It is not a new agreement, but a review: there are words that are no longer pronounced correctly, and letters or accents they are missing, warning experts.
“Students, when they read a certain term, already articulated the words with some vocal redemption and even the erasure of pretonic vowels.” Thus says the teacher and responsible for a linguistic examination done in a school that tried to detect effects of the current spelling agreement, António Jacinto Pascoal, to the newspaper.
It gives the example of the word “collection”, which was previously written “collection”, and that changes the sound because of losing the “C”.
“The AO90 text (1990 spelling agreement) decrees spelling in the light of cultured pronunciation. The problem is that it is not a scientific criterion. And proof that It is not a criterion where there is not even consensus It is that dictionaries and medical records do not record the words in terms of Cês and Peach in the same way. This is not an opinion, it is a fact, ”says language reviewer Manuel Monteiro.
“I do not know any spell agreement that would put the spelling anchored in the pronunciation,” he comments. Refers to cases where “C” and “P” fell Because they were not pronounced, but also to words such as “conviction”, “fiction” or “abduction”, in which these letters did not fall because they are pronounced.
“I started to realize that students no longer distinguished a series of words More or less like, with the confusion of meaning that comes from it, ”says António Jacinto Pascoal. It refers to words such as “reception” and “recession”, which are pronounced in the same way due to the fall of “p” in the ancient word “reception”. “Students can no longer recognize certain ambiguities,” he says.
“The problem is that the more we simplify, the more we impoverish it. This is, for me, the big problem. It’s like giving a painter the impossibility of using a series of colors. It is removing the colors to an orthographic instrument, ”says the linguistic reviewer.
There are also problems with hyphens and accents. Ana Salgado, president of the Institute of Lexicology and Lexicography at the Academy of Sciences, admits a retreat in AO90 in word “to”, which before was written “stop”. “Why not look again at the issue and replenish the accent if he is so missing?” He says.
Now it was created a working group that will “improve” the agreement. “There are a lot of people who think the spell agreement is irreversible. I do not say that it is because I think it would be possible, and it is important to discuss it again, ”says António Jacinto Pascoal.
