Why are the linguist experts think about networks in the networks

Can someone imagine what life would be like without cell phonestoilets or electricity? Well, something like this also happens with language, ”writes Bård Borch Michalsen, Norwegian specialist in language studies.

Learning to speak made us evolve faster as a species. Then, the alphabet, and finally, the punctuation marks.

In Signs of civilization, how the score changed the story (published by the Argentine Editorial Godot in 2022), Michalsen states that The record of these signs dates back to 2,000 years agoand its most important function was to order writing, make the message reach the reader more clearly and quickly.

First with ink and paper. Then with the printing press. Today with social networks.

But in the digital age it is not only written through social networks, but Multiple platforms (mails, search engines such as Google, text messages, WhatsApp, etc.).

What place occupy spelling and punctuation marks in the times? Should we insist on the correct use of accents and the place of a comma, The right to the point to finish a phrase (Without that being interpreted as “shear”), when we write in the digital world? Is it worth continuing to fight?

“Of course, continue fighting and with passion,” replies Alicia María Zorrilla (Argentine linguist and eminence in Spanish language regulations) Viva.

“The word fight comes from Latin and, etymologically, it denotes ‘effort’. What is missing today is to make the effort of become aware of what we sayhow we already say that we say it.

Life is A wonderful daily struggle To build for everyone’s good, but some do not understand it that way and do not repair to fatigue the tongue. When we speak Spanish, we are defining our identity.

If it got to Understand the very high value that each word keeps And his link with others to communicate a message that expresses truth, more attention would be paid to writing. Words, like people, need tenderness, do not hit them that damage them. ”

“Without a doubt, ‘writing badly’ slows reading. And although the language involves a lot of inherent ambiguity, ‘writing well’ decreases that ambiguity. It is worth learning and striving to write well”Silvia Ramírez Gelbes, a Linguistics Doctor, a degree in letters from the UBA and director of the Communication and Languages ​​Collection of the Argentine Editorial Ampersand.

The little desire to strive, translated into Apathy when learningit is a factor that Gonzalo Santos, writer and professor of teachers in state institutes of teacher training, perceives more and more in his students.

“In principle, I notice that sometimes there is much disdain, lack of desire and effort. I think it is A generation that is not used to making effortswho wants everything fast, easy, digestible. “

In high school, he says, Nor do they force them to make that effort. He is 40 and remembers that, when he did high school (more than 20 years ago), if he did not make an effort, he did not approve.

Maybe the question is if the new way in which We get used to writing through networksshortening words or using emojis, is a danger to our language, if the digital sapiens in which we have become can destroy that Alphabetical evolution That took thousands of years to build.

“The truth is that the future can never be predicted, but the truth is that People are able to handle different codes without problems”, Opina Gelbes.

“That is, you can write in a way in a support or on a platform, for example, and otherwise in another place and we do it.”

As director of the Master in Journalism of the University of San Andrés and Professor in National and Foreign Universities, Does not believe it is the fault of digitalization how people write.

“With regard to the ‘errors’ that are usually noticed now, I must say that they also existed and I detected them as a teacher: but There was no written communication between acquaintances or relatives -How happens today at WhatsApp- and by phone it is not noticeable if there are spelling fouls. “

Gonzalo Santos also sees spelling offenses in his students, but it could be said that this is the least of the problems found in the classroom. When composing a text, Students have more serious difficultiesjust don’t see them.

In his school journey, no one ever marked them. “They are also very accustomed to new technologies, to express themselves in a very laconic, very brief way, it is difficult for them to develop, It is hard for them to compose a text. Of course there are many errors of all kinds. “

Beyond spelling, there are: expression, syntax (Building extensive sentences cost them), clarity, coherence. Sometimes he feels it as a “titanic task.”

There are also A matter of attentionwhich is hard to find in his students: after 10 or 15 minutes, he already knows that, if he does not stop talking and does something different, he loses them.

Nor does it seem realistic to ask people to write in all places where they write daily, in the same way. The digital age arose uses of writing that did not exist And the problem, according to Santos, is when those uses begin to mix with other pre -existing ones: “While one is aware that one thing is WhatsApp and another thing is to write a monograph, it seems to me that everything is fine.” The issue, he says, is that, many times, until that conscience has already been lost.

The way we write on digital platforms, can you put in danger The future of spelling and grammar? “Nothing puts them in danger if, outside of social networks, users formally and systematically learn the spelling and grammatical norms, prepare them with reflection and put them into practice in their respective works,” says Zorrilla.

“But, for that to happen, there must be the wise will to always study, to pursue the habit of excellence, in order to write with the clarity and correction that readers deserve. From my point of view, each text we write has didactic value: We teach with every word we use and site the sentences if we manage to find what place each of them has to occupy. We are responsible, then, for others to understand us, to generously share The meanings without misrepresenting them. It would be very meritorious that, on social networks, speakers also demonstrate their efforts to write with a certain decorum – there is no verbal economy that justifies to make mistakes – so that others perfect their writing. ”

This does not imply learning all words, all rules at once and disregarding the changes: the academy is also periodically registering which new words are added to those accepted by Official dictionariesand what spelling rules fall into disuse. Perhaps the best known case is that of the word “alone” (without an accent) and “only” (with tilde).

“To give an example, the adverb ‘only’, which was carrying in case of amphibology (ambiguity) as in” only did it “(did he only do it? Did he do it alone?), He stopped carrying tilde because the Royal Academy considered that whoever reads is competent to interpret correctly thanks to the context,” explains Gelbes, who also usually gets notes about writing and Language uses in important media. “I can say that the media ignored the matter and continue to put tilde to the adverb ‘alone’.”

Sometimes it also happens that the RAE proposes and the speakers have, and that was what ended up happening with the “Solo” rule. It seems that, as people continued to use the tilde in “alone”, or perhaps nobody was getting used to getting it out, that in 2023 the SAR had to go back and finally accept that the two uses are correct.

“Like the linguistic norms They are born from use, academies are attentive and work to update the works that contain them. ”says Zorrilla.

This linguist always had a special link with words. “The words seemed to me ‘beings’ that I could possess through reading, and My imagination played with them when I wrote. It was a joyful game and keep feeling it. “

Alicia María Zorrilla loves the Spanish language with an almost mystical faithwhich keeps practically intact since the age of ten when he decided his career.

Account that this year a highly anticipated book was published: the second edition of the Pan -Hispanic Dictionary of doubts, expanded and updated. And that soon the second edition of the New Spanish Language Grammar (two volumes), where the reader can learn about all the varieties of Spanish.

“The speakers will have to consult these works so as not to keep doubts and Study updates”, He advises. We will have to continue trying.

The linguist Alicia María Zorrilla comments on some news about our language.

In 2010 -and, although it is no longer a novelty, repetition is always didactic -the CH and LL stopped belonging to the Spanish alphabet. Now they are Dígras, that is, they are two -letter sequences that represent a single sound. Therefore, instead of 29 letters, the alphabet today has 27.

In the distance, marquetin

The adverb superlative is far away, but in Argentina, for example, it is usually used and is not wrong.

The marquetin plural (thus Spanish voice marketing was Spanish) is the marquetin or marquetins. And that of Tóner (the English voice toner was Spanishized with toner) is toners or tóers.

The word modem, from English Modem, adapted to Spanish with Tilde, and its plural is modems. It is written with tilde in singular and plural.

The English voice WhatsApp or WhatsApp adapted to Spanish with two forms: Wasap (Wasaps Plural) and Guasap (Plural Guasaps). In both cases, they are pronounced as acute. From these two nouns also emerged, the Wasopear and Guasopear verbs. Very used in these networks. And correct, even if they read as strangers.

The last Spanish spelling of the English whiskey is wiski (plural wiskis). It is also considered valid, although less used, Güisqui (whose plural is güisquis).

The masculine hostess gender is a housing, and the female gender of tailor is tailor or can also be formed with the article: the tailor. The noun dressmaker is masculine and female: the dressmaker / the dressmaker, but he already extended a lot in the use for the male gender the designer, although it is also correct.

It is correct to say “you are afraid of thunder” and it is also “you are afraid of thunder.” The same to “talked about the right to travel freely” or “to move freely.”