Spanish orthography

Alternative names

The be/be larga/grande/alta and uve/ve corta/chica/baja in blackletter and cursive scripts

B and V ^[1]

The letters ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ were originally simply known as be and ve , which in modern Spanish are pronounced identically. In Old Spanish, they likely represented different sounds, but the sounds merged later. Their usual names are be and uve; ^{[11] [12]} in some regions, speakers may instead add something to the names to distinguish them. Some Mexicans and most Peruvians generally say be grande / chica ('big B' / 'little V'); Argentines, Uruguayans and Chileans, be larga / corta ('long B' / 'short V'). Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter; e.g., b de burro / v de vaca ('b as in burro ' / 'v as in vaca '); Colombians tend to say be grande for B and ve pequeña for V. In Venezuela, they call B b de Bolívar and V v de Venezuela , or be alta and ve baja ('tall B' / 'short V'). Regardless of these regional differences, all Spanish-speaking people recognize be as the official name of B.

R ^[1]

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 ⟨r⟩ as erre. Ere is considered obsolete. ^[13] The name ere was used when referring specifically to the alveolar tap /ɾ/ and erre referring to the alveolar trill /r/. The two contrast between vowels, with the latter being represented with ⟨rr⟩, but the sounds are otherwise in complementary distribution so that a single ⟨r⟩ may represent either. As a referent to the trill sound rather than the phoneme, erre can refer to a single or double ⟨r⟩.

W ^[1]

In Hispanic American Spanish, ⟨w⟩ is sometimes called doble ve, ve doble, or doble uve. In Colombia, Mexico, and in some Central American countries, because of English acculturation, the letter is usually called doble u (like English "double u"). In Spain it is usually called uve doble.

I

Because of its origin, ⟨i⟩ is occasionally known as i latina ("Latin i") to distinguish it from ⟨y⟩, which is known as i griega ("Greek i").

Y ^[1]

The most common name for ⟨y⟩ in Spain is i griega, but in Hispanic American Spanish it has been commonly superseded by ye, in an effort to standardize on a one-word name, as opposed to a name consisting of two words. Using ye as the only name for the letter is one of the newest proposed changes specified by the 2010 new common orthography. ^[1]

Z ^[1]

The name for ⟨z⟩ is zeta (formerly also spelled ceta, pronounced the same). ^[14] In older Spanish, it was called zeda or ceda, and the diminutive form of this word, cedilla , is now used in both Spanish and English to refer to the diacritic mark exhibited in the letter ⟨ç⟩.

Other characters

Besides the letters, other characters are specially associated with Spanish-language texts:

• The currency symbols of Spanish-language countries: ⟨ ¢ ⟩ (centavo), ⟨₡⟩ (colón), ⟨₧⟩ (peseta), ⟨ $ ⟩ (peso), ⟨ ₲ ⟩ (Paraguayan guaraní).
• ⟨ ℆ ⟩, abbreviation of cada una or cada uno ('each one')
• ⟨ º ⟩ and ⟨ ª ⟩ are used in abbreviations like 1.º, 1.ª ('first') or D.ª ("doña"); in ordinal numbers they match the grammatical gender of the noun being modified: masculine ⟨º⟩ and feminine ⟨ª⟩. N.º (número, 'number') can be represented as one character ⟨ № ⟩.
• ⟨ @ ⟩ is the symbol of the arroba, a pre-metric unit of weight (about 11.502 kg, 25.3 pounds).
• ⟨ ¿ ⟩ and ⟨ ¡ ⟩ are used at the beginning of interrogative and exclamatory sentences, respectively. They are also used in the middle of a sentence if only part of the sentence is a question or exclamation: Spanish : Juan se puso a comer y ¡recórcholis! ("John started eating and wow!")
• The guillemets (Spanish : comillas) ⟨«⟩ and ⟨»⟩ are used in formal settings in the same sense as quotation marks, although they are very uncommon in informal usage. ^[15]

Orthographic principles

Spanish orthography is such that the pronunciation of most words is unambiguous given their written form; the main exception is the letter ⟨x⟩, which usually represents /ks/ or /s/, but can also represent /x/ or /ʃ/, especially in proper nouns from times of Old Spanish, as in México or Pedro Ximénez (both /x/). These orthographic rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of other Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Portuguese, Catalan and Galician.

The converse does not always hold, i.e. for a given pronunciation there may be multiple possible spellings, as a result of decisions by the Royal Spanish Academy. The main issues are:

• the use of both ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ for /b/;
• the use of both ⟨j⟩ and ⟨g⟩ for /x/ before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩;
• the silent ⟨h⟩;
• the use of ⟨y⟩ and ⟨hi⟩ at the beginning of words (as part of a rising diphthong);
• the occasional use of accents to distinguish two words that sound the same, such as tú / tu, sí / si, and más / mas.

For some speakers, additional problems may come from:

• the use of ⟨y⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ ( yeísmo );
• the use of ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ (as well as ⟨c⟩ and ⟨sc⟩ before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩), either for /s/ ( seseo ) or for /θ/ ( ceceo );
• the use of ⟨x⟩ (also ⟨xs⟩ in a few prefixed words) and the letter combinations ⟨cc⟩ and ⟨xc⟩ before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩, either for /ks~ɡs/ (seseo) or for /kθ~ɡθ/ (ceceo);
• the use of ⟨hu⟩, ⟨gu⟩ and ⟨bu⟩ before a vowel for /w/;
• the use of both ⟨s⟩ and ⟨x⟩ for /s/ before consonants (in a few Greek-derived words, ⟨x⟩ is used for word-initial /s/ from etymological ξ).

The use of ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩, ⟨j⟩ and ⟨g⟩, and the silent ⟨h⟩ is mostly based on etymology. In particular, using ⟨b⟩ in many cases is not a living continuation of Old Spanish (which often had ⟨v⟩ in place of intervocalic ⟨b⟩ as a result of Vulgar Latin merger, as in other Romance languages), but an artificial restitution based on Latin: caballo 'horse' is spelled as Latin caballus and unlike French cheval , Italian cavallo , Portuguese cavalo , or Catalan cavall . The letter ⟨h⟩ is used in place of Latin ⟨h⟩ and ⟨f⟩ (in a few words also ⟨g⟩): hoy < hodie , hablar < fabulare , hermano < germanus . Additionally, ⟨h⟩ is a purely orthographical sign used before word-initial rising diphthongs. ^{[lower-alpha 2]} However, in some words RAE mandated counteretymological spellings because of established tradition of usage, e. g. abogado < advocatus .

The Ortografía includes a series of "rules of thumb" on using the letters ⟨b/v⟩, ⟨g/j⟩, ⟨ll/y⟩, ⟨c/s/z⟩, ⟨h⟩, and ⟨x⟩. For example, verbs ending in -bir are spelled with ⟨b⟩, except hervir , servir , vivir , and their derivatives.

In some Spanish verbs, the same stem is spelled differently before different verb endings. This is required to keep the regularity of the conjugated forms in terms of sound, when a letter represents different sounds, or to avoid unusual combinations, such as -ze- or -zi-:

• /k/: c—qu: tocar > toquemos (-car), delinquir > delincamos (-quir).
• /θ/: z—c: gozar > gocemos (-zar), vencer > venzamos (-cer).
• /x/: g—j: proteger > protejamos . But in verbs ending in -jar, the j is kept before e: mojar > mojemos (not *mogemos).
• /ɡ/: g—gu: negar > neguemos (-gar), distinguir > distingamos (-guir).
• /ɡw/: gu—gü: averiguar > averigüemos (-guar).

Likewise, words with a stem ending in z change this letter to c before e and i in their forms and derivatives: lápiz — lápices , plaza — placita .

Letter-to-sound correspondences

Doubling of vowels and consonants

Vowels in Spanish can be doubled to represent a hiatus of two identical vowels: leer, chiita, loor, duunviro. This especially happens in prefixed and compound words: portaaviones, sobreesfuerzo, microorganismo. However, in this case simplification of double vowels is also mostly allowed: portaviones, sobresfuerzo, microrganismo. Simplification is not allowed when it would change the meaning: archiilegal ('arch-illegal') but archilegal ('arch-legal').

The only consonant letters that can be doubled in the Spanish orthography are ⟨l⟩, ⟨r⟩ (as the digraphs ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨rr⟩, respectively), ⟨c⟩ (only when they represent different sounds: e.g. acción, diccionario), ⟨n⟩ (e.g. innato, perenne, connotar, dígannos), and ⟨b⟩ (in a few words with the prefix sub-: subbase, subbético). Exceptions to this limitation are gamma (and its derivatives gammaglobulina, gammagrafía), digamma, kappa, atto-, as well as unadapted foreign words (including proper names) and their derivations (see below). When a double consonant other than nn or bb would appear on a morpheme border, it is simplified: digámoselo for digamos+se+lo, exilofonista for ex+xilofonista. ^[28] However, the combination sal+le is pronounced with a prolonged l and has no correct spelling according to the current orthography. ^[29]

Optional omission of a consonant in consonant combination

In some words, one of consonants in a consonant combination may optionally be omitted. This includes Greek-derived words such as psicología / sicología , mnemónico / nemónico (mostly pronounced without consonant clusters foreign to Spanish but more commonly spelled with them) and other words such as obscuro / oscuro , transcribir / trascribir , septiembre / setiembre .

The letter Y

The letter ⟨y⟩ is consistently used in the consonantal value. The use of the letter ⟨y⟩ for a vowel or a semivowel is very restricted. The diphthongs ⟨ai, ei, oi⟩ are usually written ⟨ay, ey, oy⟩ at the end of words (e. g. hay, ley, voy), though exceptions may occur in loanwords (e.g. bonsái, agnusdéi). The spelling ⟨uy⟩ is used at the end of some words, where it is pronounced as a falling diphthong, such as cocuy; the word muy may also be pronounced with a raising diphthong. The letter ⟨y⟩ is conserved in rarely used encliticized verbal forms like doyte, haylas (it is more normal to say te doy, las hay). The letter ⟨y⟩ is used for the vowel /i/ in the conjunction y and in some acronyms, like pyme (from pequeña y mediana empresa). Otherwise, ⟨y⟩ for a vowel or semivowel occurs only in some archaically spelled proper names and their derivations: Guaymas, guaymeño, and also fraybentino (from Fray Bentos with regular usage of ⟨y⟩ in a word-final diphthong). Derivatives of foreign proper names also conserve ⟨y⟩: taylorismo, from Taylor.

Special and modified letters

The vowels can be marked with an acute accent—⟨á, é, í, ó, ú, ý⟩—for two purposes: to mark stress if it does not follow the most common pattern, or to differentiate words that are otherwise spelled identically (called the tilde diacrítica in Spanish). The accented ⟨y⟩ is found only in some proper names: Aýna, Laýna, Ýñiguez.

A silent ⟨u⟩ is used between ⟨g⟩ and ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ to indicate a hard /ɡ/ pronunciation, so that ⟨gue⟩ represents /ɡe/ and ⟨gui⟩ represents /ɡi/. The letter ⟨ ü ⟩ (⟨u⟩ with diaeresis) is used in this context to indicate that the ⟨u⟩ is not silent, e.g. pingüino [piŋˈɡwino]. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over either vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the meter ( vïuda , to be pronounced as three syllables).

Also a silent ⟨u⟩ always follows a ⟨q⟩ when followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, as in queso and química , but there is no case for the combination ⟨qü⟩, with ⟨cu⟩ fulfilling this role (as in cuestión ). There are no native words in Spanish with the combination ⟨qua⟩ nor ⟨quo⟩; again, ⟨cu⟩ is used instead ( cuando ). When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as statu quo , the ⟨u⟩ is not silent, so ⟨ü⟩ is never needed after ⟨q⟩. Prior to the introduction of the 2010 Common Orthography words such as cuórum ('quorum'), cuásar ('quasar') or Catar ('Qatar') were spelled with ⟨q⟩; this is no longer so.

Keyboard requirements

To write Spanish on a typewriter or to set type, the special characters required are ⟨á⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨í⟩, ⟨ó⟩, ⟨ú⟩, ⟨ñ⟩, ⟨Ñ⟩, ⟨ü⟩, ⟨Ü⟩, ⟨¿⟩, and ⟨¡⟩. The uppercase ⟨Á⟩, ⟨É⟩, ⟨Í⟩, ⟨Ó⟩, and ⟨Ú⟩ are also prescribed by the RAE, although occasionally dispensed with in practice.

As implemented on the mechanical typewriter, the keyboard contained a single dead key, with the acute accent ( ´ ) in the lowercase position, and the diaeresis ( ¨ ) in the uppercase position. With these, one could write ⟨á⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨í⟩, ⟨ó⟩, ⟨ú⟩, and ⟨ü⟩. A separate key provided ⟨ñ/Ñ⟩. (A dead key "~" is used on the Spanish and Portuguese keyboards, but on the Hispanic American keyboard the "~" is not a dead key). The inverted marks ⟨¿⟩ and ⟨¡⟩ completed the required minimum. When an additional key was added to electro-mechanical typewriters, this was used for ⟨ª⟩ and ⟨º⟩, though these are not required. (These symbols are used for ordinal numbers: ⟨1.º⟩ for primero, ⟨2.ª⟩ for segunda, etc.)

As implemented in the MS-DOS operating system and its successor Microsoft Windows, a ⟨ç⟩/⟨Ç⟩ pair—not required in Spanish but needed for Catalan, Portuguese, and French—is typically added, and the use of the acute accent and diaeresis with capital letters (⟨Á⟩, ⟨É⟩, ⟨Í⟩, ⟨Ó⟩, ⟨Ú⟩, ⟨Ü⟩) is supported. Although not needed for Spanish, another dead key with ⟨`⟩ (the grave accent) in lowercase position and ⟨^⟩ (the circumflex accent) in uppercase position was included. Also available is ⟨·⟩ (the "flying point", required in Catalan). To make room for these characters not on the standard English keyboard, characters used primarily in programming, science, and mathematics—⟨[⟩ and ⟨]⟩, ⟨{⟩ and ⟨}⟩, ⟨/⟩ and ⟨|⟩, and ⟨<⟩ and ⟨>⟩—are removed, requiring special keystroke sequences to access.

On a USA or UK physical keyboard, all of the Spanish characters are present using the US-International layout.

Stress and accentuation

Stress in Spanish is marked unequivocally through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩ (not preceded by another consonant) and on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩ or in a consonant group. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. The written accent may thus appear only in certain forms of a word and not others, for example andén, plural andenes. In many cases, the accent is essential to understanding what a word means, for example hablo ('I speak') as opposed to habló ('he/she/you spoke').

For purposes of counting syllables and assigning stress in Spanish, where an unmarked high vowel is followed by another vowel the sequence is treated as a rising diphthong, counted as a single syllable—unlike Portuguese and Catalan, which tend to treat such a sequence as two syllables. ^[30] A syllable is of the form XAXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant cluster, or no sound at all, and A represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. A diphthong is any sequence of an unstressed high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) with another vowel (as in gracias or náutico ), and a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowels (as in cambiáis or buey ). Hence, Spanish writes familia (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on família (all three languages stress the first ⟨i⟩). By contrast, Spanish puts the accent on día , while Portuguese and Catalan spell dia without the accent (again, all three languages stress the ⟨i⟩).

An accent over the high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, tía , dúo , oír and baúl all have two syllables each.

The letter ⟨h⟩ is not considered an interruption between vowels for diphthongisation purposes; for instance, ahumar is considered to have two syllables: ahu-mar ([au.ˈmaɾ]). ^{[lower-alpha 15]} As such, it is also not taken into account when determining the stressed syllable; for example, desahucio has three syllables, with a being the stressed vowel: de-sahu-cio ([de.ˈsau.θjo] or [de.ˈsau.sjo]). This is also why words such as búho [ˈbu.o] require an acute accent over the high vowel to break the diphthong (without the accent, the word *buho would be considered a single-syllable word, with the assumed pronunciation [ˈbwo]).

If the diphthongs ⟨ai, ei, oi, ui⟩ are written ⟨ay, ey, oy, uy⟩ at the end of words, the letter ⟨y⟩ is considered a consonant letter for the purpose of accentuation: estoy , yóquey .

A word with final stress is called oxytone (or 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-to-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 . (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the last three syllables, except in the case of a verb form with enclitic pronouns, such as poniéndoselo .) All proparoxytones and sobresdrújulas have a written accent mark.

Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as fácil , geográfico , cortés ) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the -mente ending (thus fácilmente , geográficamente , cortésmente ), and do not gain any if they do not have one (thus libremente from libre ). In the pronunciation of these adverbs—as with all adverbs in -mente —primary stress is on the ending, on the penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective—whether marked, as in fácilmente, or not marked, as in libremente—may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb.

Some words, such as piar , hierba , guion and truhan , are pronounced either with a diphthong or with a hiatus between the adjacent vowels, depending on the region. Pre-1999 orthographic rules treated these as hiatus, and accentuated the words accordingly (e.g. guión, truhán). The 1999 orthography reform by the RAE admitted the two spellings (with or without the accent), corresponding to two different pronunciations. The subsequent 2010 reform, though, declared that for orthographic and syllabification purposes such letter combinations should always be considered diphthongs, so the only correct spelling is now guion and truhan. Regardless of the spelling, however, these words may still be pronounced with a hiatus as before, and RAE does not discourage this practice. ^[31] Furthermore, other grammatical rules were not changed by the reform; for example, "trees and grass" can be translated as either árboles y hierba (if hie pronounced as a diphthong) or árboles e hierba (if pronounced with a hiatus); the latter form is still correct even though hie is always treated as a diphthong for the purposes of syllabification. ^[32]

Differential accents

In eight cases, the written accent is used to distinguish stressed monosyllabic words from clitics:

The written accent in the word té is conserved in its plural: tés . However, it is usually not conserved in the imperatives dé and sé when combined with a pronominal suffix, unless it is necessary for stress purposes (e.g. dé + me → deme (formal form of "give me") and dé + lo → delo (formal form of "give it"), but dé + me + lo → démelo (formal form of "give it to me")).

Names of letters and musical notes are written without the accent, even if they have homonymous clitics: a, de, e, o, te, u; mi, la, si.

The written accent is also used in the interrogative pronouns to distinguish them from relative pronouns (which are pronounced the same but unstressed):

¿Adónde vas? 'Where are you going?'

Adonde no puedas encontrarme. 'Where you cannot find me.'

The use of ⟨ó⟩ in the word o (meaning 'or') is a hypercorrection. Up until 2010, ⟨ó⟩ was used when applied to numbers: 7 ó 9 ('7 or 9'), to avoid possible confusion with the digit 0. The tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies deemed the use of an accent unnecessary, as typewriting eliminates possible confusion due to the different shapes of ⟨0⟩ (zero) and ⟨o⟩ (the letter). ^[1]

The differential accent is sometimes used in demonstrative pronouns (e. g. éste 'this one') to distinguish them from demonstrative determiners (e. g. este 'this') and in the adverb sólo 'only' to distinguish it from the adjective solo . However, the current position of the RAE is not to use accent in these words regardless of their meaning (as they are always stressed), except in cases of possible ambiguity (and even then it is recommended to rephrase, avoiding the accented spellings of these words entirely).

These diacritics are often called acentos diacríticos or tildes diacríticas in traditional Spanish grammar.

Foreign words

Loanwords in Spanish are usually written according to Spanish spelling conventions (extranjerismos adaptados): e.g. pádel, fútbol, chófer, máster, cederrón ('CD-ROM'). However, some foreign words (extranjerismos crudos) are used in Spanish texts in their original forms, not conforming to Spanish orthographic conventions: e.g. ballet, blues, jazz, jeep, lady, pizza, sheriff, software.

The RAE prescribes extranjerismos crudos to be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available:

Quiero escuchar jazz y comer pizza.

Quiero escuchar jazz y comer pizza.

Quiero escuchar "jazz" y comer "pizza".

Spanish-speakers use both English-style and angled quotation marks, so the above example could also be written as follows:

Quiero escuchar «jazz» y comer «pizza».

This typographical emphasis is prescribed by the RAE since 1999. ^[34] In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

This typographical emphasis is not used for foreign proper names and their derivations with the suffixes -iano, -ismo, -ista; nor is it used for some Spanish derivations of extranjerismos crudos, such as pizzería.

According to the RAE rules, presence of the letters ⟨k⟩ and ⟨w⟩, and also the letter ⟨h⟩ representing an aspirated sound, does not impede a loanword to be considered a Spanish word and to be written without the typographical emphasis and with an added acute accent if it is necessary to indicate the stressed syllable: hámster, sándwich.

According to the current Ortografía, Latin expressions (e. g. curriculum vitae, grosso modo) are treated as unadapted foreign words, so they are also typographically emphasized. From 1870 to 2010, Latin expressions in Spanish texts were accentuated according to the Spanish orthographical rules (e. g. currículum vítae) and not typographically emphasized. Some Latin expressions have become single words in Spanish: etcétera, suigéneris. These words are not typographically emphasized.

For foreign names from non-Latin-script languages, using Spanish orthographic transcription is recommended: Al-Yazira , Menájem Beguín .

Capitalization

Capitalization in Spanish is sparse compared to English.

In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e.g. Sr. López, but señor López); the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc. (except when the title contains only two words, then the second word is also sometimes capitalized); and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, celebrations, periodicals, etc. Some geographical names have a capitalized article: El Salvador, but los Estados Unidos. Capitalized article is also used in names of periodicals, such as El País, El Nuevo Diario. Some nouns have capital letters when used in a special administrative sense: Estado 'state' (sovereign polity), but estado 'state' (political division; condition). Nomenclature terms in geographical names are written in lowercase: el mar Mediterráneo 'the Mediterranean Sea'. According to the current Ortografía, geographical names of the type "nomenclature term + adjective from another name of the same geographical object" are not capitalized at all: la península ibérica 'the Iberian Peninsula', because ibérica comes from Iberia, another name of the same peninsula (although mainly used in a historical context). ^[35]

Adjectives from geographical names, names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor (in standard style) are days of the week and months of the year. ^{[36] [37]}

Writing words together and separately

The following words are written together:

• prefixed words, such as anteayer ;
• adverbs ending in -mente, such as fácilmente ;
• compound words from verbs and nouns, such as cumpleaños ;
• the conjunction porque ('because') and the noun porqué ('reason');
• indefinite pronouns such as quienquiera ;
• combinations of verbs with enclitic pronouns, such as entregándomelo 'delivering it to me' from entregando 'delivering' + me 'me' + lo 'it'.

The following word combinations are written separately:

• compound adverbs such as a menudo ;
• the interrogative por qué ('why');
• combinations of prefixes and word combinations: vice primer ministro (but vicepresidente , vicerrector ^{[lower-alpha 10]} ).

Coordinated compound adjectives are written with a hyphen: político-económico .

Syllabification

Spanish words are divided into syllables using the following rules:

1. A vowel between two consonants always ends the first syllable and the second consonant begins another: pá-ja-ro. Put differently, if a vowel follows a consonant, the consonant, not the vowel, must begin the new syllable.

2. If a vowel is followed by two consonants, the syllables divide between the consonants: can-tar, ver-ter, án-da-le. However, ch, ll, rr and combinations of b, c, d, f, g, k, p, t plus r or l do not divide: pe-rro, lu-char, ca-lle, pro-gra-ma, ha-blar. Exceptionally, r and l after a consonant can begin a new syllable in prefixed or compound words: sub-ra-yar, sub-lu-nar, ciu-dad-re-a-le-ño.

3. Two vowels may form a hiatus or a diphthong (see the section "Stress and accentuation" above): pa-e-lla, puen-te, ra-íz. Three vowels may sometimes form a triphthong: es-tu-diáis.

4. The silent h is not taken into account when syllabifying words. Two vowels separated by an h may form a hiatus or a diphthong: ahu-mar, de-sahu-cio, bú-ho.

The combination tl in the middle of words may be divided into syllables in two ways: at-le-ta or a-tle-ta, corresponding to the pronunciations [að̞ˈle.t̪a] (more common in Spain) and [aˈt̪le.t̪a] (more common in Hispanic America).

These rules are used for hyphenating words at the end of line, with the following additional rules:

1. One letter is not hyphenated. So, the word abuelo is syllabified a-bue-lo, but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is abue-lo.

2. Hiatuses are not divided at the end of line. So, the word paella is syllabified as pa-e-lla, but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is pae-lla. This rule includes hiatuses with an intervening silent h: alcohol is syllabified as al-co-hol, but the only way to hyphenate it at the end of a line is al-cohol. On the other hand, the name Mohamed contains a pronounced h, so the hyphenation Mo-hamed is accepted. See also rule 3 containing an exception to this rule.

3. Prefixed and compound words may be divided phonetically (corresponding to the above rules) or morphologically (the border between morphemes is considered a border between syllables): bie-nestar or bien-estar, inte-racción or inter-acción, reins-talar or re-instalar. This rule is not valid for compounds in which one part is not used as an independent word or for words with unproductive prefixes: pun-tiagudo (not *punti-agudo), arzo-bispo (not *arz-obispo).

4. Unusual combinations containing the letter h are not permitted at the beginning of a line: sulfhí-drico (not *sul-fhídrico), brah-mán (not *bra-hmán).

The letter x between vowels phonetically represents two consonants separated by a syllable border, but hyphenation at the end of line is permitted before the x: ta-xi, bo-xeo.

Words written with hyphen are hyphenated by repeating the hyphen on the following line: teórico-/-práctico. Repeating the hyphen is not necessary if the hyphenated word is a proper name where a hyphen is followed by a capital letter.

Abbreviations, symbols, acronyms

Abbreviations are written with the period: art. for artículo . Contractions are written in the same way: admón. for administración , or sometimes using superscript letters: D.ª for doña . Hyphenating abbreviations (including contractions) at the end of line is not allowed and putting them in separate lines with terms they accompany is not allowed. Abbreviations are not capitalized if the original word is written in lowercase, but there are some traditional exceptions: Ud. or Vd. for usted , Sr. for señor . Rarely, abbreviations are written using the slash: c/ for calle , b/n for blanco y negro .

One-letter abbreviations are pluralized by doubling the letter: pp. for páginas . More-than-one-letter abbreviations are pluralized by adding s: vols. for volúmenes . The ending -es is used for contractions if it appears in the corresponding complete word: admones. for administraciones . Traditional exceptions: the plural of pta. ( peseta ) is pts., that of cent. ( centavo ) and cént. ( céntimo ) is cts., and that of Ud. or Vd. ( usted ) is Uds. or Vds.

Letter symbols such as those of chemical elements or measurement units are written following international conventions and do not require the abbreviation period: H ( hidrógeno ), kg ( kilogramo ). For some notions, Spanish-specific symbols are used: O ( oeste 'west'), sen ( seno 'sine').

Acronyms are written in all capitals and read by letters ( ONG for organización no gubernamental 'non-governmental organization') or as words ( ONU for Organización de las Naciones Unidas). Some acronyms read as words are written as normal words, including proper names of more than four letters such as Unesco, Unicef or common nouns such as ovni . Some acronyms read by letters may also be spelled according to their pronunciation: oenegé . Acronyms written in all capitals are not pluralized in writing, but they are pluralized in speech: las ONG [las o.e.neˈxes] 'the non-governmental organizations'.

Numerals

Numbers may be written in words (uno, dos, tres...) or in figures (1, 2, 3, ...).

For the decimal separator, the comma and the point are both accepted (3,1416 or 3.1416); the decimal comma is preferred in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, but the decimal point is preferred in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Both marks are used in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, and El Salvador.

For the thousands separator, the currently standard mark is the thin space (123 456 789). Formerly, the point was sometimes used, but now it is not recommended.

When written in words, numbers up to 30 are nowadays written as a single word, e.g. dieciséis , veintinueve . The corresponding ordinal numbers may be written as a single word or separately, e.g. decimosexto (decimosexta, decimosextos, decimosextas) or décimo sexto (décima sexta, décimos sextos, décimas sextas). Numbers more than 30 (cardinal and ordinal) are usually written separately, e.g. treinta y cinco , trigésimo quinto , but one-word spellings such as treintaicinco , trigesimoquinto are also accepted by the current Ortografía.

Whole hundreds are also written as single words, e.g. cuatrocientos .

Fractionary numbers such as cincuentaiseisavo are written as a single word.

Daytime is written in the 24-hour format, using the colon (18:45) or the point (18.45). Dates are expressed in the day-month-year format, with the following options possible: 8 de mayo de 2015; 8-5-2015; 8-5-15; 8/5/2015; 8.5.2015; 8-V-2015. Leading zeros in the day and the month (08.05.2015) are not used, except in computerized or bank documents.

Roman numerals (I, II, III, ...) are used for centuries (e. g. siglo xxi) and for regnal numbers (e. g. Luis XIV). Roman or Arabic numerals may be used for historical dynasties (e. g. la xviii dinastía or la 18.ª dinastía); volumes, chapters, or other parts of books (e. g. tomo iii, tomo 3.º, 3.^er tomo, or tomo 3); celebrations (e. g. XXIII Feria del Libro de Buenos Aires, or 23.ª Feria...). ^[38] Roman numerals are typeset in small capitals if they would not be capitalized when written in words.

Reform proposals

In spite of the relatively regular orthography of Spanish, there have been several initiatives to simplify it further. 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. ^[66] Another proposal, Ortografía R̃asional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity. ^{[67] [68]} 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 Camprubí. Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas in 1997, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of ⟨h⟩, which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted. ^[69] The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes in the orthography (see above).

A Mexican Spanish convention is to spell certain indigenous words with ⟨x⟩ rather than the ⟨j⟩ that would be the standard spelling in Spanish. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is México (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling. ^[70] The American Spanish colloquial term chicano is shortened from mechicano, which uses /tʃ/ in place of the /ʃ/ of rural Mexican Spanish /meʃiˈkano/. ^[71]