“Sometimes old battles are won,” academic Arturo Pérez-Reverte wrote on Twitter this Thursday, alluding to the Royal Spanish Academy’s (RAE) alleged change of opinion on whether to mark the adverb alone, the demonstrative pronouns this , ese and aquel and their corresponding feminine ones, after the institution recommended eliminating it in 2010, adding a sentence that “in the opinion of the author” leaves the possibility of branding these words in case of ambiguity. But although the author congratulated himself on what he considers logical, the debate between critics, supporters and surprises is by no means closed. Not everything is so clear, not even within the RAE. In the afternoon, on the same social network, Pérez-Reverte expressed his rejection of the information disseminated by the Academy, in which the institution explained that the spelling recently approved does not change the spelling of 2010, and he predicted an upcoming “stormy” plenary session . The “old battle” was not entirely won.
On the other hand, Salvador Gutiérrez Ordóñez, researcher and director of the Orthografía de la lengua española and the Diccionario panhispanico de dudas, had stressed this morning: “The norm has not changed, but a clearer formulation has been approved.” writing the adverb without a tilde only in contexts where its use does not pose a risk of ambiguity, and it is optional to mark the adverb only in contexts where, in the writer’s opinion, its use poses a risk of ambiguity. This paragraph does not imply a change in the norm,” he clarifies. RAE official sources recall that the plenary decision was “unanimous”.
This long controversy began in 2010 when the spelling of the Spanish language dictated that it should only be branded alone and the three pronouns mentioned above when there was a “risk of ambiguity” (“he was traveling alone on the train”, “he drinks a coffee”. alone”, “he studied alone in the library” or “why do you want this cake?”). Until then, it was only written with an accent when it was an adverb (“you only live once”) and this, that, and that when they acted as noun pronouns (“that was that”). However, many writers, journalists and academics at the time refused or reluctantly followed the dictates of orthography directly (Mario Vargas Llosa, Soledad Puértolas, Pérez-Reverte, Javier Marías, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Luis Mateo Díez…) .
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The controversy seemed to have died down over time, until yesterday the ABC newspaper suggested that the RAE had changed its criteria again: it could be branded again in case of ambiguity, but the decision was now “in the opinion of the writer”. . The next edition of the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts would reflect this. Does that mean it wasn’t at the discretion of the author before?
Carlota de Benito, who holds a doctorate from Spain and is a linguistics professor at the University of Zurich, answers bluntly on social networks: “Public information against spelling populism: you could put the tilde on that [desde 2010] a only in case of ambiguity”. And it adds a spelling section that reads that “the use of the tilde may be omitted even in double interpretation”. Or what is the same: it will be possible or it will not be possible. That is, this is according to the will of the one who has been writing for 13 years.
However, not everyone understands it that way. Juan Gómez Jurado, author of La reina roja, a novel that has been translated into more than 40 languages, happily claims: “We won. It was simply necessary not to fight alone!” . And on his Twitter account, he reproduces the following press headline: “The RAE corrects and does not return the accent until 13 years later.”
In 2020, on the tenth anniversary of the norm’s change, RAE Director Santiago Muñoz Machado recognized that the institution was divided by the use of the diacritic accent, as the graphic accent is known when used to distinguish the same words ” We don’t have a consensus on that,” he admitted. While Luis Mateo Díez, academician from chair l, concluded: “The tilde is powerful. As previously [sólo como adverbio y solo como adjetivo] it was better than now. We will continue to insist. It would be the last straw if we all accepted this norm: It’s good that we disagree.
Something very different from the opinion of Salvador Gutiérrez, responsible for the new spelling that revolutionized the academy. “I hope they stop the stubbornness [los favorables a la tilde], because they have no technical arguments to defend themselves. It’s just sentimental criteria and spelling isn’t done that way. It would be a very serious mistake for the RAE to operate outside of academia.”
The split is perfectly reflected in the RAE website Dudas rapidas, which offers an ambiguous answer to the question. “If it only works as an adjective, it doesn’t get branded; If it acts as an adverb, it can only be checked when there is a risk of ambiguity, but it is recommended not to check it in these cases either, and to resolve the ambiguity in other ways”. That means it’s “recommended”, not required. It’s the same difference that exists between a traffic sign that tells you to drive at 70 km/h and another that prohibits you from exceeding that speed.
The current Ortografía de la lengua española, also an RAE publication, tiptoes on the ban and offers advice on avoiding marking. “Possible ambiguities (…) can always be avoided by other means, such as B. the use of synonyms (alone or only), the inclusion of an element that prevents ambiguity, or a change in word order that forces a single interpretation, a decent score.” But neither does it reflect an explicit prohibition.
In July 2021, the writer Javier Marías, a staunch supporter of the use of the diacritic accent, wrote a column on history and memory that had no relation to this controversy, but which he titled “Only fictions, subjectivities and inaccuracies”. . And there it stayed with the corresponding tilde in the EL PAÍS newspaper library.
On Friday afternoon, Pérez-Reverte, the most visible head of the Tilde supporters, showed his disgust on the social network Twitter after the Academy’s tweets affirming that what was approved in the last plenary session “will not be changed”. . the spelling of 2010. The creator of Alatriste accused the RAE of giving “biased and inaccurate” information and assured that “next Thursday’s plenary session will be a stormy one.”
“Nothing new will be added?” “You will have to justify it”? sorry to say @RAEinforms, led by an anti-tildista academic, gives biased and inaccurate information. Yesterday the RAE Plenary Session approved an important change. The plenary session next Thursday will be stormy. pic.twitter.com/5DYLCaQn9u
– Arturo Pérez-Reverte (@perezreverte) March 3, 2023
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