Spelling is the part of normative grammar in charge of establishing the rules that regulate the correct use of words and punctuation marks in writing.. The basis of spelling is made up of a series of conventions established in advance by a linguistic community with the aim of respecting and maintaining the corresponding unity of the written language over time. Meanwhile, in the case of those countries that have a Language Academy, such is the role that the Royal Spanish Language Academy performs in Spanish-speaking countries, it will then be the institution in charge of carrying out the regulation task that we mentioned before. .
The reason why spelling results from the establishment of conventions lies in the fact that there is not always an unambiguous correspondence between the sound and the spelling of a term. On the other hand, starting from the basis that a significant number of languages have always existed throughout the world, it is that the criteria used to establish the conventions will not be the same for each language, therefore, each one will observe its own. For example, in the case of Spanish, the predominant criterion when establishing the aforementioned rules was phonetic, but in languages such as English and French, the etymological criterion has been the criterion used to establish them, a fact that is actually the cause. why sometimes in these languages there is a divergence between writing and pronunciation.
Within teaching in general and not to mention within the teaching of the language specifically, spelling plays a fundamental and key role when it comes to learning and also for the achievement of the standardization of the language, in the case of a language with very little written tradition, a fact that of course will cause a specific dialect dispersion.
The Spanish spelling that we apply today began to be codified a long time ago, more precisely in the 18th century, when a recently founded Royal Spanish Academy proposed the first spelling rules. Then, over time, the conventions would come to avoid hesitation and confusion, more than anything with those letters that sound the same way but are written differently, such as so la c and also in what has to do with the correct use of the punctuation, accentuation and accent marks, which are often so decisive when it comes to better understanding a written text.
