The dispute over the word alone ended in a calm agreement with no clear winner or loser. Academics agreed to move forward to the next stage, the Spanish Language Congress in Cádiz. The term solo will proceed without disruption, except when the author senses potential ambiguity in expression.
The plenary session concluded in unison, avoiding the storm some had predicted from renowned writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The clash dissolved into a quiet resolution, with just one referee remaining at the end: the Academy President, Santiago Muñoz Machado, who oversaw a press conference after more than two hours of discussion. The spokesperson for this perspective stressed that the meeting appeared even calmer than in the past, noting there had never been a storm before.
“Last week, at least because the 2010 academy said it shouldn’t be branded, Muñoz Machado explained in his appearance, we concluded that the decision could be improved. Yet the exceptions were not stated as clearly as possible, so why then could the phrase Panhispánico de dudas be enhanced to address this doubt? By drafting a minimal paragraph, we conclude there is a chance to flag when there is a risk of uncertainty.”
What had been viewed as a storm in recent days had become partly a joke. As the Academy seemed to move to raise the tilde issue about whether or not to use it with words like “only” that can also be read in other ways, one scholar at the table to decide the language’s future—also considering dialects—shared a wry note in his messaging: “What’s wrong with her, she’s just, she’s just.”
This debate, held on the first Thursday of March, grew so popular that it now overlaps with a major political dispute, referring to the open disagreement between the PSOE and government partners over whether there is opportunity. The question remains: yes to a law, yes to change, yet can any reform topple the current state administration?
Early in the month, tension peaked when Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of the most active academics involved in the discussions at the Learned House, warned about whether to use the tilde. The Academy’s spokesperson did not comment on the events of the prior session.
The RAE intervened after the author of El Capital Alatriste suggested that blood should not be shed or stained by the tilde. The agency later described the proposal as a change of style. Journalistic sources noted that the option to check the envelope in cases of uncertainty had already existed in the norm since 2010.
One academic who visited the afternoon meeting, which Pérez-Reverte had predicted would be stormy, told this paper that nothing changed; what occurred was a summer snake, for, according to the charter and the common sense charter, all academies in the Spanish and Latin American spheres agree that changing a tilde is not possible without broad agreement.
The debate has lingered for years with no decisive move on the tilde that might please all. Historically, the tradition holds that accents are not altered unless there is full consensus, and such consensus is rare at the Spain-based Academy. Writers who have been part of the Academy or align with it maintain that removing accents is not a simple matter. The cases of Mario Vargas Llosa, Javier Marías, Pérez-Reverte, or Pere Gimferrer are often cited to show that influence does not automatically carry followers.
The storm had not subsided even as a new meeting was scheduled for the next afternoon. In a piece in El País, Alex Grijelmo—one of the experts most familiar with these issues—shared insights. Francisco Ayala, a noted author and scholar, explained in Change 16 (January 1991) that spelling reforms can come from the Administration, the Academy, or any institution, and that the ultimate choice rests with writers and readers who adopt the changes as they see fit.
If lay readers and academics alike had relied on a text published by scholars, the conflict might have found another path to reconciliation. Pedro Alvarez de Miranda, in Rinconete magazine on April 4, 2014, published through the Cervantes Institute, noted this possibility.
Álvarez de Miranda recalled that after the 2010 edition of the Academy’s Ortografía de la lengua española appeared, the idea spread among a few words that no longer carry accents. He pointed to adverbs such as solo and este, as well as ese and aquel, and their gendered and plural forms when used as pronouns. He added that the belief that these words should bear accents before 2010 is mistaken. He argued that people sometimes overstep nuanced meanings when complications arise, which is not accurate with prior practice.
The 2010 spelling reform emphasized that tilde usage could be dispensed with even when a double interpretation existed, a point that has illustrated ongoing debates about language style and interpretation.