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Spanish Pronto!: Spanish Alphabet

The Spanish alphabet underwent a minor change in 1994. Here is the Real Academia Española's explanation of that change (in its Spanish original and in English translation).

At the end of this page is a list of the names of the Spanish letters.

For more Spanish information and resources, see the Spanish Pronto! main page.


SPANISH:

El abecedario español está formado por las veintinueve letras siguientes:

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.

Esta variante española del alfabeto latino universal ha sido utilizada por la Academia desde 1803 (sexta edición del Diccionario académico) en la confección de todas sus listas alfabéticas. No obstante, en el X Congreso de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, celebrado en 1994, se acordó adoptar para los diccionarios académicos, a petición de varios organismos internacionales, el orden alfabético latino universal, en el que la ch y la ll no se consideran letras independientes. En consecuencia, estas dos letras pasan a alfabetizarse en los lugares que les corresponden dentro de la C (entre -cg- y -ci-) y dentro de la L (entre -lk- y -lm-), respectivamente.

ENGLISH:

The Spanish alphabet is formed by the following twenty-nine letters:

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.

This Spanish variant of the universal Latin alphabet has been used by the Academy since 1803 (sixth edition of the Academic Dictionary) in the preparation of all its alphabetical lists. Nevertheless, at the Tenth Congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, held in 1994, it was agreed to adopt for academic dictionaries, at the request of various international organizations, the universal Latin alphabetical order, in which the ch and the ll are not considered independent letters. As a result, these two letters come to be alphabetized in the places which correspond to them within the letter C (between -cg- and -ci-) and within the letter L (between -lk- and -lm-), respectively.


LETTERS

The names for the Spanish letters, in order, are the following:

a (a), be (b), ce (c), che (ch), de (d), e (e), efe (f), ge (g), hache (h), i (i), jota (j), ka (k), ele (l), elle (ll), eme (m), ene (n), eñe (ñ), o (o), pe (p), cu (q), ere (r), erre (rr), ese (s), te (t), u (u), uve (v), uve doble (w)*, equis (x), i griega (y), zeta/zeda (z)

*The Oxford Spanish Dictionary, second edition, lists four ways to say "w" in Spanish: "doble ve," "doble u," or, in Spain: "doble uve" or "uve doble." The Real Academia Española uses "uve doble," but "doble u" seems more common in Latin America.

These letter names are, of course, prounounced with Spanish pronunciation; not "ay," "bee," "cee," (as in English), but:
"ah," "bay," "say" ("thay," in Spain), "chay," "day," "ay," "AY-fay," "hay," "AH-chay," "ee," "HOH-ta," "kah," "AY-lay," "AY-lyay," "AY-may," "AY-nay," "AY-nyay," "oh," "pay," "coo," "AY-ray," "AY-rray," "AY-say," "tay," "oo," "OO-vay," "OO-vay DOH-blay" (or "DOH-blay OO"), "AY-kees," "EE gree-AY-gah," and "SAY-tah" ("THAY-tah," in Spain).

For information on how to pronounce these letters when they appear in words (as opposed to pronouncing their names), see the pronunciation guide at Spanish Pronto!: Basic Study Reference


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