¿Cómo se acorta la frase "II Guerra Mundial"?
How do we shorten the phrase "World War II" in Spanish?
We could say "II Guerra Mundial" or "IIGM". Is that standard?
It came up since I was writing about Alan Turing, decoding the Enigma machine.
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1I'm afraid that using acronyms for everything is only typical in English.– vartecCommented Feb 12, 2013 at 12:58
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2 Answers
I've read a lot of historical books, specifically WWI and WWII, both in English and Spanish. There are no abbreviations in Spanish for them that I'm aware of. You simply refer to them as "Primera Guerra Mundial" and "Segunda Guerra Mundial".
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And what about the hundreds of academic papers published in History journals year after year? Written by authors from every Spanish-speaking country, they always use the acronym SGM. This unanimity is not surprising, as SGM is the natural and standard way of abbreviating Segunda Guerra Mundial in Spanish.– AlbertusCommented Feb 15, 2013 at 10:21
It’s not uncommon to abbreviate "Segunda Guerra Mundial” as SGM.
2ª GM, 2GM and IIGM are also seen.
Spanish speakers and authors are not so fond of acronyms as their English counterparts, so Spanish acronyms for World War II are not as readily understandable as WWII is in English.
I would call SGM the standard abbreviation. Results in Google for:
-"Segunda Guerra Mundial" and "SGM": 169000
-"Segunda Guerra Mundial" and "2GM": 109000
-"Segunda Guerra Mundial" and "IIGM": 69600
-"Segunda Guerra Mundial" and "2ª GM": 13600
Academic papers in History magazines and journals always use "SGM".
