The DLE redirects the definition of quizás to quizá, but I wonder if there's any implicit, secret rule that I am not aware of as to whether quizás is preferred over quizá.
I've seen both forms used almost indistinguishably even in the same text.
What's your take on this? Would you use both words in the same text? Do you have a rule to choose one or the other, depending on the word following it, for example?
They are exactly the same, as the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas says here:
quizá. Adverbio que expresa duda o probabilidad: «Neruda es un gran poeta. Quizá el más grande de todos los poetas» (Skármeta Cartero [Chile 1986]). Por analogía con otros adverbios acabados en -s, se creó la forma quizás, igualmente válida: «Quizás Casiana tenga razón» (Parrado 1905 [Cuba 1984]).
So the original one was "quizá" but "quizás" was created because other adverbs also ended in "s".
I use both forms (I'm not sure if I tend to use one more than the other). But the Ngram Viewer of Google says that "quizá" is more used though in the past the difference was much bigger than nowadays.
quizás exists even before the 1800's, huh? Google es definitivamente una maravilla :)
quizá me suena medio raro, siempre uso quizás :) Quizás, quizás, quizás
Both, but the original word (if any word can be original) is "quizá".
It comes from Latin "qui sapit" meaning "Who knows?".
The first documentation of the word appears on the famous work Cantares del Mio Cid:
Allá dentro en Marruecos,
ó las mezquitas son, que abrán de mí saltoquiçab alguna noch,
ellos lo temen, ca non lo pienso yo;
(At least that's what it says on my Latin etymology dictionary)
I don't think there's any difference. Or at least I'm not aware of it. As you say, they are used indistinctively. The DPD also says they are equivalent.
I tend to use quizá, buy it's just a matter of preference.
Maybe, if the following word starts with an "s" I would avoid using quizás, so it's easier to pronounce, but there's no explicit or implicit rule about it.
Use quizás when the next word starts with a vowel. Use quizá when the next word starts with a consonant as in the examples below:
quizá podemos - maybe we can
quizás ella puede - maybe she can
This is like the English "a" and "an." You don't say "a animal," you say "an animal" so that you don't have an 'A sound' followed by another 'A sound.'
