Spanish Orthography (1781 and 1796)

Our university library was presented with a fourth edition Gramdtica de la Lengua Castellana published in Madrid in 1796 by the Real Academia Espaiiola. I was already the owner of a Spanish book on Education published in Madrid in 1781.1 It was therefore of great interest to me to compare the two books with regard to their spelling and to speculate, where possible, on the development of the orthography of present day Spanish. The Academia grammar had already done away with certain elements in Greekderived words for we find cristiano, catolico, istmo and retorica whereas in the 1781 book we see arithmetica, Christo, isthmo, psalmos and rhetorica. This shows a tendency to ignore the classical and erudite influence in favor of reflecting more faithfully the popular, and still current, pronunciation. It therefore is possible to assume that it is during the second half of the eighteenth century that the Greek-derived words containing equivalents for chi, psi, rho and theta begin to use the single letters, c, s, r, and t. The old ps spelling for psi exists rarely in modern Spanish and where it persists the initial p is commonly not pronounced. All the above examples carried the two letter Greek equivalents into Latin and it remained for the Spanish to drop the one element in their orthography.2 It is apparent that the entire question of the use of graphic accents was largely unsettled before 1800. Let us examine, e.g., just those words ending in n. Both books are in accord in their treatment of such words. In 1796 we read afan, algun, corazon, ningun, razon and segun without graphic accents. In 1781 we have comun, latin, ningun and razon also unaccented. In neither book do we encounter an accent on the o in any ion ending. In fact a thorough study reveals that neither book contains a single non-verbal ending in n with a graphic accent on the last syllable. On the other hand we do find imdgen, 6rden and virgen in the 1796 grammar. In 1796 it would seem that the rule was that words ending in n followed the stress pattern for words ending in the other consonants, i.e., with the stress on the last syllable. Verbs, however, were not included in this rule. In 1796 we see estin, but also conquistdron, contribuydron and hicidron. In fact all third person plural preterits have the written accent on the penult. In the 1781 work we find quedaron, cayeron and embistieron written as they are today. Here we see that the graphic accent endorsed by the Academia had no lasting effect, at least with the verbs in the third plural preterit. But the third plural futures in both books wear the accent on the last syllable, e.g., iran, saldrdn, etc. The third plural conditionals in 1796 have no written ac

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