Reasons for orthographic reforms in independent america and causes of their failure

Authors

  • Juan Antonio Frago Gracia Universidad de Zaragoza

Abstract

The American orthographic reforming attitude was an important aspect of the tendency towards linguistic, a central topic of the educational concern and discourse of the intellectual elites.Orthography was considered as the reflection of an individual's idiomatic correctness or incorrectness, where the principal traits of Hispanic American phonetics could be observed, and the definite condemnation of the non-observance of its rules is motivated by social redemption and national progress support. The reorganization and simplification of the alphabetic corpus aims at smoothing the teaching of writing with orthographic regularity, and under the rulingof the pronunciation principle some changes are justified by that form that is felt characteristic, in Sarmiento sometimes with arguments to strengthen orthography as an identifying link with Americanity. But reforms were born together with discussion and opposition, the most decisive of which was the extreme difficulty to bring about even thesimplest of modifications in the whole of Hispanic America in theXIX century. It was impossible to get away from a patrimony and orthographical usages that not only belonged to the Spanish Academy but that were common to the Hispanic world.

Keywords:

orthographic norms and linguistic norms, principles of American reforming attitude, causes of their failure