Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by galactus 5727 days ago
I don't know if you are being serious, but the spanish language is defined by the R.A.E, and it is influenced by other national academies, so it is more or less supposed to be country-neutral. If, say, peruvians speak closer to R.A.E's spanish than spaniards, then they are the ones speaking proper spanish. It is also worth noting that for many spaniards the language we call "spanish" is not their first language.
1 comments

I actually didn't know that, so thanks.

It's interesting the way English gets along just fine without an official body making pronouncements about what is and isn't correct.

It doesn't. English does not get along just fine.

Say 'cucumber'. The sound of the first syllable is very different from the second, even though both are written the same.

Say 'stake' and 'steak'. Different graphs for the same phonemes.

Say 'E as in elephant'. Two different sounds for 'e'.

etc.

Present day English is so bad that written language is divorced from spoken language, but it is not bad enough to unite all speakers behind a spelling reform.