Those most nostalgic for spelling are in luck today. There Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) backed down and will come back the graphic accent of the word ‘solo’ who already retired 13 years ago. Of course, the teachers impose a grammatical condition to return to embellish this adverb which for many Spaniards had been “bare” for a long time.
This was confirmed by sources from the plenary session of the Language Academy in statements to Efe, which eventually gave in to demands, especially from writers, that They demanded the “decriminalization” of the use of the tilde.
The tilde of ‘only’ in case of ambiguity
Now, the return of this graphic accent is not without more. The RAE wanted to make this concession and thus change the wording of the Panhispanic Dictionary of Doubts (DPD), but imposed a condition.
So far the word ‘only’ – both adverb (like only) and adjective — should not have an accent, following the accent rules and the standard imposed in 2010 that so many reproaches have raised.
One of the academics most revolted by this (confusing to many) decision was Arturo Perez-Revertewho today celebrated this small victory: “Sometimes old battles are won”. But in his time, he refused to drop the “solo” label, as he openly demonstrated on several occasions.
However, the RAE agreed to make the accent graphic each time an ambiguity is perceived in the written sentencethat is, putting tilde in ‘only’ avoids confusion in the meaning of the statement.
SO, the word ‘solo’ will continue, officially, without the graphic accent in the first vowel, but it will be accepted in texts where, to clarify the context, it is included.
‘Este’, ‘Esta’… also get the tilde
‘Alone’ will not be the only word that we will see in the written texts. The Royal Spanish Academy extended the change of its own standard to demonstrative pronouns ‘this’, ‘this’, these’ and ‘this’ in the same cases that will apply to ‘solo’.
The RAE rule for these pronouns is as follows: “It is recommended never to mark demonstrative pronouns (this, that, those…). Nevertheless, they can be marked if there is a risk of ambiguity because they can also be determiners. If there is no risk of ambiguity, the tilde is not justified“.