Changes in the spelling of Spanish

About 2 years ago, we published an article on our blog about the new spelling of Spanish that was introduced by the ‘Real Academia Española de la Lengua’. Later, in another post, we described one of the most important changes concerning the new spelling, presented by the RAE that also got a lot of attention. It can be quite interesting to read or reread this article.

Nowadays it’s recognition of the Real Academia that is attracting our attention. This institution has recognized that some of the adjustments, that they proposed, didn’t get the acceptance they expected. Some well-known writers and journalists - such as Arturo Pérez Reverte, Javier Marías, Antonio Muñoz Molina, José Emilio Pacheco and Antonio Coletas – agreed to express their mistrust about these changes publicly or to simply refuse to apply them. We can conclude that the topic which causes the most resistance is the removal of the accent mark in words such as "guión" / "guion", "sólo" / "solo" and "éste" / "este".

Below you can find a short explanation, presented by the Real Academia and elaborated by one of their members, named Salvador Gutiérrez. In this image, he describes the grade of acceptance of the most important changes in the spelling of Spanish.

Salvador Gutiérrez (coordinator of the project that instituted the changes) confirmed publicly that there is a possibility that the Real Academia doesn’t carry on with some of these changes. In the end it is the speakers, and not the Academy, that make the choice to apply the changes or not.