Elisión | Elision

Elisión || Elision

Common in both English and Spanish, and perhaps in nearly all languages, elision — elisión in Spanish — refers in its most simple form to the omission or suppression of the pronunciation of one or more letters in a word.

In English, this form of elision occurs most frequently in contractions, where an apostrophe takes the place of one or more vowels or consonants as in Don’t for do not, aren’t for are not, or we’ll for we will or we shall. Elision makes speaking a little easier but can make understanding a whole lot harder for the non-native speaker.

Elision works about the same in Spanish as in English but serves a different purpose and looks different. The Dictionary of the R.A.E.(Royal Spanish Academy) defines defines “elision” as the “suppression of the vowel ending a word when the next word begins with another vowel, for example, ‘del’ for ‘de el,’ ‘al’ for ‘a el,’” in Spanish, ‘[el] suprimir [de] la vocal con que acaba una palabra cuando la que sigue empieza con otra vocal; p. ej., del por de el, al por a el.” If “del” and “al” were all there was to elision, it would be easy. Unfortunately, there’s much more to elision than that.

Virtually anytime one Spanish word ends with a vowel and the following word begins with a vowel, one vowel, usually the one ending the first word, is not heard. While two different vowels might not be completely run together, if the same vowel ends the first word as begins the second, you’ll hear essentially one syllable with a single vowel instead of two of syllables and two vowels. Unlike in English, though, the omitted vowel is not replaced with an apostrophe. Rather, no change of any kind is made to the written words. That’s where it gets confusing, if it wasn’t already.

For example, the recent #1 hit by the Mexican group, Maná, Si no te hubieras ido begins with the line, Te extreño más que nunca, no sé que hacer…. What we hear sounds much more like Textreño más que nunca…. Listen to Si no te hubieras ido and follow the lyrics. Or check out Alex Ubago’s elision of the title in Siempre en mi mente.

In Spanish, elision of vowels is not a sign of informality, in the way English contractions often are, but is simply the way the language is spoken, whether by the man in the street, a market vendor, a doctor or a college professor. Elision will make your Spanish sound much more natural!