What do you call dash in Spanish? I mean this symbol: -.
Suggesions: guion, guión, raya.
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1 Answer
Yes, it is a guion or guión.
Diccionario panhispánico de dudas says on guion:
guion2 o guión. Este signo ortográfico (
-) no debe confundirse con la raya (—). Ambos se representan por medio de un trazo horizontal, pero el guion es de una longitud sensiblemente menor que la de la raya (→ raya). Para la doble acentuación de esta palabra, → guion1 o guión. El guion se usa en los casos siguientes (...)
You may be also surprised by the fact that it can or cannot use accent. This is why:
en la última edición de la Ortografía académica (1999) se establece que toda combinación de vocal cerrada átona y abierta tónica se considere diptongo a efectos de acentuación gráfica. Por ello, en guion y otras palabras en la misma situación, como ion, muon, pion, prion, Ruan, Sion y truhan, se da preferencia a la grafía sin tilde, aunque se permite que aquellos hablantes que pronuncien estas voces en dos sílabas puedan seguir tildándolas
answered Oct 5, 2016 at 14:33
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As of the 2010 Orthography, IIRC, it's only without, regardless of whether one pronounces it with one or two syllables. Oct 5, 2016 at 16:35
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I can testify that in Chile raya used to be common and still exists. It is receding due to the fact that some consider it rude since it also colloquially means intergluteal cleft. Anyway, just as you say, in the DLE the use of raya as a symbol is reserved for the longer line (—).– RafaelOct 5, 2016 at 17:13
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@guifa What's the RAE's stance on this? Having no graphic accent mark kinda flies in the face of accentuation rules. I'll be honest, I'm a little irked by this :P Oct 5, 2016 at 18:48
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@JATerroba the rationale given is that, regardless whether you write guion or guión, the O is stressed. The only question is whether there is a diphthong or a hiatus. Given that we don't write fiár (despite most people pronouncing fi-AR) or enviár (to show the I and A are on separate syllables), it's odd to make an exception for words like guion. The reality is that there are many instances in Spanish of unstressed weak vowels combined with un(stressed) strong vowels that can alternate relatively freely between hiatus and diphthong, and none get marked. Oct 5, 2016 at 19:34
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The full discussion is in the Ortografía pp. 223-227 ( rae.es/recursos/ortografia/ortografia-2010 ). If you were writing poetry or similar and wanted to strongly reflect the existence of the hiatus, you could write guïon, which is already commonly used in poetry for words like süave or crüel to indicate su-A-ve and cru-EL, respectively, rather than SUA-ve and CRUEL. Oct 5, 2016 at 23:15