The history of written Spanish
 

Hi,

It looks like Spanish is the only language with a long written history, were you write exactly what you hear. This can't happen all on its own. French and German have rules for reading, yet the letters clearly show that once is used to be a very different story. The English is worse :) . Is it possible that Spanish spelling gets officially revised once in a hundred years or something like that?

In comparison to English and French, written Spanish is new. I believe that Spanish as a written language is about 500 years old. Prior to that, written language was in Latin or Arabic depending on the region.

Poli, 500 years ago, the Siglo de Oro Español was at its peak (Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Quevedo, etc.). The Spaniards were already speaking it in its most sublime forms and were already exporting it to the Americas and other territories. ;)


Spanish has a much longer history, becoming a language on its own right from the 10th to 13th centuries. It has evolved a lot, pronunciation has changed, spelling has changed and it's being revised by the Academia all the time, adjusting and adopting new letters and sounds (like "w" or "sh"), new spellings, new grammar, etc. :)

I thought that it was Nebrija who created the first Castilian dictionary, and put Spanish grammar down on paper in the late 1400's. I thought the language was used by the people for centuries, but it wasn't considered legitimate until Nebrija's time.

Poli, students who complete undergraduate degrees in Spanish language and literature in US universities start their coursework with a 2-semester class on the history of Spanish literature that covers the period from the 10th century through to the end of the 19th century. Later coursework starts from that foundation with classes that focus on specific time periods, genres, and/or authors, or on specific works such as _Don Quixote_. Systematic written use of Castilian dates from the 13th century in Toledo.

Many scholars of Spanish language and literature consider the efforts of Nebrija and his contemporaries as distinguishing the transition of medieval Spanish into early modern Spanish, in much the same way that scholars of English language and literature consider the works of Shakespeare and the publication of the King James translation of the Bible as distinguising the transition from Middle English to early Modern English.

Wow, was my info wrong, but, back to Tyrn's question, does the modernization of Castilian in the late 1400's the reason for its simple spelling rules?

@Poli: The systematic study and compilation of a language by its speakers only confirms the language's long existence.

The legend (probably apocryphal) tells that queen Isabel found Nebrija's work completely useless, since everyone already spoke the language without any "help". Then she's said to have adopted it when they told her it could be used for imposing the language in the territories to be conquered.

The first texts considered the to be written in Spanish are the "Glosas Emilianenses", from the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. This is the first written proof that people no longer spoke local languages or Latin, but a whole new language. They're dated between 9th and 11th centuries.
The first piece of literature in Spanish is "El Cantar del Mío Cid", which was written in the 1200s. :)

As for Nebrija, he did compile dictionaries, but his legacy is rather centered on the grammar. If you see texts after his time, even being an established reference, spelling is not standard. Even in the 19th century, you can find some official texts whose spelling has little to do with the rules we know now.
Spelling is constantly changing. Spanish and Latin are written the way they're pronounced, so much of the spelling in previous times has changed because pronunciation changed. Many "s"-related sounds got lost and their graphic representations disappeared; some "f" sounds stopped being pronounced and became mute "h".
Spelling rules are the product of the history of the language; we keep "b" and "v" even if we don't pronounce the difference, we don't have "rebel" spelling differences between countries who pronounce "z"/"c" and "s" differently, but one cannot expect that will not change. Since the Academias just reflect how people write and speak, we have seen continuous change (maybe simplifications) in spelling for the last hundred years or so, as many written accents became superfluous ("á", "fé"), mute letters disappeared from words like when "obscuro" became "oscuro", etc.
We might expect more letters will disappear if they're systematically not pronounced by speakers, or the disappearance of "h", or maybe the replacement of "qu" for "k", or even the rejection of all written accents. We don't know.

Angelica, thank you for the time you spent in explaining this.

I wish I could have had time to actually research a little more and give you more precise information. What I said is mostly what we're taught in school. Anyway, thank you for caring. :)