The Real Academia Española (RAE) recently announced a number of proposed changes to spelling conventions, causing quite a stir throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Many academics and writers scoffed at the RAE’s plans to introduce these spelling reforms, which, according to some, were bound to create unnecessary confusion.

Following the academy’s recent meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, linguists approved an 800-page document describing the various newly adopted reforms. The following proposed changes – some of the most hotly debated – were discarded by the RAE’s 22 academics:

»Writers may choose whether the word “sólo” as well as demonstrative pronouns such as “éste” or “ésa” carry an accent. Previously, the RAE had suggested that the accent be eliminated.

»Respecting the fact that the names of the letters “b,” “v,” “w,” and “y” vary among different Spanish-speaking countries, the RAE dismissed the suggestion of assigning just one name to these letters. For example, the name of the letter “b” will continue as “be alta,” “be larga,” or simply “be,” while the letter “y” will retain its historic designation as “i griega” alongside the newly admitted name “ye.”

The rest of the previously announced reforms remain in effect.

Doctors and other medical professionals communicate information about their patients using medical terminology, the language of health care. A medical term is composed of 1) a root word, 2) a prefix, a group of letters attached to the beginning of the root word, and/or 3) a suffix, a group of letters attached to the end of the root word. Since virtually all prefixes and suffixes used in English and Spanish medical terminology are derived from Latin and Greek, the two sets of terms are extremely similar in many cases. Some would argue that the complexities of medical terminology are akin to those of a foreign language, but with a bit of knowledge and understanding of prefixes and suffixes, the vocabulary of medicine is greatly simplified.

We recently added a medical terminology section to the Transpanish website that includes prefixes and suffixes in both English and Spanish. Feel free to bookmark the page as a resource!

Some of the prefixes and suffixes you will find in our page:

gynec/o
-scopy
endo-
-gram

Visit our Glossary section for Medical Glossaries.

Spanish Spelling Rules Get a Makeover

Change is coming to Spanish orthographic conventions courtesy of the Real Academia Española (RAE), the organization that defines Spanish language standards. Last week, the RAE announced a number of planned changes prepared by 22 linguists from both Spain and Latin America. If all goes well, the changes to the Spanish language will be officially adopted on November 28 at the academy’s next meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The following is a summary of some of the most important changes that are about to be implemented:

»The letters “ch” and “ll” have been considered a part of the Spanish alphabet since the 19^th century, but no more. The Spanish alphabet will now consist of 27 letters.

»The names of the letters “b,” “v,” “w,” and “y” previously varied among different Spanish-speaking countries. The RAE seeks to further unify the language by assigning just one name to these different letters, e.g. the name of the letter “b” will change from “be alta” or “be larga” to simply “be.”

»The accent will be eliminated from the word “sólo” except in cases where its omission may lead to ambiguity. Previously, “sólo” was used to distinguish between the adverbial form of the word meaning “only” and the adjectival form “solo” meaning “alone.” Demonstrative pronouns such as “éste” or “ésa” will also cease to carry an accent.

»The RAE plans to eliminate “q” when it is used to represent the phoneme “k.” As such, Iraq will be written as “Irak” and quórum will become “cuórum.”

» Prefixes such as “ex” and “anti” will be joined to the word they precede. For example, ex-husband will appear as “exmarido” instead of “ex marido,” as it is currently written. Prefixes will continue to be written with a space when they precede two words, as in the case of “pro derechos humanos.”

»Words such as guión, huí, riáis, Sión o truhán will be considered monosyllabic, and therefore, will no longer be accented.

»The conjunction “o” used to be written with an accent when it appeared between two numbers (e.g. 3 ó 4) to avoid confusion with 0, but this rule will be eliminated.

Please read The RAE Discards Some Proposed Spanish Spelling Reforms for the latest changes.

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