“The RAE rectifies”! “The tilde returns to ‘only’ thirteen years later”! With these headlines, the result of a vote of the plenary session of the Academy was leaked on ABC in which, always according to the Madrid newspaper, the war between lexicographers and writers finally ended with the victory of the latter.
The problem is that everything seems to indicate that, in reality, nothing has changed.
“Avoid breakups.” In 1952, the academic Julio Casares realized that stressing the word ‘only’ (when it could be substituted for only) was inconsistent: the actual cases in which ambiguity occurred (without the context resolving it) were rare and far-fetched. .
For the preparation of the 1959 Spelling, the Academy debated it and despite the fact that it concluded that Casares was right (“from that year to the present, the RAE does not put the accent on solo in its publications”), it left it as optional to “avoid ruptures”, explained Salvador Gutiérrez, coordinator of the ‘Spelling of the Spanish Language’.
The “great sin” of 2010. However, in 2010, the 22 Spanish language academies in the world met in Guadalajara (Mexico) and decided to turn the norm around: on the one hand, they allowed themselves to “do without the tilde […] even in cases of ambiguity” and, on the other, “the general recommendation is, therefore, never to mark these words”.
Although the initial intention was to remove that tilde forever, it was not done. That is, although it was not recommended, during these 13 years those words could continue to be accentuated if the author considered that there was an ambiguity (and the Academy itself clearly said so). What happens is that, logically, the writing of the Academy invited to stop using it and that was not digested well in certain intellectual circles.
The solotildista crusade. Academics such as Javier Marías or Pérez-Reverte (but also Antonio Muñoz Molina, Luis Mateo Díez, Soledad Puértolas, Carmen Iglesias, Mario Vargas Llosa or José María Merino) publicly expressed their outrage. Marías went so far as to say that he hoped that one day it would be rectified “for the good of the Spanish language.”
And, suddenly, marking the word ‘only’ became a kind of prestigious mark for the cult record that led to a somewhat absurd dispute (because, let’s remember, it included a consensus among specialists over 50 years old).
What has been approved now? 13 years have passed since that meeting in Guadalajara until someone leaked that “the tilde of only” returned. However, the RAE has already explained that what was agreed is only “a new wording that will be published in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts (DPD), which does not modify the norm but rather makes it clearer.”
Summarizing: this “it will be possible to do without the tilde (…) even in cases of ambiguity” for something of the type “it will be optional in contexts in which, in the opinion of the writer, its use entails a risk of ambiguity “. And, in the absence of knowing what the final text is, this agreement is being sold as a victory for the writers of the academy against the lexicographers of the same.
A symptom of a deeper problem. However, this “historic victory of solotildismo” leaves the Academy on somewhat shaky ground. We must not forget that we are talking about something that has enjoyed the consensus of specialists since at least 1959 and that is only controversial due to the refusal of a sector of the academy to accept that “their orthotypographic customs” do not have to be the canon of written spanish.
Basically, it is a confirmation that it is not the scientific criteria (not even the consistency of the same norms that the academy imposes) that regulates the standard of the Spanish language: it is the number of votes in plenary session of an institution that It is otherwise private. And, beware, it is not bad that this is so crudely visible.
The “tilde of the solo” is an unbeatable opportunity to begin to ask ourselves how many of the decisions of the Academy are, in reality, impositions of some linguistic varieties on others due to the mere fact that the composition of the plenary session of the institution is what it is .
Image | RAE