How To Spell Change Or Change

Learning to write involves a number of mental processes that may surprise you. Many of the misspellings that children at school present, even as adults, are due to ignorance. Ok, the norm is not only to be memorized but also to be internalized. Therefore, in this post we will explain how to write cambiar or canviar. It is clear that the language has its arbitrary nature, but there is a lot of fabric to cut from which some cannot even imagine.

It is obvious that for any Spanish there is a clear difference between the pronunciation of the phoneme /v/ and /b/. However, the same does not happen with our Latin American friends, who do not have enough allophonic variations to learn the spelling of words from phonetics. Although evidence has been found of an attempt to rescue the allophone [v] in sociolects in some countries such as Chile and Venezuela.

Many posts take the task of describing the rule regarding the use of grapheme B. Remember so many times that your language teacher repeated to you that before P and B  goes M. Ok, we all memorize that at some point in our lives, but did someone explain why? We will.

So that you get rid of any doubts and can understand the reasons why this famous spelling rule becomes fruitless in the understanding of some kids, we will explain below linguistically, and from the functionality of the language system, the spelling of the word change.

Instructions to write canviar or change

1. The first reason why the word change is written with B and not with V is etymological. Originally, they come from Latin. However, scholars affirm that the Latin took the root from Celtic, specifically related to the root Kamb-, which means “to bend or bend something”. What later became cambiare in Latin and then went on to change, now as Spanish. Therefore, from etymology we can relate that any word derived from cambiare is written with the root camb-; as for example , cambio, cambiable or cambalache.
2. The second reason why mis always written before P or B is phonetic. A phoneme is nothing more than the minimum unit that in opposition to other abstract units. The different realizations of these concepts called phonemes are known as allophones, which do not have a graphic representation in their entirety; That is the difficulty to internalize the spelling of words in Spanish. Phonemes are not sound in its physical or acoustic form, these are symbolic representations; therefore, the allophones would be the acoustic realizations, which is why they are affected by the phonetic context in which they appear.
3. The point of articulation of the voiced bilabial phoneme /b/ is the same as that of the nasal bilabial phoneme /m/. They are called bilabials because they are articulated by joining both lips and both are vibrating, which makes them voiced. With the difference that one is nasal and the other is not; that is, in /m/ the air escapes through the nose while in /b/ it escapes occlusively through the lips. This articulatory coincidence bears the name of “assimilation”.
4. So, it wasn’t that the RAE wanted to invent the rule that goes before P or  It turns out that this famous little rule is the result of a descriptive analysis of the natural behavior of the law of least effort of the language. That is to say, the language saves articulatory effort and assimilates phonemes; giving way to allophonic variants that are not represented in the spelling, but that do have phonetic representation. For example, the neutralization of the phoneme /m/ in the word camb iar, [ kam ‘bjar ].
5. To better explain the above, according to Quilis (1993) the nasal feature that the phoneme /m/ has when it comes into contact with the oral stop /b/ is balanced or neutralized from the assimilation of the point of articulation.
6. The voiced bilabial stop oral phoneme /b/ usually varies with respect to its phonetic context within the syllable. This means that one of its distinctive features can be modified; that is, it can be occlusive or relaxed.
7. For example, in the syllabic context of the word [kam’bjar], the bilabial articulatory point ceases to be a distinctive feature; and according to some scholars it must be phonetically represented from the archiphoneme /N/ as follows [kaN bjar]. Therefore, you must be aware that eliminating the greatest number of distinctive features in phonetic production is a natural mechanism of the language to save effort, from there arise spelling rules such as the one we are studying.
8. There are some investigations that affirm the appearance of a voiced labiodental allophone [v] of the phoneme /b/ in Latin countries such as Chile and Venezuela as part of a sociolect, despite the fact that there are studies that affirm that this variant disappeared in the Middle Ages. It was in the middle of the 15th century that the variant [v] was introduced in America by the Andalusians, but it was quickly replaced by [B].  But now, some linguistic communities, in order not to incur the misspelling, are trying to resume the differentiated pronunciation.

What do you need to write change or change?

• To learn spelling you don’t just need to memorize the structure of words from the grapheme itself. Studying its phonetic segmentation is much more effective than photographically learning its morphology.
•  Many people memorize the correct way to spell a word because they have fairly good visual retention. However, others do not have it. Therefore, we recommend that in addition to having the habit of reading and frequently consulting the usual dictionaries, you also consult the etymological dictionary when in doubt.
•  Remember that to learn to write, you must practice writing. Either by hand or on the PC, transcribing texts or writing will always help you fix the spelling of words in your memory.

Tips for writing change or change

1. Do not settle for knowing the norm in a descriptive way. Look for information about the functionality of the rules. What sometimes seems like a mere whim of the Royal Spanish Academy is not. Remember that this institution analyzes the language system and describes its processes to formalize the norm. This is not to say that they are strict and unwavering principles or standards, they are simply descriptions of processes that we must internalize in order to reflect on and understand them.
2. Nor do you stay with the vague explanations where they indicate the correct and incorrect use without explaining why. Every norm has a reason in the functioning of the language system, the fact that most people do not take the time to inquire about the matter does not mean that they do not exist. For this reason, we encourage you to make a difference and from now on do not settle for checking in the dictionary when you have a question, but go further.
3. If you really liked this post, tell us your opinion. We want to know if you have already read or heard all these reasons regarding the spelling of the word change.  Especially so that if you know more details we can delve into the matter and we can enrich the information for all readers.