Year: 2012
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Introduction: Spelling through the looking-glassIf writing is a fundamental field in the ideological and symbolic production of societies, there are two ideas or, rather, ideals, that run through the entire history of written Spanish: first, its phoneticism, as an ideal of orthographical simplicity; and secondly, spelling unity as opposed to diversity of orthographical rules.The present-day system of Spanish spelling is much simpler than that of many other languages of modern European cultures, such as English or French.The correspondence between phonemes and graphemes is greatest in present-day orthography, and this primacy of the phonemic principle is the result of a long process and of a series of reforms that began in the Middle Ages.Let us compare, for example, the following words: written Spanish shows a high degree of correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, so that, although there are exceptions, the phonemic principle of writing predominates over the etymological principle and orthographical conservatism:
Source: De Gruyter eBooks
Author: Elena Llamas Pombo
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2492412444