning "or") is a hypercorrection, though ó is used when applied to numbers: 7 ó 9 ("7 or 9"), to avoid possible confusion with the number 0.
These diacritics are often called acentos diacrÃticos or tildes diacrÃticas in traditional Spanish grammar.
Marking stress
Words stressed on the last syllable use an accent when they end with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), with -n, or with -s:
Breaking up diphthongs:
Alphabet
| Spanish language |
|---|
| Names for the language History Pronunciation Dialects Writing system Grammar: |
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, Ã, 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.[1]
| A a | a ['äˑ] à á | J j | jota ['xo̞ˑ.t̪ä], ['χo̞ˑ.t̪ä], ['ho̞ˑ.t̪ä] | R r | ere, erre ['e̞ˑ.r͈e̞] |
| B b | be ['be̞ˑ] be alta [ˌbe̞ 'äl̪.t̪ä] be grande [ˌbe̞ 'ɰɾän̪.d̪e̞] be larga [ˌbe̞ 'läɾ.ɰä] | K k | ka ['käˑ] | S s | ese ['e̞ˑ.s̻e̞], ['e̞ˑ.s̺e̞] |
| C c | ce ['s̻e̞ˑ], ['θe̞ˑ] | L l | ele ['e̞ˑ.le̞] | T t | te ['t̪e̞ˑ] |
| Ch ch | Che | Ll ll | doble ele elle | U u | u ['uˑ] |
| D d | de ['d̪e̞ˑ] | M m | eme ['e̞ˑ.me̞] | ||
| E e | e ['e̞ˑ] | N n | ene ['e̞ˑ.ne̞] | V v | uve ['uˑ.β̞e̞] ve ['be̞ˑ] ve baja [ˌbe̞ 'β̞äˑ.hä], [ˌbe̞ 'β̞äˑ.xä] ve chica [ˌbe̞ 'ʧiˑ.kä] ve corta [ˌbe̞ 'ko̞ɾ.t̪ä] |
| F f | efe ['e̞ˑ.fe̞] | Ñ ñ | eñe ['e̞ˑ.ɲe̞] | W w | uve doble [ˌu.β̞e̞ 'ð̞o̞ˑ.β̞le̞] doble ve ['do̞ˑ.β̞le̞ ˌβ̞e̞] doble u ['do̞ˑ.β̞le̞ ˌu] ve doble ['ˌβ̞e̞ do̞ˑ.β̞le̞] |
| G g | ge ['xe̞ˑ], ['çe̞ˑ], ['he̞ˑ] | O o | o ['o̞ˑ] | X x | equis ['e̞ˑ.kis̻], ['e̞ˑ.kis̺] |
| H h | hache ['äˑ.ʧe̞], ['äˑ.ʨe̞] | P p | pe ['pe̞ˑ] | Y y | ye, [ʝe̞ˑ ~ ʒe̞ˑ ~ ʃe̞ˑ], i griega, [ˌi 'ɰɾje̞ˑ.ɰä] |
| I i | i ['iˑ] i latina [ˌi lä't̪iˑ.nä] | Q q | cu ['kuˑ] | Z z | zeta, ceta ['θe̞ˑ.t̪ä], ['s̻e̞ˑ.t̪ä] zeda, ceda ['s̻e̞ˑ.ð̞ä], ['θe̞ˑ.ð̞ä] |
The vowels with accents and diaeresis are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ñ is considered a letter in its own right, and so it appears in dictionaries after n. Therefore, for example, in a Spanish dictionary piñata comes after pinza.
The digraphs ch and ll have traditionally also been treated as letters of the alphabet, since 1803.[2] However, 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, while keeping them as distinct letters for the alphabet and other purposes. Thus for example ch now comes between ce and ci, instead of being alphabetized between c and d as formerly.[3]
Their being regarded as separate letters was not supposed to affect capitalization. Therefore, the word chillón in a text written in all caps should be CHILLÓN and 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 LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules.
The two digraphs have specific names, che and elle, which are habitually used in spelling. For example, chillón is spelt out as che, i, elle, o con acento, ene. Some Spanish speakers spell ch as ce hache, while ll is sometimes spelled out as doble ele.
Alternative names
- The letters b and v were originally simply known as be and ve. However, as Spanish doesn't distinguish between these sounds, it is necessary to add something to the names to tell them apart. Some Mexicans often say be grande / ve chica ("big B" / "little V"); Argentinians, be larga / ve corta ("long B" / "short V"); Catalans, be alta / ve baja ("tall B" / "short V". Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter; e.g., be de burro / ve de vaca. Some people even call them be labial and ve labiodental (dentilabial), not realizing that if this were true, there would be no need for such names. Regardless of these regional names, all Spanish speaking people recognize be / uve for the official names of B and V.
- 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 Española defines the name of the letter r as erre or ere. The name ere is used when referring specifically to the alveolar tap realization /ɾ/ represented by a single r in pero or trampa, as opposed to the name erre referring to the alveolar trill realization /r/ represented by a single r in rata or by a double rr in perro. Thus, erre can refer to the letter in either quality and either single or double in spelling, but ere only to the realization as a tap which is always spelled with a single r.
- The letter w can be doble ve, ve doble, doble u, or uve doble.
- The letter i is occasionally known as i latina ("Latin i") to distinguish it from y, which is known as i griega ("Greek i"). The letter y is also known as ye.
- The letter z is usually called ceta or zeta (both pronounced the same), or occasionally ceda or zeda (again, both pronounced the same).
Pronunciation of c and z
- Further information: Spanish dialects and varieties
The pronunciation of the letters c (before e or i) and z varies. Generally speaking, in central and northern Spain, c ['θe] and z ['θe.ta] are clearly distinguished from s ['e.se]. In Spanish speaking regions of North and South America, and in the southern part of Spain, c and z are pronounced identically to s. The names of the letters are thus pronounced ['se], ['se.ta], and [.e.se]. A minority of speakers pronounce all three letters as [θ]; see Ceceo for a detailed discussion.
Orthography
Spanish orthography is such that every speaker can guess the pronunciation (adapted for accent) from the written form. These rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of other peninsular languages, such as Portuguese, Catalan and Galician.While the same pronunciation could be misspelt in several ways — there are homophones, because of the language's silent h, vacillations between b and v, and between c and z (and between c, z, and s in Latin America and some parts of the Peninsula) — the orthography is far more coherent than, say, English orthography.
Special and modified letters
The vowels can be marked with an acute accent (á, é, Ã, ó, ú) for two purposes: to mark stress when it does not follow the normal pattern; or to differentiate otherwise equally spelt words (this is the true diacritic usage).The letter ü (u with diaeresis) is used between g and e or i to indicate that it should be pronounced (that is, gu = [gw]). Otherwise, gue and gui are pronounced with a hard g and ignoring the medial u. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over the first vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the metre (viüda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This is analogous to the archaic use of ï in naïve or ö in coöperate in English.
The letter ñ indicates the palatal nasal /ɲ/.
Stress and accentuation
Written Spanish unequivocally marks stress through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than -n or -s and on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, n or s. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. For purposes of this rule, -y is regarded as a consonant, so that estoy is accented on the o, even though no written accent mark occurs.Note that unlike Portuguese or Catalan, Spanish rules count syllables, not vowels, to assign written accents. A syllable is of the form XaXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant blend, or no sound at all and a represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. Diphthongs and triphthongs are any combination of the following: two vowels, one of which is either i or u; or three consecutive vowels, the first and last of which include i or u; the letter h is not considered an interruption between vowels. Hence, Spanish writes familia and Portuguese and Catalan have famÃlia, while all stress the first i.
An accent over the close vowel (i or u) of a diphthong breaks up the diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, tÃa, and paÃs have two syllables each.
A word with final stress is called oxytone (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 last syllable) is called proparoxytone (esdrújula). 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 sobresdrújula. All proparoxtyones and sobresdrújulas have written accent marks.
Differential accents
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. té ("tea"); se (third person reflexive) vs. sé ("I know" or imperative "be"); tu (informal "your") vs. tú (informal subject case of "you"). When relative and interrogative pronouns have the same letters (as is often the case), the interrogative pronoun is accented:- ¿A dónde vas? Where are you going?
- A donde no puedas encontrarme. Where you cannot find me.
(The second donde is pronounced with less stress, therefore lacks a written accent.)
The use of ó is poetic for the vocative: ¡Ó señor! The use of ó for the word o (meaning "or") is a hypercorrection, though ó is used when applied to numbers: 7 ó 9 ("7 or 9"), to avoid possible confusion with the number 0.
These diacritics are often called acentos diacrÃticos or tildes diacrÃticas in traditional Spanish grammar.
Summary
The acute accent is used in Spanish orthography with the following functions:Marking stress
Words stressed on the last syllable use an accent when they end with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), with -n, or with -s:
- mamá, Bogotá, pensé, consomé, colibrÃ, iraquÃ, manatÃ, rogó, soltó, Perú, tabú, iglú, camión, inglés
- árbol, núbil
- matemática, pentágono
Breaking up diphthongs:
geometrÃa, púa
Differentiating between homographs:té (noun) te (pronoun) sà (adverb) si (conjunction) sé (verb) se (pronoun)
This includes interrogative adverbs and pronouns, in direct and indirect questions and exclamatory sentences.¿Dónde vives? No sé dónde vives. Where do you live? I don't know where you live. ¿Quién es esa muchacha? Me pregunto quién es esa muchacha Who's that girl? I wonder who's that girl. ¡Qué hermosa pintura! Observó qué hermosa que era la pintura What a beautiful painting! He remarked how the painting was beautiful. 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.[4] 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 CamprubÃ. Gabriel GarcÃa 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 the RAE would recommend. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ ("sh") sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is México, which RAE would prefer to spell as Méjico. (The North American Spanish colloquial term chicano is shortened from mechicano, which uses /tʃ/ in place of the /ʃ/ of contra-Madridian/rural Mexican Spanish /meʃikano/.)See also
References
1. ^ to the Spanish alphabet recited by a Mexican speaker.
2. ^ See the DRAE for the entries on ch and ll
3. ^ "No obstante, en el X Congreso de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, celebrado en 1994, se acordó adoptar para los diccionarios académicos, a petición de varios organismos internacionales, el orden alfabético latino universal, en el que la ch y la ll no se consideran letras independientes. En consecuencia, estas dos letras pasan a alfabetizarse en los lugares que les corresponden dentro de la C (entre -cg- y -ci-) y dentro de la L (entre -lk- y -lm-), respectivamente." Real Academia Española. Explanation at [1] (in Spanish and English)
4. ^ Urdaneta, I. P. (1982). The history of Spanish orthography, Andrea Bello's proposal and the Chilean attempt: Implications for a theory on spelling reform. The Simplified Spelling Society.
External links
- Spanish Alphabet — Interactive Spanish Alphabet. You will learn how to pronounce all the letters by themselves and in several words.
- Spanish Alphabet - e Learn Spanish Language — Site including .wav files with the pronunciations of all of the traditional 30 letters of the Spanish alphabet.
- — Wikibook with extensive coverage of the Spanish letter pronunciation.
- Collation in Spanish
The Spanish alphabet is :
D df js jkk oo b jj oi o oso opsInternational Phonetic Alphabet
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
The International
Phonetic Alphabet
History
Nonstandard symbols
Extended IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English The
..... Click the link for more information.Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the world's writing systems. Developed in tandem with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard
..... Click the link for more information.International Phonetic Alphabet
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
The International
Phonetic Alphabet
History
Nonstandard symbols
Extended IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English The
..... Click the link for more information.A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. These are sometimes termed true alphabets, but other writing systems, like syllabaries, can be phonemic as well.
..... Click the link for more information.Latin alphabet
Child systems Numerous: see Alphabets derived from the Latin
Sister systems Cyrillic
Coptic
Armenian
Runic/Futhark
Unicode range See Latin characters in Unicode
ISO 15924 Latn
Note
..... Click the link for more information.phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants (for details, see the articles on History of the Spanish language and Spanish dialects and varieties).
..... Click the link for more information.
Spanish, Castilian}}}
Writing system: Latin (Spanish variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: —
Spanish (
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish (español) and Castilian (castellano). Originally Castilian referred to the language of the Kingdom of Castile that spread across Spain.
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Basque in the north and Arabic in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages).
..... Click the link for more information.phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants (for details, see the articles on History of the Spanish language and Spanish dialects and varieties).
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish dialects and varieties are the regional variants of the Spanish language, some of which are quite divergent from standard written Spanish, which is based on the dialect of the province of Castile.
..... Click the link for more information.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.
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish language
Names for the language
History
Pronunciation
Dialects
Writing system
Grammar:- Determiners
- Nouns
- Pronouns
- Adjectives
- Prepositions
- Verbs
- Conjugation
..... Click the link for more information.la Barcelona de GaudÃ- el Londres de Dickens
- Agree with the underlying noun el pueblo or la ciudad
- Nueva York
..... Click the link for more information.La vi a ella and "He gave it to me" becomes Me lo dió a mà (see also clitic doubling for the use of reduplicated pronouns).- Comitative case (prepositional complement preceded by the preposition "con" (with))
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish language
Names for the language
History
Pronunciation
Dialects
Writing system
Grammar:- Determiners
- Nouns
- Pronouns
- Adjectives
- Prepositions
- Verbs
- Conjugation
..... Click the link for more information.a Ana. = "I sent Ana the letter", "I sent the letter to Ana."- ''¿Le(s) regalaste el coche a tus padres? = "Did you give your parents the car (as a gift)?", "Did you give the car to
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish verbs are one of the most complex areas of Spanish grammar. Spanish is a synthetic language with a moderate-to-high degree of inflection which shows up mostly in the verb conjugation.
..... Click the link for more information.Spanish language
Names for the language
History
Pronunciation
Dialects
Writing system
Grammar:- Determiners
- Nouns
- Pronouns
- Adjectives
- Prepositions
- Verbs
- Conjugation
..... Click the link for more information.ser ir
yo soy voy
tú/vos eres/sos vas
él, ella es va
nosotros somos vamos
vosotros sois vais
ellos, ellas son van- Imperfect indicative
ser ir
yo era iba
..... Click the link for more information.
Spanish, Castilian}}}
Writing system: Latin (Spanish variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: —
Spanish (
..... Click the link for more information.Latin alphabet
Child systems Numerous: see Alphabets derived from the Latin
Sister systems Cyrillic
Coptic
Armenian
Runic/Futhark
Unicode range See Latin characters in Unicode
ISO 15924 Latn
Note
..... Click the link for more information.
..... Click the link for more information.diaeresis, also spelled dieresis (from Greek διαίρεσις, διαιρεῖν diairein
..... Click the link for more information.Motto
"Plus Ultra" (Latin)
"Further Beyond"
Anthem
"Marcha Real" 1
..... Click the link for more information.A digraph, bigraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme (distinct sound) or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the two characters in sequence.
..... Click the link for more information.Ch is a digraph in the Roman alphabet. It is treated as a letter of its own in the Spanish[1], Chamorro, Czech, Slovak, Quechua, Welsh, Breton and Belarusian Lacinka alphabets.
..... Click the link for more information.- 'For the double-consonant letter, see ll.
LL is an acronym which may stand for:- LL is the IATA code for Miami Air International
- LL is the production code for the Doctor Who serial The Evil of the Daleks.
..... Click the link for more information.Association of Spanish Language Academies (Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española) was created in Mexico in 1951 and represents the union of all the separate academies in the Spanish speaking world.
..... Click the link for more information.Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. This is commonly called alphabetisation, though collation is not limited to ordering letters of the alphabet.
..... Click the link for more information.
This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus
