Spelling reform causing headaches in Portugal

LISBON — Portugal is finally applying a long-delayed accord to standardise spelling in Portuguese-speaking countries, but in random fashion that has left most residents baffled about how to use their alphabet.Ironically, Portugal's press has taken the lead in using the new spelling while the government -- via the schools -- continues its hesitation waltz over a reform approved by parliament in 2008 after a 20-year debate."It is absurd," said Nuno Pacheco, co-director of one daily, the Publico, which has so far refused to enact "a reform full of contradictions"."Our children read newspapers that do not use the same spelling they are taught at school," he said.The confusion has revived an old sore point over what some saw as a David vs. Goliath battle -- only this time David lost: under the 1990 accord, spelling in the world's eight Portuguese-speaking countries moves to the more phonetic form employed by Brazil.As opponents point out, the English and Americans co-exist as neighbours ... or neighbors, so why can't Portuguese-speaking countries do likewise."It is a bad spelling reform and a political instrument for the expansion of Brazil," said linguist Antonio Emiliano.He and other critics see the reform, already in place in Brazil, as tantamount to Portugal's "cultural abdication" to the commercial power of its vast former colony -- which claims 190 million of the world's 230 million Portuguese speakers.Yet many support the reform, like Luis Miguel Viana, information director at Lusa, Portugal's public news agency which announced in early February it would embrace the change."Standardised spelling opens up major markets, notably in Brazil," he said.Portugal's sports newspaper Record was actually the first to take the plunge, switching to the new spelling last year.After Lusa's announcement this month, several other newspapers said they too would adopt the changes -- a breakthrough as newspaper and literary types had been among those baulking at what they considered a dumbing down of their cherished langua

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