Sept. 2, 2011
3:59 a.m.
Tres Seaver writes:
FWIW, I was taught that Spanish had 30 letters in the alfabeto: the 'ñ', plus 'ch', 'll', and 'rr' were all considered distinct characters.
That was always a Castellano vs. Americano issue, IIRC. As I wrote, Mr. Gonzalez was Castellano. I believe that the deprecation of the digraphs as separate letters occurred as the telephone became widely used in Spain, and the telephone company demanded an official proclamation from whatever Ministry is responsible for culture that it was OK to treat the digraphs as two letters (specifically, to collate them that way), so that they could use the programs that came with the OS. So this stuff is not merely variant by culture, but also by economics and politics. :-/