Spanish orthography

System for writing in Spanish
using Spanish words and titles in Wikipedia

Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes; in other words, the pronunciation of a given Spanish language word can largely be predicted from its spelling and to a slightly lesser extent vice versa. Spanish punctuation uniquely includes the use of inverted question and exclamation marks:
Spanish uses capital letters much less often than English; they are not used on adjectives derived from proper nouns (e. g. francés, español, portugués from Francia, España, and Portugal, respectively) and book titles capitalize only the first word (e. g. La rebelión de las masas). Spanish uses only the acute accent, over any vowel: This accent is used to mark the tonic (stressed) syllable, though it may also be used occasionally to distinguish homophones such as si ('if') and sí ('yes'). The only other diacritics used are the tilde on the letter , which is considered a separate letter from , and the diaeresis used in the sequences and —as in bilingüe ('bilingual')—to indicate that the is pronounced, , rather than having the usual silent role that it plays in unmarked and
In contrast with English, Spanish has an official body that governs linguistic rules, orthography among them: the Royal Spanish Academy, which makes periodic changes to the orthography. The currently valid work on the orthography is the Ortografía de la lengua española, published in 2010.

B and V in some regions, speakers may instead add something to the names to distinguish them. Some Mexicans and most Peruvians generally say be / chica ('big B' / 'little V'); Argentines, Uruguayans and Chileans, be larga / corta ('long B' / 'short V'). Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter; e. g., b de / v de ('b as in ' / 'v as in '); Colombians tend to say be grande for B and ve for V. In Venezuela, they call B b de and V v de , or be alta and ve baja ('tall B' / 'short V'). Regardless of these regional differences, all Spanish speaking people recognize be as the official name of B.
R The name ere was used when referring specifically to the alveolar tap and erre referring to the alveolar trill The two contrast between vowels, with the latter being represented with , but the sounds are otherwise in complementary distribution so that a single may represent either. As a referent to the trill sound rather than the phoneme, erre can refer to a single or double W In older Spanish, it was called zeda or ceda, and the diminutive form of this word, cedilla, is now used in both Spanish and English to refer to the diacritic mark exhibited in the letter .

+ Consonants Letter Context IPA Examples English approximationb or v word initial after a pause, or after or ; ; ; practically the same as the typical English , except that it is fully voiced; e. g. about elsewhere (i. e. after a vowel, even across a word boundary, or after any consonant other than or )name="Approximant"|, , and are approximants (, , ; represented here without the undertacks) in all places except after a pause, after an or , or—in the case of and —after an , in which contexts they are stops , not dissimilar from English b, d, j, g.; same as the typical English ; e. g. vase elsewhere; same as the typical English ; e. g. faceg before or or similar to a "strong" English sound (e. g. the in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated (as in heaven) not before or , and either word initial after a pause, or after ; ; practically the same as the typical English sound, except that it is fully voiced; e. g. agonot before or , and not in the above contexts; ; ; mi gatoa sound between a light English and the typical English (between gold and ahold)gu before or , and either word initial after a pause, or after ; a sound like the in English language before or , and not in the above contexts; similar to the typical English , but preceded by a soft guttural soundbefore or , and either word initial after a pause, or after practically the same as the typical English sound, except that it is fully voiced; e. g. agobefore or , and not in the above contextsa sound between a light English and the typical English (between gold and ahold)gü before or , and either word initial after a pause, or after , a sound like the in English penguin before or , and not in the above contextssimilar to the typical English , but preceded by a soft guttural soundh everywhere(silent); ; ; ; silent (like the English in English honor or hour)everywhere; occurs in loanwords and foreign proper names or hámster, hawaiano, hachís, , , , Yokohama, Wahidsimilar to a "strong" English sound (e. g. the in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated (as in heaven) hi before a vowel or ; hielosimilar to or the same as the typical English ; e. g. you (but often more strongly pronounced, sometimes resembling the English , as in jam) hu before a vowel; huevosame as the typical English ; we (sometimes sounds closer to the English , like in Gwen, or , like in cobweb)j everywhere or ; ; ;similar to a "strong" English sound (e. g. the in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated (as in heaven) However, the letter originally had a j sound akin to jump in older versions of Spanish. krare; only occurs in a few loanwords and sensational spellings, , same as certain instances of English or ; e. g. skull, scan, or picking (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English at the beginning of a word, e. g. in can) l everywhere; ; same as the typical English (especially like the clear of British English, rather than the dark of American English);e. g. pull/pəɫ̩/ ll everywhere, or (depending upon the dialect) ; similar to the in English million (in some dialects simplified to a sound between the typical English and , e. g. between yes and Jess)m everywhere except word finally; ; same as the typical English ; madamword final or (depending upon the dialect)varying between the typical English and , e. g. the in English singn everywhere but before other consonants; ; same as the typical English ; e. g. nun before other consonantssame as the typical English ; madamsame as the English in symphonysame as the typical English (as in )same as the English in canyonsame as the typical English (as in sink or sing) ñ everywhere; roughly like minions p everywhere ; ; same as certain instances of English ; e. g. span or typing (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English at the beginning of a word, e. g. in pan)in the consonant cluster between baby and bevy (like the typical English , but with the upper lip in place of the upper teeth) qu only occurs before or same as certain instances of English or ⟨q⟩; e. g. skull, scan, or unique (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English at the beginning of a word, e. g. in key)r word initial, morpheme initial, or after , , , or ; in emphatic and oratorical or formal speech, may also be used instead of in syllable final (especially before , , , , , or ) and word final positions (before pause or consonant initial words only); ; ; ; ; ; amor purotrilled or rolled elsewhere; ; ; amor eternoflapped ; e. g. the same sound as the of ladder in American English rr only occurs between vowelstrilled or rolled s before a voiced consonant (e. g. , , ,); ; ; ;; ; ; ; ; ; ; same as the typical English ; e. g. the in is or busy; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar of English busy and the palato alveolar of pleasureeverywhere else; ; ; same as the typical English ; sass; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar of English sea and the palato alveolar of sure sh Not considered to be a Spanish digraph (hence words like sherpa, show, flash are considered extranjerismos crudos), but used in proper names from other languages, some of them being accentuated in the Spanish manner (names from Native American languages or from languages using non Latin writing systems) or (sometimes )Áncash; Shanghái; Washingtonsame as the typical English ; e. g. sheesh; when this digraph is equated with the phoneme (typically in northern and central Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes), the sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar of English sea and the palato alveolar of shet everywhere ; same as certain instances of English ; e. g. stand (unaspirated, i. e. without the puff of air that accompanies English at the beginning of a word, e. g. in tan). Also, the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth, rather than the alveolar ridge and found in the word month /mənt̪θ/before voiced consonantssame as the typical English voiced ⟨th⟩; e. g. this tl rare; mostly in loanwords from Nahuatl or ; ; similar to the combined sound in English cat liketz rare; from loanwords; Pátzcuarosame as the "ts" in English catsw rare; in loanwords from English and non European languages, , , , Wahid, Taiwánwater (sometimes turn to /gw/ or /bw/) rare; in loanwords from German and in Visigothic names; word initial after a pause, or after or ; Wamba; Wittenbergsame as the typical English ; e. g. bib rare; in loanwords from German and in Visigothic names; elsewhere (i. e. after a vowel, even across a word boundary, or after any consonant other than or )Volkswagen, Ludwigbetween baby and bevy (like the typical English , but with the upper lip in place of the upper teeth)x between vowels and word finally (sometimes ); ; , same as the typical English ; e. g. taxi or Exactly word initiallysame as the typical English ; sass; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar of English sea and the palato alveolar of shebefore a consonant or same as the typical English or ; e. g. max or mass in some words borrowed from Nahuatl, mostly place names, and in some Spanish proper names conserving archaic spelling or ; ; xiote; Texas; La Axarquía; Ximena; Ximénez; Mexía; similar to a "strong" English sound (e. g. the in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated (as in heaven) in some words from indigenous American languages, mostly place names or (sometimes )Xela; same as the typical English ; e. g. sheesh; when this is equated with the phoneme (typically in northern and central Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes), the sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar of English sea and the palato alveolar of shey as a semivowel (almost always in a diphthong) or , same as the typical English (but joined in a single syllable with another vowel sound); aye, boy as a consonant, , or ; ; similar to the typical English , or but softer; e. g. similar to yes or Jess, yeast z usually does not occur before or (central and northern Spain) or (most other regions) ; ; same as the English voiceless ⟨th⟩ (as in thing) in central and northern Spain, or the typical English (as in sass) in all other regions before voiced consonants (central and northern Spain) or (most other regions) , , Aznarsame as the typical English voiced ⟨th⟩; e. g. this in central and northern Spain,or the typical English ; e. g. the in is or busy

In some words, one of consonants in a consonant combination may optionally be omitted. This includes Greek derived words such as /, / (mostly pronounced without consonant clusters foreign to Spanish but more commonly spelled with them) and other words such as /, /, /.

The letter is consistently used in the consonantal value. The use of the letter for a vowel or a semivowel is very restricted. The diphthongs are usually written at the end of words (e. g. hay, ley, voy), though exceptions may occur in loanwords (e. g. bonsái, agnusdéi). The spelling is used at the end of some words, where it is pronounced as a falling diphthong, such as cocuy; the word muy may also be pronounced with a raising diphthong. The letter is conserved in rarely used encliticized verbal forms like doyte, haylas (it is more normal to say te doy, las hay). The letter is used for the vowel in the conjunction y and in some acronyms, like pyme (from pequeña y mediana empresa). Otherwise, for a vowel or semivowel occurs only in some archaically spelled proper names and their derivations: Guaymas, guaymeño, and also fraybentino (from Fray Bentos with regular usage of in a word final diphthong). Derivatives of foreign proper names also conserve : taylorismo, from Taylor.

The vowels can be marked with an acute accent——for two purposes: to mark stress if it does not follow the most common pattern, or to differentiate words that are otherwise spelled identically (called the tilde diacrítica in Spanish). The accented is found only in some proper names: Aýna, Laýna, Ýñiguez. A silent is used between and or to indicate a hard pronunciation, so that represents and represents The letter ( with diaeresis) is used in this context to indicate that the is not silent, e. g. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over either vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the meter (, to be pronounced as three syllables). Also a silent always follows a when followed by or , as in and , but there is no case for the combination , with fulfilling this role (as in ). There are no native words in Spanish with the combination nor ; again, is used instead When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as , the is not silent, so is never needed after Prior to the introduction of the 2010 Common Orthography words such as ('quorum'), ('quasar') or ('Qatar') were spelled with ; this is no longer so.

To write Spanish on a typewriter or to set type, the special characters required are , , , , , , , , , , and The uppercase , , , , and are also prescribed by the RAE, although occasionally dispensed with in practice. As implemented on the mechanical typewriter, the keyboard contained a single dead key, with the acute accent ( ´ ) in the lowercase position, and the diaeresis ( ¨ ) in the uppercase position. With these, one could write , , , , , and A separate key provided (A dead key "~" is used on the Spanish and Portuguese keyboards, but on the Hispanic American keyboard the "~" is not a dead key). The inverted marks and completed the required minimum. When an additional key was added to electro mechanical typewriters, this was used for and , though these are not required. (These symbols are used for ordinal numbers: for primero, for segunda, etc.) As implemented in the MS DOS operating system and its successor Microsoft Windows, a / pair—not required in Spanish but needed for Catalan, Portuguese, and French—is typically added, and the use of the acute accent and diaeresis with capital letters (, , , , , ) is supported. Although not needed for Spanish, another dead key with (the grave accent) in lowercase position and (the circumflex accent) in uppercase position was included. Also available is (the "flying point", required in Catalan). To make room for these characters not on the standard English keyboard, characters used primarily in programming, science, and mathematics— and , and , and , and and —are removed, requiring special keystroke sequences to access. On a USA or UK physical keyboard, all of the Spanish characters are present using the US International layout.

Stress in Spanish is marked unequivocally through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next to last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, or (not preceded by another consonant) and on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than or or in a consonant group. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. In many cases, the accent is essential to understanding what a word means, for example [[wikt:hablo#Spanish ('I speak') contrasts with [[wikt:habló#Spanish ('he/she/you spoke'). A corollary of the accentuation rule above is that the written accent can sometimes appear in certain forms of a word but not others, to indicate that the same syllable is stressed. For example:
Some nouns and adjectives gain or lose their accent mark when they become plural: e. g. [[wikt:andén#Spanish → [[wikt:andenes#Spanish; [[wikt:examen#Spanish → [[wikt:exámenes#Spanish. Verbs may gain or lose their accent mark when a pronominal suffix is added: e. g. [[wikt:manda#Spanish + [[wikt:lo#Spanish → [[wikt:mándalo#Spanish; [[wikt:mandá#Spanish + lo → [[wikt:mandalo#Spanish. An accent mark is always present if two pronouns are suffixed: [[wikt:manda#Spanish + [[wikt:me#Spanish + lo → [[wikt:mándamelo#Spanish; [[wikt:mandá#Spanish + me + lo → [[wikt:mandámelo#Spanish. For purposes of counting syllables and assigning stress in Spanish, where an unmarked high vowel is followed by another vowel the sequence is treated as a rising diphthong, counted as a single syllable—unlike Portuguese and Catalan, which tend to treat such a sequence as two syllables. A syllable is of the form XAXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant cluster, or no sound at all, and A represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. A diphthong is any sequence of an unstressed high vowel ( or ) with another vowel (as in [[wikt:gracias#Spanish or [[wikt:náutico#Spanish), and a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowels (as in [[wikt:cambiáis#Spanish or [[wikt:buey#Spanish). Hence, Spanish writes [[wikt:familia#Spanish (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on (all three languages stress the first ). By contrast, Spanish puts the accent on [[wikt:día#Spanish, while Portuguese and Catalan spell without the accent (again, all three languages stress the ). An accent over the high vowel ( or ) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i. e., it signals a hiatus): for example, [[wikt:tía#Spanish, [[wikt:dúo#Spanish, [[wikt:oír#Spanish and [[wikt:baúl#Spanish all have two syllables each. The letter is not considered an interruption between vowels for diphthongisation purposes; for instance, [[wikt:ahumar#Spanish is considered to have two syllables: ahu mar As such, it is also not taken into account when determining the stressed syllable; for example, [[wikt:desahucio#Spanish has three syllables, with a being the stressed vowel: de sahu cio ( or ). This is also why words such as [[wikt:búho#Spanish require an acute accent over the high vowel to break the diphthong (without the accent, the word *buho would be considered a single syllable word, with the assumed pronunciation ). If the diphthongs are written at the end of words, the letter is considered a consonant letter for the purpose of accentuation: [[wikt:estoy#Spanish, [[wikt:yóquey#Spanish. A word with final stress is called oxytone (or [[wikt:aguda#Spanish in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called paroxytone ([[wikt:llana#Spanish or [[wikt:grave#Spanish); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third to last syllable) is called proparoxytone ([[wikt:esdrújula#Spanish). A word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier does not have a common linguistic term in English, but in Spanish receives the name [[wikt:sobresdrújula#Spanish. (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the last three syllables, except in the case of a verb form with enclitic pronouns, such as [[wikt:poniéndoselo#Spanish or [[wikt:llévesemelo#Spanish.) All proparoxytones and sobresdrújulas have a written accent mark. Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as [[wikt:fácil#Spanish, [[wikt:geográfico#Spanish, [[wikt:cortés#Spanish) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the mente ending (thus [[wikt:fácilmente#Spanish, [[wikt:geográficamente#Spanish, [[wikt:cortésmente#Spanish), and do not gain any if they do not have one (thus [[wikt:libremente#Spanish from [[wikt:libre#Spanish). In the pronunciation of these adverbs—as with all adverbs in [[wikt: mente#Spanish—primary stress is on the ending, on the penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective—whether marked, as in fácilmente, or not marked, as in libremente—may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb. Some words, such as [[wikt:piar#Spanish, [[wikt:hierba#Spanish, [[wikt:guion#Spanish and [[wikt:truhan#Spanish, are pronounced either with a diphthong or with a hiatus between the adjacent vowels, depending on the region. Pre 1999 orthographic rules treated these as hiatus, and accentuated the words accordingly (e. g. guión, truhán). The 1999 orthography reform by the RAE admitted the two spellings (with or without the accent), corresponding to two different pronunciations. The subsequent 2010 reform, though, declared that for orthographic and syllabification purposes such letter combinations should always be considered diphthongs, so the only correct spelling is now guion and truhan. Regardless of the spelling, however, these words may still be pronounced with a hiatus as before, and RAE does not discourage this practice. Furthermore, other grammatical rules were not changed by the reform; for example, "trees and grass" can be translated as either árboles y hierba (if hie pronounced as a diphthong) or árboles e hierba (if pronounced with a hiatus); the latter form is still correct even though hie is always treated as a diphthong for the purposes of syllabification.

The Real Academia Española indicates that accents are required on capitals (but not when the capitals are used in acronyms).

Abbreviations are written with the period: art. for Contractions are written in the same way: admón. for , or sometimes using superscript letters: D.ª for Hyphenating abbreviations (including contractions) at the end of line is not allowed and putting them in separate lines with terms they accompany is not allowed. Abbreviations are not capitalized if the original word is written in lowercase, but there are some traditional exceptions: Ud. or Vd. for , Sr. for Rarely, abbreviations are written using the slash: c/ for , b/n for
One letter abbreviations are pluralized by doubling the letter: pp. for More than one letter abbreviations are pluralized by adding s: vols. for The ending es is used for contractions if it appears in the corresponding complete word: admones. for Traditional exceptions: the plural of pta. is pts., that of cent. and cént. is cts., and that of Ud. or Vd. is Uds. or Vds. Letter symbols such as those of chemical elements or measurement units are written following international conventions and do not require the abbreviation period: H , kg For some notions, Spanish specific symbols are used: O ( 'west'), sen ( 'sine'). Acronyms are written in all capitals and read by letters ( for organización no gubernamental 'non governmental organization') or as words ( for Organización de las Naciones Unidas). Some acronyms read as words are written as normal words, including proper names of more than four letters such as Unesco, Unicef or common nouns such as Some acronyms read by letters may also be spelled according to their pronunciation: Acronyms written in all capitals are not pluralized in writing, but they are pluralized in speech: las ONG [las o. e. neˈxes] 'the non governmental organizations'.

Numbers may be written in words (uno, dos, tres ) or in figures (1, 2, 3, ). For the decimal separator, the comma and the point are both accepted (3,1416 or 3.1416); the decimal comma is preferred in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, but the decimal point is preferred in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Both marks are used in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, and El Salvador. For the thousands separator, the currently standard mark is the thin space (123 456 789). Formerly, the point was sometimes used, but now it is not recommended. When written in words, numbers up to 30 are nowadays written as a single word, e. g. , The corresponding ordinal numbers may be written as a single word or separately, e. g. (decimosexta, decimosextos, decimosextas) or (décima sexta, décimos sextos, décimas sextas). Numbers more than 30 (cardinal and ordinal) are usually written separately, e. g. Appendix:Spanish numerals, Appendix:Spanish numerals, but one word spellings such as Appendix:Spanish numerals, Appendix:Spanish numerals are also accepted by the current Ortografía. Whole hundreds are also written as single words, e. g.
Fractionary numbers such as Appendix:Spanish numerals are written as a single word. Daytime is written in the 24 hour format, using the colon (18:45) or the point (18.45). Dates are expressed in the day month year format, with the following options possible: 8 de mayo de 2015; 8 5 2015; 8 5 15; 8/5/2015; 8.5.2015; 8 V 2015. Leading zeros in the day and the month (08.05.2015) are not used, except in computerized or bank documents. Roman numerals (I, II, III, ) are used for centuries (e. g. siglo xxi) and for regnal numbers (e. g. Luis XIV). Roman or Arabic numerals may be used for historical dynasties (e. g. la xviii dinastía or la 18.ª dinastía); volumes, chapters, or other parts of books (e. g. tomo iii, tomo 3.º, 3. er tomo, or tomo 3); celebrations (e. g. XXIII Feria del Libro de Buenos Aires, or 23.ª Feria ). Roman numerals are typeset in small capitals if they would not be capitalized when written in words.

The Real Academia Española has reformed the orthographic rules of Spanish several times. In Old Spanish, was used to represent the voiceless palatal sound (as in 'he/she said'), while represented the voiced palatal (as in 'son'). With the changes of sibilants in the 16th century, the two sounds merged as (later to become velar ), and the letter was chosen for the single resulting phoneme in 1815. This results in some words that originally contained now containing , most easily seen in the case of those with English cognates, such as ejercicio, "exercise". When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote he spelled the name in the old way (and English preserves the ), but modern editions in Spanish spell it with For the use of in Mexico—and in the name México itself—see below. The letter (c cedilla)—which was first used in Old Spanish—is now obsolete in Spanish, having merged with in a process similar to that of and Old Spanish , , became modern , ,
Words formerly spelled with or (such as , , and ) are now written with and (, , , respectively). The sequences and do not occur in modern Spanish except some loanwords: , , ; some borrowed words have double spellings: /. A notable case is the word used in biochemistry, meaning "enzyme", as different from meaning "on", "over" or "on top of" something. The old spellings with , , and remained in use until the eighteenth century. They were replaced by , , and , respectively in 1726. and continued to be used in some words due to their etymology (e. g. , ), but this usage was largely reduced during the 1860—1880s, so these words became and The letter was replaced by in 1815, although word final remained until 1832 (e. g. , now ). The combinations and were originally used only in a few etymological cases (e. g. , ) and also in diminutives ; in the Ortografía of 1815, and were replaced by and in some words (e. g. ) but by and in other words (e. g. ); the Diccionario of 1817 used mostly and (e. g. ) but and word initially (e. g. ); in the Diccionario of 1832, and in words that did not have g in Latin were changed to , (e. g. , from Latin , became ), but word initial unetymological and remained; the Diccionario of 1837 stated explicitly that from then on, and were to be written only in words where they are justified by etymology. Old Spanish used to distinguish /s/ and /z/ between vowels, and it distinguished them by using for the former and for the latter, e. g. ('bear') and ('I dare to'). In orthography, the distinction was suppressed in 1763. Words spelled in modern Spanish with , (e. g. , , ) were written with , up until 1815. but some exceptions persisted until 1803. to 1815, the circumflex was used over vowels to indicate that preceding and should be pronounced /k/ and /ks/ respectively and not /tʃ/ and /x/, e. g. ,
The use of accent marks in printing varies by period, due to reforms successively promulgated by the Spanish Royal Academy. In early RAE publications (RAE statutes of 1715, Diccionario de autoridades of 1726), the acute accent was used extensively (e. g. Real Académia Españóla), although it was not used in paroxytones with two or more consonants after the stressed vowel, in most two syllable paroxytones, and in some other words. (However, the Diccionario de autoridades, unlike the RAE statutes and later RAE publications, does not put accents on the capital letters.) In the Orthographía of 1741, the default stress is defined as paroxytone in words ending in , , , or , and in verbal forms ending in , and as oxytone in words ending in , , or other consonants. Since the Ortografía of 1754, the default stress is defined as paroxytone in words ending in vowels and oxytone in words ending in consonants, with some grammar based exceptions, such as differential accents, plurals ending in , and verbal forms ending in or ; but other words ending in or were accented according to the general rule: capitan, jóven, demas, mártes. In 1880, the rules were simplified: grammatical considerations were no longer taken into account, except for differential accents. As a result, many words spelled previously without the accent gained it. These include words with final stress ending in n (e. g. , , , , —but future tense verb forms like , had already been spelled with the accent); words ending in which are not plurals (e. g. , , ); verbs in the imperfect tense (e. g. , ); the possessives mío and mía and the word On the other hand, some words lost their accent mark, e. g. → , → Meanwhile, one letter words other than the conjunction y—namely the preposition a and the conjunctions e (the form of y before an [i] sound), o, and u (form of o before [o])—were written with the grave accent (à, è, ò, ù) in early RAE publications and with the acute accent (á, é, ó, ú) from 1741 to 1911. The accent marked infinitives such as , , began to outnumber the unaccented form around 1920, dropped the accent mark again in 1952, and regained it in 1959. Monosyllabic preterite verb forms such as and were written with accent marks before 1952. stated that surnames ending in consonant and traditionally written without the accent are sometimes pronounced as paroxytones (e. g. Gutierrez, Aristizabal) and sometimes as oxytones (e. g. Ortiz) and recommends following the general rule for accentuation of surnames. The Gramática 1880

Ortografía 1754: dé, sé, sí. Ortografía 1763: dé, sé, sí, él, mí. The word tú is accented in the Diccionario since 1783. Accented interrogatives appear in the Diccionario from 1817. The word té is accented in the Diccionario from 1832; the accent disappeared after 1880 and reappeared in 1925. The word más is accented in the Prontuario since 1853. The Prontuario 1853 also added luégo (as an adverb) and the verb forms éntre, pára, sóbre; the Gramática 1870 also added nós (as majestic 'we'), and the musical notes mí, lá, sí. These accents were abolished by the Gramática 1880. The Gramática 1870 also mentions the obsolete pronoun ál ('another thing'), which is also mentioned in the Diccionario since 1869. The demonstrative pronouns éste, ése, aquél appear accented since the Prontuario 1853. However, the norms of 1952 stated that they may be not accented except in the case of ambiguity and also extended the possibility of accentuating to other similar words such as otro, algunos, pocos, muchos;
Additionally, the words (normally pronounced with a diphthong) and (normally pronounced with a hiatus) were originally not distinguished, but they appear in the Prontuario 1853 as áun and aún. Since the Gramática 1880, they are spelled aun and aún. The names of numbers in the upper teens and the twenties were originally written as three words (e. g. , y ), but nowadays they are spelled as a single word (e. g. , ). For the numbers from 21 to 29, the "fused" forms are accepted since 1803 and became common over the second half of the 19th century. For those from 16 to 19, the one word forms became accepted in 1925 and took the lead in the 1940s. The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (2005) labeled the separate spelling as obsolete. Fusing of number names above 30 (e. g. Appendix:Spanish numerals, Appendix:Spanish numerals) is rare, but accepted by the DPD 2005 and the Ortografía 2010 besides the usual separate spelling: Appendix:Spanish numerals, Appendix:Spanish numerals. In the 18th century, the letter was used in a few loanwords and also in the word kalendario (following the Latin spelling Kalendae); however, the first edition of the Diccionario de la lengua castellana (1780) already spelled calendario. The fourth edition of the Diccionario de la lengua castellana (1803) stated that may be in any case replaced by or and did not give any words beginning with , while still including the letter in the alphabet. In the eighth edition of the Ortografía de la lengua castellana (1815), the letter was deleted from the Spanish alphabet. However, the letter was reinstated in the fourth edition of the Prontuario de ortografía de la lengua castellana (1853), and its use in loanwords was reallowed. The letter was formerly considered unneeded for writing Spanish. Previous RAE orthographies did not include in the alphabet and restricted its use to foreign proper names and Visigothic names from Spanish history (the use of in Visigothic names stems from the Middle Ages, although at that time was not considered a letter but a ligature of two s or s). However, in the Ortografía of 1969, RAE included into the Spanish alphabet, allowing its use in loanwords. In 1999, the written accent was added to a few words ending on the stressed diphthong au or eu: became Before 1999, the combinations of accented verb forms with enclitic pronouns conserved the written accent, but now they do not if the general rules of accentuation do not require it: → ( + ), → ( + ).

In spite of the relatively regular orthography of Spanish, there have been several initiatives to simplify it further. Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española. Another proposal, Ortografía R̃asional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity. Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing and to and , but this is only applied in editions of his works or those of his wife, Zenobia Camprubí. Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas in 1997, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of , which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted. The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes in the orthography (see above). A Mexican Spanish convention is to spell certain indigenous words with rather than the that would be the standard spelling in Spanish. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the voiceless postalveolar fricative sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is México (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling. The American Spanish colloquial term chicano is shortened from mechicano, which uses in place of the of rural Mexican Spanish .

Punctuation in Spanish is generally similar to punctuation in English and other European languages, but has some differences. Spanish has the unusual feature of indicating the beginning of an interrogative or exclamatory sentence or phrase with inverted variants of the question mark and exclamation mark ([¿] and [¡]), respectively. Most languages that use the Latin alphabet (including Spanish) use question and exclamation marks at the end of sentences and clauses. These inverted forms appear additionally at the beginning of these sentences or clauses. For example, the English phrase "How old are you?" has just the final question mark, while the Spanish equivalent, ¿Cuántos años tienes? begins with an inverted question mark. The inverted question and exclamation marks were gradually adopted following the Real Academia's recommendations in the second edition of the Ortografía de la lengua castellana in 1754. Originally, the usage of inverted marks at the beginning was recommended only for large sentences, but the Gramática of 1870 made them mandatory for all interrogative or exclamatory sentences. The inverted question and exclamation marks may be used at the beginning of a clause in the middle of a sentence, for example: Si no puedes ir con ellos, ¿quieres ir con nosotros? ('If you cannot go with them, would you like to go with us?'). Sentences that are interrogative and exclamative at the same time may be written with two signs on each side: ¿¡ ! ? or ¡¿ ? ! or with one sign on each side: ¡ ? or ¿ ! However, parenthesized signs to show doubt or surprise are written as single signs: (?) (!). Doubtful dates may be written with single or double signs: 1576? or ¿1576? The period indicates the end of the sentence. The comma is used for separating appositions, subordinate clauses, interjections, tags in tag questions, vocatives, and discursives. It is also used in enumerations, but the serial comma is not used in Spanish: España, Francia y Portugal ('Spain, France(,) and Portugal'). There are some cases in which the comma after a coordinating conjunction, such as complex sentences. Circumstantial complements are usually not separated by a comma. The semicolon is used for a more significant pause then the comma. It may mean an intermediate division between the comma and the period or separate parts of a sentence which already contain commas. The colon is used for generalizing words before enumerations, for exemplifications, before the direct speech. Sometimes it can be used for juxtaposing clauses (similar to the semicolon), after discursives, and in titles of the type "general: special". The colon is the standard mark in Spanish for addressing people in letters (Estimado profesor:, Querido amigo:); using the comma in this case is considered nonstandard. The parentheses are used to include parenthetical information. When an entire sentence is parenthesized, the period is placed after the parentheses: (Esta es una frase parentética). The square brackets are used for writing editor's words inside citations and instead of parentheses inside parentheses. The dash may be used to write direct speech in dialogues, as a quotation dash. Two dashes can sometimes introduce parenthetical constructions. The dash can also be used as a marker in enumerations. The combination "period+dash" may be used to separate the name of the topic and other information, or to separate characters' names and their lines in theatrical works. The quotation marks (for citations, direct speech, words in unusual form or meaning) are used in three styles: angled quotation marks (« ») for the outer level, double quotation marks (“ ”) for the inner level, single quotation marks (‘ ’) for the third level. This is the system preferred in Spain, whereas Hispanic American publications often do not use the angled quotation marks. When a closing quotation mark occurs together with another punctuation mark, it is placed after the quotation mark. The ellipsis is used for marking a sudden pause or suspension in thought and for incomplete citations. The combination "ellipsis+period" is simplified to the ellipsis, but the abbreviation point remains before the ellipsis. When an ellipsis occurs together with another punctuation mark, then the comma, the semicolon, and the colon are placed after the ellipsis, but other punctuation marks may be placed before or after the ellipsis depending on the structure of the sentence.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, dialectal Spanish (as well as Portuguese and Ladino) was sometimes written in the Arabic alphabet by Moriscos. This form of writing is called aljamiado.