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The purpose of this supplementary manual is to createguidelines for editing articles in the English-language Wikipedia which relate toHispanic cultures or theSpanish language to conform to a neutral encyclopedic style and to make things easy to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit. This manual is open to all proposals, discussion, and editing.
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The most general rule of the Wikipedia is that editors shoulduse the most common form of the name or expression used in English (WP:ENGLISH). There are however many cases in which this rule is difficult to put into practice. When giving a parenthetical Spanish expression after an English word, editors may use{{langx|es|word}} where "word" is the Spanish word. Example: Civil Guard (Spanish:Guardia Civil).
Other Spanish words or phrases should use{{lang}}, thus:{{lang|es|Guardia Civil}}, which renders asGuardia Civil.
In general, when quoting Spanish words or names, spelling (orthography), including punctuation, capitalization, and use of accents, should be modernized. How to modernize Spanish, along with how to determine if modernization is needed, are complicated topics, and expert assistance may be necessary. It should be kept in mind that just as many English speakers cannot spell correctly, many Spanish speakers do not know the rules for correct spelling and accent use.
Details of the rules governing orthography do not change frequently, but they are not set in stone either. TheRoyal Spanish Academy, a body with no English-language equivalent, has the legal authority to specify what is and what is not "correct" in Spanish, and occasionally it makes changes in Spanish orthography, as for example dropping of the accents onfui andfue. TheirDiccionario de la lengua española should be consulted on questions of spelling, and theirOrtografía de la lengua española is authoritative.
Modern Spanish uses only the acute accent, over any vowel: á é í ó ú. In the past, accents were sometimes omitted from capital letters; however, current practice, which the Academy recommends, is to use them on all capitals Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú.
The accent mark in Spanish has an important function: it marks the stressed or "accented" syllable in a word. It is also used to distinguish homonyns, such asSpanish:si (if) andSpanish:sí (yes).
The use of accent marks in Spanish, except for capital letters, is not optional. They follow rules. A word that should have an accent mark but does not is misspelled, and a Spanish-languagespell checker will flag it as an error. Sometimes omission of an accent mark, or addition of a superfluous one, can change meaning significantly:Spanish:hablo (I speak),Spanish:habló (he/she/it/you spoke).
Thedieresis—¨—is used only on the vowelu and only afterg (verGÜENza); it is not an accent mark, and has a quite different function. (It indicates the pronunciation of theg it follows.) It has no effect on alphabetizacion of theu. Likewise, the ~ is used in Spanish only overn, formingñ (maÑAna), and the Spanish Academy definesñ as a separate letter, not a variety ofn. (Until the advent of computers in the later 20th century, the Spanish Academy consideredch andll to be single letters, alphabetized afterc andl.)
In every word with a written accent mark, the syllable with it is the stressed ortonic syllable:haBLÓ, PÁjaro, naCIÓN. There are no exceptions.[citation needed]
Beyond this, the accent mark serves two quite different and somewhat confusing functions.
In Spanish, when determining word stress, one looks at a syllable's position in relation to theend of the word. Note that the stress of a word in Spanish, such asconstituCIÓN, often is different from the stress of thecognate (related) word in English:constiTUtion.
The Spanish Academy, in the early 19th century, set rules for the use of the accent as a marker of syllable stress. There are three rules, unchanged for some 200 years:
For the reader, the above rules are an infallible guide to syllable stress in Spanish pronunciation. Running the rules backwards, if one knows a word's pronunciation, from it one can determine if the word when written does or does not have an accent mark indicating the stressed syllable.
Note that some words will have a written accent mark on the singular, but not on the plural, or vice versa. For example, the singulardonación (donation, do-na-CIÓN) has a written accent mark, but the pluraldonaciones (do-na-CIO-nes) does not. This is not considered to be a change in spelling or an irregularity; it is a consequence of the fact that the plural is a syllable longer. The singular "needs" a written accent mark to show that the stress breaks rule #1, indicating stress on the next-to-the-last syllable for words ending inn. In the plural, the word stress now follows the default rule of stress on the next-to-the-last syllable, so the written accent mark is not necessary (and would be wrong to use).
A written accent mark sometimes distinguishes one verb form from another:CANto, "I sing";canTÓ "he/she/it/you sang". This reflects in writing the fact that the stressed syllable is different in these two verb forms.
In English, a word, such asspring, may have more than one meaning. The same is true in Spanish. These are calledhomonyms.
(In English a word, without changing the spelling, can have different pronunciations depending on its meaning: the verbdeSERT is stressed on the last syllable, the nounDESert on the first syllable; whenabuse is a noun it rhymes withloose, and if a verb it rhymes withbooze. These are calledheteronyms. In Spanish this is not allowed to happen; given a word's spelling, it must always be pronounced the same way, no matter what it means.)
The Spanish Academy decided to use the accent mark to distinguish certain homonyms, frequently different parts of speech.tú, subject pronoun, "you";tu, adjective, "your".él, subject pronoun, "he" or "it";el, article, "the". The number of these is small and a full treatment may be found ates:Acento diacrítico.
As always, the written accent mark, if there is one, comes on the stressed syllable of the word:CUÁNdo. The difference is that these words do not require the written accent to indicate the stressed syllable:CUANdo is stressed exactly the same with or without the accent mark.
Discussions of word stress and the rules for use of written accent marks depend on the syllables of a word. Spanish's rules for dividing a word into syllables are different than those of English.
Ligatures are typographical combinations of adjacent letters, such asæ. Spanish does not use ligatures.
In current Spanish, the only difference from the sorting of English is that the ñ is a separate letter, following n and before o.
Accent marks (áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ) do not affect sorting, nor does thediaeresis (the two superscript dots) used over ü and Ü in a few words such aslingüística (linguistics). Such words are filed as if the written accent or diaeresis were not present.
Before 1994, the former letters ch and ll were sorted separately. That is to say, in a dictionary, words beginning with ch were in a separate section following words beginning with c. The same for ll and l. This made computerized sorting complicated. In 1994 the Royal Spanish Academy said they should be interfiled with other words beginning with c or l. In 2010, ch and ll were officially changed by the Academy from being single letters; they are now double letters.
Treating the Ñ as a separate letter from the N, sorted separately, is also a complication, though a less serious one as it does not need to pretend that two letters are one. That Spanish, and only Spanish, has the Ñ is sometimes treated in Spain as a national treasure, something to be proud of, that makes Spain España.
Follow the capitalization of the text being quoted (unless it is mistaken according to Spanish rules). Spanish uses capital letters significantly less than English. While proper nouns are capitalized, adjectives derived from them are not:español, irlandés, neoyorquino (Spanish or Spaniard, Irish or an Irish person, New Yorkish or a New Yorker). In names of books or artistic works, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized:Por quién doblan las campanas, For Whom the Bell Tolls. ("Quién" has a written accent because the context is interrogative: "Ask not, for whom the bell tolls.")
See articlesSpanish naming customs,Hispanic American naming customs
Although there is great variety, especially outside of Spain, Spanish personal names customarily consist of a single first name, the last name of the father (patronymic), and the last name of the mother (matronymic). There may bey,de, or another word or words before either of the surnames. Thus, withLuis de Góngora y Argote,Góngora is the patronymic, andArgote the matronymic. The article would be alphabeticized underg.
When the paternal surname is common, like "García" or "Rodríguez," the person may be referred to in speech and writing by the maternal surname:Federico García Lorca is called "Lorca," andDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez is called "Velázquez."The maternal surname (apellido materno) or matronymic is generally not used in titles perWikipedia:MIDDLES#Multiple_and_changed_surnames but is used in article lead perWP:FULLNAME.
Note that Hispanic names should never be alphabetized by the maternal surname. Although Spanish poet and playwrightFederico García Lorca is usually referred to as "Lorca," and not "García Lorca" and certainly not "García," he must be alphabetized underg. In an index, he would be "García Lorca, Federico," and never "Lorca, Federico García." A redirect to the correct form is helpful.
A good place for help in indexing Spanish names of people is a Spanish-language encyclopedia, like theEncyclopedia Espasa.
SeeList of English exonyms,Category:Geography of Spain,Category:Populated places in Spain by province
Spanishexonyms are currently used for some very well knowntoponyms such asAlicante andIbiza. Catalan/Valencianendonyms are generally used for less known places. SeeList of Spanish exonyms for Catalan toponyms
Category:Geography of the Basque Country
When referring to thebarrios of Puerto Rico use the word "barrio" in preference to the English "ward", except when quoting an English-language source or discussing the alternate usages. (See discussion atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Puerto Rico#Barrio/Ward.)
SeeWikipedia:WikiProject Puerto Rico/Style guide
PerWP:PRON#Other languages, Spanish pronunciation is given in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).Help:IPA/Spanish provides a guide for editors and readers on Spanish IPA transcriptions. The first transcription should be bracketed within{{IPA|es|...}} so that readers can be directed toHelp:IPA/Spanish.