But, why is centering your writing around your readers important? Here are five reasons plain language is right for you:

1. Ventaja estratégica. Plain language inspires confidence and credibility by helping readers understand you better, which in turn shows that you care. You will gain an edge over the competition and boost your reputation.
2. Ahorro de tiempo: El lenguaje claro es una forma comprobada de reducir las llamadas de aclaración, idas y vueltas y tareas de seguimiento debidas a información incompleta o errónea. Ahorra tu tiempo y el de tus lectores.
3. Beneficios económicos: Un lenguaje claro y directo es rentable tanto por el ahorro de tiempo —que aumenta tu eficiencia— como por la mejora de la reputación —que aumenta la satisfacción y la fidelidad de tus lectores.
4. Regulatory Compliance: Plain language helps you and your readers adhere to laws, regulations, guidelines, and standards.
5. Tranquilidad: El lenguaje claro es un derecho civil. Las personas tienen derecho a entender la información que se comparte con ellas. Al utilizar un lenguaje claro, estás cumpliendo con un deber cívico. ¡Y se siente muy bien hacer lo correcto!

Now, don’t take my word for it, examples big and small prove the point. Consider these cases:

• Plain language reduced calls about a benefits letter at a Veterans Affairs office by 83%! (They went from 1128 a year to 192). You can read more here.
• The Plain English Campaign in the UK helped former British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) redraft a lease agreement to 1/3 of its original size, cutting negotiations from 6 months to less than 1, which helped them cash in on the $180M deal that much faster.
• In 2013, GE Aviation was consolidating digital-services from a merger of three businesses. Each had their own contracts from pre-GE days. A plain language initiative consolidated 7 different contracts into one single plain-language contract that now takes a whopping 60% less time to negotiate than their previous legalese-laden versions. Shawn Burton shares the full story here: https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-case-for-plain-language-contracts
• Ikea Ibérica issued in 2019 its first Non-Financial Report in response to Act 11/2018 on Ethical Management and Diversity. The company implemented plain language in the report to the delight of customers and managers alike. More about this story here: https://www.ikea.com/es/es/this-is-ikea/about-us/memoria-anual-ikea-pubb99d9de1
• You may remember that a decade ago Netflix was going through a rebrand when it lost almost a million subscribers virtually overnight due what even its CEO Reed Hastings described as “miscommunication” (for a while his blog on the issue could be found here: https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/). Netflix picked itself up and learned to communicate in plain language. You can see the results in the FAQ section of the website: https://www.netflix.com/.

I want to wish a Happy New Year to everyone in 2021. Last year was a challenging year that had, for me, some serendipitous silver linings. On the challenging side, Covid-2 and Covid-2-related measures made it emotionally very hard. Many of us have lost loved ones to Covid-2 and other diseases and dealing with the losses was tougher than usual (no goodbyes and no hugs add a pounding void to the pain.) On the serendipitous side, digital connections that were growing slowly due to the business of life had room to blossom, and I was fortunate to see friendships, work ties, and projects be born and strengthened.

I choose today to celebrate because, as a child and with my own children, I’ve celebrated the legend of the Three Wise Men— Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar—on January 6^th. (They are also called The Magi, which is a word that I find almost as special as “serendipity,” my very favorite one. It conjures up images of knowledge, enchantment, and transformation.) These men were said to be priests and scholars from different corners of the world who brought gifts to the manger in Christian legend.

The gifts are most often described as gold, frankincense, and myrrh as symbols of earth, heaven, and death (frankincense and myrrh were used in embalming). I choose to see them as symbols of wisdom and achievement, enjoyment, and healthy aging: gold is the symbol of the fiftieth wedding anniversary—an achievement not for its duration but for its perseverance and adaptability—, frankincense of recovery and healing, myrrh of rejuvenation. Beauty and well-being are a key part of life. But the one aspect that I truly celebrate today is learning. I truly believe life is worth living because we can learn.

I remember a supposedly humorous sign in my high school library that read “Read plenty and you’ll be a wise corpse.” I get it. Learning alone may seem like a Sisyphean task. But, just in itself, it can be a profound experience, as Quevedo states in his sonnet: “Among few books yet learned ones, I live in conversation with the dead, I listen with my eyes to their minds.” And when you share it with others, learning becomes profoundly soulful. For me, learning and sharing what I learn is a magical reason for life.

In learning with others and sharing my learning, I have forged the most amazing friendships, several during our challenging 2020, and for that I am grateful today and I celebrate.

May 2021 bring us new and exciting learning that we can share with one another to better ourselves, our communities, and our environment.

To support this, ISO is currently developing a new standard, ISO 24495, Plain language – Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines, which will provide authors in most languages with an approach that helps them communicate effectively with their audiences. It will feature high-level principles, guidelines and techniques to help writers everywhere produce communications that work.

I work with medical content and health information, and believe awareness and learning are necessary not only to help low literacy readers, but all readers, including experts and policymakers who can benefit (and benefit us all) from clarity and conciseness.

Cheryl Stephens, co-founder with Kate Harrison Whiteside of Plain Language Association International, recommends:

• Making every word work,
• Ditching superfluous information,
• Using short paragraphs,
• Adding summaries,
• Using simple layouts,
• Adding visual emphasis.

I love this, and I’d add a reminder about advice that, while well-meaning, often misses the mark:

• Do not “write as if you were speaking” in hopes of sounding more natural.

Ok, yeah, spontaneous communication is… well, spontaneous. But, seriously, no reader wants to read drafts, they want to read final content! Plain language in health literacy (and everywhere) is about clarity for the reader, not easiness for the writer. Can you help me spread the word?

Here’s a bit of a deeper dive: A piece of advice out of context can have disastrous consequences, especially when the nibble turns into dogma. As plain language practitioners, we do a disservice to readers and writers if we promote “writing as if you were speaking.” The problem is that, at best, this requires interpretation: “Oh, I meant using a relaxed style, lay terms for a general text, a friendly voice, etc.” At worst, this is taken at face value and erodes the use of writing as a cognitive tool. Stream-of-consciousness–style writing is a great technique for the process of writing, but has no place in the product of an informative text.

The word “grammar” refers both to the rules that govern language production and comprehension and to the study of those rules. As the set of rules and principles governing the use of language, grammar is as old as the oldest of languages!

As the study of the rules, it has a long history. The oldest grammar studies come from ancient India, centuries before our common era, and deal with the rules of the Sanskrit language. The most recognized Sanskrit grammarian was Panini, whose ideas about grammar are still used today! In Europe, grammar emerged as a discipline in Greece, with authors like Aristarchus of Samothrace, who baptized it “the art of letters.” In Ancient Rome, Latin grammar was developed based on Greek ideas, and became a pillar of the the art of eloquence, with rhetoric and dialectics (taught alongside the art of numbers).

The Birth of Spanish

Nebrija’s Grammar

Throughout the Middle Ages, various factors contributed to the birth of Romance languages, including Spanish. Among these factors, the strict grammatical prescriptions of classical Latin drove a wedge between the language of scholars and the vulgar or popular Latin spoken by uneducated people. Also, the new geopolitical conditions of a fragmented empire furthered a linguistic fracture that gradually gave rise to heterogeneous (region-specific), although interrelated, vernacular languages.

In Spain, a variety of Romance languages coexisted for centuries, including Galician, Castilian, Leonese, Catalan, and Asturian. At the end of the XI century, a process of linguistic reunification began thanks to the rise of Spanish as the language for the chansons de geste. These epic poems served as example, inspiration, and entertainment, much as the heroes and stories in today’s Marvel movies. In the second half of the XIII century, during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile and Leon, Spanish acquired official status. The king had all official documents written directly in Castilian or translated into Castilian, rather than having them in Latin, as it had been the custom until then.

The political rise of the new languages inspired the interest to study them in their own right. The Sevillian Antonio de Nebrija was the first scholar of Romance languages to understand the importance of writing down their rules. Thus, in 1492, he published in Salamanca his Gramática de la lengua castellana, which is not only the first book on the grammar of the Spanish language, but also the first book on any Romance language at all. In the prologue to Queen Elizabeth the Catholic, he states:

“When I think to myself, my enlightened queen: […] and I put before my eyes all that has been written for our memory and remembrance, one thing I find and I draw to a certain conclusion: that the [Latin] language was always a companion of the [Roman] empire; such was their association that together they rose, grew, and flourished, and later together they fell […] And because my thought and will have always been to magnify the achievements of our nation, and to give the men of my language books to make the best use of their leisure […], I decided before all other things to lay down the art of our Castilian language. Thereby, what is henceforth written in our language may remain in a style and endure the test of time, as has been done with Greek and Latin, for the study of their art has allowed them, through the many centuries of their existence, to endure in their uniformity.”

(My translation.)

Spanish Sets Sail

Bilingual exchange between a native and a missionary

It may not escape the reader that that same year of 1492, Christopher Columbus was authorized by the Catholic Monarchs to seek new trade routes to the Indies across the Atlantic. Spain, like many previous kingdoms, sought to expand its power. During this expansion, the discovery and subsequent conquest of a new continent led to the spread of Castilian as a lingua franca.

However, the process of Castilianization was much slower than the geopolitical and religious expansion. This expansion was accelerated by the papal concession of lands to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal as vicars of the Catholic god. Spain claimed vast territories of the Americas as their own (aided by the Tordesilles Treaty that delineated the claiming rights of Spain and Portugal.) As a result of these territorial claims, the indigenous people already living in the Americas were deemed subjects of the crown: they had to be christened and taxed.

The task of communicating with the natives fell mainly on the missionaries. In their quest to convert the natives to their faith, the missionaries also spoke up for native rights. To a great extent, the missionaries advocated for the use of native languages, and were devoted to developing teaching materials, such as grammars and bilingual glossaries. A famous sermon given before Christmas in 1511 by Antonio de Montesinos, exhorts:

“Are they not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves? How can you lie in such lethargic slumber? Rest assured that in your present state, you can no more be saved than the Moors or the Turks who have no want or fear for the faith of Jesus Christ.”

(My translation.)

Montesino’s sermon ignited a fierce debate over native rights and identity, and led Spaniards to initially adopt bilingualism for economic and religious gain. They had the help of an invaluable group of native speakers of aboriginal languages, who were often the product of slavery or miscegenation and became interpreters by necessity.

However, communicating amidst the linguistic diversity of the New World’s native languages proved quite difficult. The scarce number of Castilian-speakers and the difficulties of the terrain added to the diversity of native languages led the missionaries to favor Nahuatl over other languages. In 1570, to overcome the problems that linguistic variety posed while “respecting” the right to a native language, King Philip II decreed Nahuatl as the official language of the Viceroyalty of New Spain — officially created in 1535. This imposition proved unsustainable, as it was a foreign language for both the Spaniards and many of the native peoples.

In 1696, King Charles II established Spanish as the only official language of the Viceroyalty. In this way, Spanish became the first modern European language to be massively taught as a second language. Bilingualism persisted in the home, while Spanish quickly spread to all aspects of public and political life.

Spanish in the Americas

Bello’s Grammar of 1847

The Spanish of the criollos, native Spanish-speakers born in America, was, by the end of the seventeenth century, its own version of peninsular Spanish. This Creole Spanish had developed on the basis of southern Andalusian phonetics, with seseo (lack of distinction between /s/ and /th/) and the fall of the final consonants (as in /usté/ instead of /usted/); the inclusion of indigenous words, such as maíz (corn), maní (peanut), huracán (hurricane) and chocolate; and the Sevillian syntax, which incorporated the use of ustedes (informal plural for you) to the detriment of vosotros (formal plural for you.)

Faced with a new transcontinental linguistic reality, the Real Academia Española was founded in 1713, “to cultivate and solidify in any possible way the purity and elegance of the Castilian language” through the creation of a dictionary, “the most copious that could be created”.

For more than a century, American Spanish had a submissive place to Peninsular Spanish until 1847. That year, the Venezuelan scholar Andrés Bello wrote his Grammar of the Castilian Language Intended for the Use of Americans. Understanding that “each language has its genius, its physiognomy, its twists”, Bello took on the task of describing based on observations the innovative identity of American Spanish.

“I did not want […] to rely on authorities, because for me the only unimpeachable language is language itself. […] The prodigious advancement of all science and art, the spread of intellectual culture, and the political revolutions of our time call every day for new signs that express new ideas.”

(My translation.)

Bello’s intention was not to “write for the Castilians,” meaning European Spaniards, but rather to bring together in language all of the young American nations where SPanish was spoken. This goal was faithful to Nebrija’s ideal of avoiding linguistic fragmentation (especially in syntax), considered a sign of cultural and political weakening. In the Prologue to his Grammar, he explained his animosity towards changes in syntax:

“[…]the greatest of all evils, and the one that, if it unchecked, will deny us of the priceless advantages of a common language, is that of new structures. It already floods and muddies much of what is written in America. Liberties of construction alter the structure of the language, turning it into a multitude of irregular, licentious, and barbarian dialects. As embryos of future languages, the belabored transformations of these language-lings would replicate in America the dark era of the corruption of Latin in Europe. Chile, Peru, Buenos Aires, and Mexico would each speak their own language, or rather, several languages, as happens in Spain, Italy, and France.”

(My translation.)

In pursuit of the unity of language and, more specifically, of the homogenization of syntax, Bello used as his model the Spanish of “educated people.” These were speakers who, because they had had access to formal education, shared a mutually comprehensible language even when they lived in very distant regions. He shared this rationale in the preface to his Grammar:

“This use is preferred because it is the most uniform in the various provinces and towns that speak the same language, and therefore the one that makes what is said easier and more often understood. In contrast, the words and phrases of uneducated people vary greatly from one town and province to another, and are not easily understood outside that narrow environment in which they were born.”
(My translation.)

In the late 19th century, awareness about American Spanish led to the creation of national language academies in the New World. The first one to be founded was the Colombian Language Academy in 1871. Today, there are 22 national academies: in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Spain, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. These 22 academies collaborate in the Association of Spanish Language Academies (ASALE), which was founded in 1951 at the behest of the then President of Mexico, Miguel Alemán Valdés, in order to work towards the unity of language as cultural heritage.

Pan-Hispanic Spanish

At the beginning of the 21st century, almost a century after the last grammar published by the Royal Academy in 1931, ASALE brought together scholars from all over the Spanish-speaking world to create the first consensual pan-Hispanic grammar. More than a hundred scholars collaborated in the new grammar with the aim of describing the grammatical constructions typical of Spanish in general, while giving an account of the phonological, morphological, and syntactic variants from different areas. In 2009, the new grammar of the Spanish language, Nueva gramática de la lengua española, was officially launched under the slogan “the grammar that makes us”. The work has three volumes, one on morphology, one on syntax, and one on phonetics and phonology, as well as a DVD of voices of Spanish for educational purposes, gathering the diversity of the language “from the mouths of speakers in all linguistic areas”.

According to a recent study based on data collected from Twitter messages, it can still be said that three large Spanish-speaking regions endure, reflecting patterns of colonial settlement that developed differences specific to each region. The Iberian Peninsula is the original region, the Central American Caribbean region, along with Mexico and Peru, make up the second region, and finally, the Southern Cone is the third region. To these, we should perhaps add today the United States as the youngest region, a melting pot of Spanish dialects where speakers from the three previous regions converge.

Spanish Around the World

Did you know that Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world? With about 580 million speakers, it is only second to Mandarin Chinese as mother tongue (and Mandarin Chinese might be better defined as a set of mutually intelligible dialects). English is the most spoken language as a second language. Spanish is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations and one of the most studied as a foreign language.

Spanish is the official language in 20 countries in the Americas, one in Europe and two in Africa, by declaration or adoption in governmental institutions, as in the case of Argentina. More than 400 million native Spanish-speakers live in the Americas, from Argentina and Chile to Canada and the United States. The US, it bears mentioning, with some 55 million Spanish speakers, has become the second Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico, despite Spanish not being an official Spanish language.

Spanish is also the official language in the African nations of Equatorial Guinea and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and is spoken in Cameroon, Nigeria, Gabon, Morocco, Angola, Turkey, Israel, Philippines, Brazil, and several islands in Oceania.

Historia del español y su gramática

La gramática y su estudio

La palabra “gramática” se refiere tanto a las normas que rigen la producción y comprensión del idioma, como a su estudio. Entendida como conjunto de reglas y principios que gobiernan el uso de una lengua concreta, ¡la gramática es tan antigua como la más antigua de las lenguas!

En tanto estudio de las reglas, tiene una historia milenaria. Las gramáticas más antiguas que se conocen provienen de la antigua India, y tratan de las reglas del idioma sánscrito. El gramático indio más reconocido fue Panini, cuya obra, escrita en el siglo IV AEC, ¡estableció conceptos aún utilizados hoy en día! En el mundo occidental, la gramática surgió como disciplina en Grecia, con varios autores, entre ellos Aristarco de Samotracia, quien la bautizó “el arte de las letras”. En la Antigua Roma, la gramática latina se desarrolló con base en los preceptos griegos, y se convirtió en uno de los pilares de la enseñanza de las artes de la elocuencia, con la retórica y la dialéctica (impartidas junto a las artes de los números).

El nacimiento del español

A lo largo de la Edad Media, diversos factores contribuyeron al surgimiento de lenguas romances (también denominadas románicas o neolatinas), entre ellas, el español. La estricta prescripción gramatical del latín clásico —ya diferenciado del latín vulgar o popular— y las nuevas condiciones geopolíticas de un imperio fragmentado fomentaron una fractura lingüística que, paulatinamente, dio origen a lenguas vernáculas heterogéneas (específicas de cada región), aunque interrelacionadas.

En España, donde coexistían diversas lenguas romances —como el gallego, el castellano, el catalán, el leonés y el asturiano— comenzó a fines del siglo XI un proceso de reunificación lingüística gracias a la difusión del español como la lengua de los cantares de gesta (que servían de ejemplo e inspiración, lo mismo que las historias de los superhéroes de hoy). Durante el reinado de Alfonso X de Castilla y León, el español adquirió estatus oficial, ya que el rey hizo redactar directamente en castellano o traducir a éste, y no al latín, como hasta entonces, todos los documentos oficiales.

Junto al ascenso político de las nuevas lenguas, surgió la necesidad de estudiarlas en derecho propio. El sevillano Antonio de Nebrija fue el primer estudioso de lenguas romances en comprender la importancia de asentar por escrito la gramática de las nuevas lenguas. Así, en 1492, publicó en Salamanca su Gramática de la lengua castellana, que no sólo es el primer tratado de gramática de la lengua española, sino también el primer tratado impreso de una lengua romance. En el prólogo a la Reina Isabel la Católica, indica:

Cuando bien conmigo pienso, muy esclarecida reina: […] y pongo delante de los ojos todas las cosas que para nuestra recordación y memoria quedaron escritas, una cosa hallo y saco por conclusión muy cierta: que siempre la lengua [latina] fue compañera del imperio [romano]; y de tal manera lo siguió, que juntamente comenzaron, crecieron, y florecieron, y después junta fue la caída de entrambos […] Y porque mi pensamiento y voluntad siempre fue engrandecer las cosas de nuestra nación, y dar a los hombres de mi lengua obras en que mejor puedan emplear su ocio […], acordé ante todas las otras cosas asentar el arte de este nuestro lenguaje castellano, para que lo que de ahora en adelante en él se escribiere pueda quedar en un estilo, y extenderse en toda la duración de los tiempos que están por venir, como vemos que se ha hecho en la lengua griega y latina, las cuales por haber sido estudiadas en su arte, aunque sobre ellas han pasado muchos siglos, todavía perduran en su uniformidad.

(Nebrija, 1492. Gramática.
Adaptación del español antiguo, hecha por la autora)

Ese mismo año, Cristóbal Colón recibió la autorización de los Reyes Católicos para buscar nuevas rutas mercantiles a las Indias por el Atlántico. España, como muchos reinos anteriores, buscaba expandir su poder. Durante esta expansión, el descubrimiento y posterior conquista de un nuevo continente propiciaron la difusión del castellano como lengua franca.

Sin embargo, el largo proceso de castellanización iniciado por los conquistadores fue mucho más lento que la expansión geopolítica y religiosa. Como consecuencia de la concesión papal de tierras al reino de España, en tanto vicario del dios católico, se consideró a los indígenas súbditos de la corona, a quienes había que cristianizar y cobrar impuestos. La tarea de comunicación, eminentemente lingüística, recayó sobre los misioneros, quienes en gran medida abogaron por el uso de las lenguas nativas, y se abocaron al desarrollo de materiales pedagógicos, como gramáticas y glosarios bilingües. En un principio, fueron los españoles quienes adoptaron el bilingüismo para provecho económico y religioso, no sin la ayuda de un grupo invaluable de hablantes nativos de las lenguas aborígenes, que se convirtieron en intérpretes y eran a menudo producto de la esclavitud o el mestizaje. Sin embargo, la comunicación con grupos lingüísticos tan diversos era muy dificultosa. En pos de paliar esta situación sin dejar de “respetar” el uso de idiomas nativos, en 1570, el rey Felipe II decretó el náhuatl como lengua oficial de Virreinato de la Nueva España (creado en 1535). Esta imposición resultó insostenible, ya que se trataba de una lengua extranjera tanto para los españoles como para muchos pueblos nativos. En 1696, el rey Carlos II estableció el español como único idioma oficial del virreinato.  De esta manera, el español se convirtió en la primera lengua europea moderna en enseñarse masivamente como segundo idioma.

El español de las Américas

El español de los criollos, hispanohablantes nativos nacidos en América, era, para finales del siglo XVII, una versión del español peninsular con características propias. El español criollo se había desarrollado con base en la fonética meridional andaluza (con el seseo y la caída de las consonantes finales como en /usté/), la inclusión de indigenismos (como maíz, maní, huracán y chocolate) y la sintaxis sevillana (que incorporó el uso de usted/ustedes en detrimento del vos/vosotros) [i].

De cara a una nueva realidad lingüística transcontinental, en 1713 se fundó en España la Real Academia Española, “para cultivar y fijar en el modo posible la pureza y elegancia de la lengua castellana” mediante la creación de un diccionario, “el más copioso que pudiere hacerse”.

Durante más de un siglo, el español americano ocupó un lugar sumiso frente al peninsular, hasta que en 1847 el estudioso venezolano Andrés Bello escribió su Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos. Entendiendo que “cada lengua tiene su genio, su fisonomía, sus giros”, Bello se abocó a la tarea de darle al español americano su identidad innovadora basándose en la observación.

No he querido […] apoyarme en autoridades, porque para mí la sola irrecusable en lo tocante a una lengua es la lengua misma. […] El adelantamiento prodigioso de todas las ciencias y las artes, la difusión de la cultura intelectual y las revoluciones políticas, piden cada día nuevos signos para expresar ideas nuevas.

(Bello, 1847, Gramática)

Bello no pretendía “escribir para los castellanos” (refiriéndose a los españoles de la península), pero sí apuntaba a la unificación de la lengua en las nacientes naciones americanas, retomando la idea de Nebrija de evitar la fragmentación lingüística (sobre todo desde el punto de vista sintáctico) por ser signo de debilitamiento cultural y político. En el Prólogo de su Gramática explicó su animosidad a los cambios sintácticos:

[…] el mayor mal de todos, y el que, si no se ataja, va a privarnos de las inapreciables ventajas de un lenguaje común, es la avenida de neologismos de construcción, que inunda y enturbia mucha parte de lo que se escribe en América, y alterando la estructura del idioma, tiende a convertirlo en una multitud de dialectos irregulares, licenciosos, bárbaros; embriones de idiomas futuros, que durante una larga elaboración reproducirían en América lo que fue la Europa en el tenebroso período de la corrupción del latín. Chile, el Perú, Buenos Aires, México, hablarían cada uno su lengua, o por mejor decir, varias lenguas, como sucede en España, Italia y Francia.

En pos de la unidad del idioma y, más específicamente, de la homogeneización de la sintaxis, Bello usó como modelo el español de la “gente educada”, que por tener acceso a una educación formal compartía la lengua aun estando en regiones muy alejadas, lo que promovía la comprensión.

Se prefiere este uso porque es el más uniforme en las varias provincias y pueblos que hablan una misma lengua, y por lo tanto el que hace que más fácil y generalmente se entienda lo que se dice; al paso que las palabras y frases propias de la gente ignorante varían mucho de unos pueblos y provincias a otros, y no son fácilmente entendidas fuera de aquel estrecho recinto en que las usa el vulgo.

(Bello, “Nociones preliminares”, Gramática, 1847)

La concientización sobre el español americano llevó hacia fines del siglo XIX a la creación de academias nacionales del idioma, la primera de las cuales fue la Academia Colombiana de la Lengua, fundada en 1871. Hoy en día existen 22 academias nacionales (en Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, España, Estados Unidos, Filipinas, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Puerto Rico, República Dominicana, Uruguay y Venezuela). Las 22 academias colaboran en la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), que fue fundada en 1951 a instancias del entonces Presidente de México, Miguel Alemán Valdés, a fin de trabajar en pos de la unidad del idioma como patrimonio cultural.

El español panhispánico

A principios del siglo XXI, casi un siglo después de la última gramática publicada por la Real Academia en 1931, ASALE reunió a estudiosos de todo el mundo hispanohablante para crear la primera gramática panhispánica consensuada. Colaboraron en la nueva gramática más de un centenar de estudiosos con el objetivo de describir las construcciones gramaticales propias del español en general, y al mismo tiempo dar cuenta de las variantes fonológicas, morfológicas y sintácticas propias de las diversas zonas. En 2009, se presentó oficialmente, bajo el lema “la gramática que somos”, la Nueva gramática de la lengua española. La obra cuenta con tres tomos sobre morfología, sintaxis y fonética y fonología, así como un DVD de voces del español con fines didácticos, que recoge la diversidad del idioma “en boca de hablantes de todas las áreas lingüísticas”.

Según un reciente estudio realizado con base en datos recogidos en mensajes de Twitter, se puede decir que siguen existiendo tres grandes regiones hispanohablantes, que reflejan en parte los patrones de asentamiento colonial, y muestran divergencias internas propias a cada región. La península ibérica constituye el conglomerado original, la región centroamericana del Caribe, junto a México y Perú, conforman el segundo conglomerado, y, finalmente, el Cono Sur constituye el conglomerado más joven. A esto debemos quizás hoy agregar el crisol de dialectos en el que se ha convertido Estados Unidos, donde confluyen hablantes de las tres regiones anteriores.

Hoy en día hay unos 500 millones de hispanohablantes en el mundo. ¡El español es la una de las lenguas más habladas en el mundo como lengua materna![ii] El español es además uno de los seis idiomas oficiales de las Naciones Unidas[iii]. Más de 400 millones de hispanohablantes habitan países donde el español es la lengua oficial (por declaración o adopción en las instituciones gubernamentales), y unos 75 millones habitan en países donde el español no es reconocido como lengua oficial (como en Estados Unidos o Brasil). De la totalidad de hablantes de la lengua española, 90 por ciento reside en países americanos, de Argentina y Chile a Canadá y Estados Unidos.

En Estados Unidos, el español es la segunda lengua materna del país, con casi 40 millones de hablantes[iv]. Sin embargo, muchos de ellos no han tenido acceso al tipo de educación a la que se refirió Bello, y han adquirido su idioma sólo en forma oral y sin instrucción formal. Otro aspecto del español estadounidense es que existe una gran diversidad dialectal, poco estudiada.

A pesar de que el español no es un idioma oficial en Estados Unidos, muchos organismos oficiales, organizaciones no gubernamentales y empresas privadas hacen traducir gran cantidad de documentos al español[v]. Lamentablemente, no siempre las traducciones están en manos de profesionales capacitados, y esto ha hecho que muchos textos estén muy mal traducidos o escritos en un español que resulta, en la práctica, ininteligible. ¡Es esto lo que queremos evitar! Debemos reconocer también el trabajo incansable que muchos y muy buenos traductores han brindado en los diversos ámbitos mencionados, y la colaboración que se está forjando entre el gobierno y la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua, especialmente en lo referente a consultas sobre el sitio web GobiernoUSA.gov.

En pos de la comunicación

Este post se publicó originalmente en Al rescate del español (ex Cuatro mosqueteras) el 28 de junio de 2016. con el deseo de dar acceso a los hispanohablantes estadounidenses a nociones de gramática y escritura tendientes a la comunicación eficaz.

Sigue siendo mi deseo aydar a transmitir un mensaje claro, en el que el escritor diga realmente lo que quiere decir, sin los malentendidos ni la confusión que llevan a aclaraciones, afrentas y altercados innecesarios. El trabajo en pos de la comunicación clara apunta a cumplir con el deseo de Nebrija de escribir correctamente para nosotros y para nuestro porvenir, teniendo en cuenta nuestras circunstancias.

Notas

[i] Derivado de “vuestra merced”. Una consecuencia importante del reajuste pronominal fue la diferenciación regional entre zonas con tuteo (uso de tú) y zonas con voseo (uso de vos) para la forma familiar de segunda persona del singular en América, y la distinción con España en la segunda persona del plural (en América se usa “ustedes” tanto formal como informalmente, mientras que España se distingue entre “ustedes” y “vosotros”).

[ii] El libro de datos de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia considera al español como segunda lengua materna del mundo, detrás del chino mandarín, y delante del inglés, aunque el inglés es la lengua franca moderna con la mayor cantidad de hablantes como segunda lengua.

[iii] Los cinco restantes son, en orden alfabético árabe, chino, francés, inglés y ruso.

[iv] Según una investigación del Pew Research Center del año 2013.

[v] Una tendencia que se inició con la promulgación de la Ley de Derechos Civiles en 1964 (que promueve la traducción de información destinada a los ciudadanos y residentes del país, en reconocimiento de las necesidades de las minorías).

References / Bibliografía

BELLO, Andrés. 1847. Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos. Edición digital a partir de Obras completas. Tomo Cuarto, 3ªed., Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1995. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/andres_bello/obra-visor-din/gramatica-gramatica-de-la-lengua-castellana-destinada-al-uso-de-los-americanos–0/html/ff6ef310-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_44.html. Consulta del 27/2/16.

BRAVO, Eva. “Rasgos de procedencia andaluza en la variedad americana”. Español de América. http://www.xn--espaoldeamerica-1qb.com/rasgos-de-procedencia-andaluza-en-la-variedad-americana/. Consulta del 27/2/16.

CIFUENTES, Bárbara. 1998. Letras sobre voces: multilingüismo a través de la historia. México. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social e Instituto Nacional Indigenista.

DE NEBRIJA, Antonio. 1492. Gramática de la lengua castellana. http://www.filos.unam.mx/LICENCIATURA/Pagina_FyF_2004/ introduccion/Gramatica_Nebrija.pdf. Consulta del 3/5/16.

Estatutos de la Real Academia Española. Estatutos_1715.pdf. http://www.rae.es/la-institucion/organizacion/estatutos. Consulta del 3/7/16.

FRAGO GRACIA, Jose Antonio. Historia del español de América. Madrid, Gredos.

GONÇALVES, Bruno y SÁNCHEZ, David. “Crowdsourcing Dialect Characterization through Twitter”. PlosONE. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0112074. 19 de noviembre de 2014. Consulta del 3/5/16.

GONZALEZ-BARRERA, Ana y HUGO LOPEZ, Mark. “Spanish is the most spoken non‑English language in U.S. homes, even among non-Hispanics.” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/13/spanish-is-the-most-spoken-non-english-language-in-u-s-homes-even-among-non-hispanics/. 13 de agosto 2013. Consulta del 3/10/16.

Languages. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2098.html. S.f. Consulta del 2/10/16.

MARIMÓN LLORCA, Carmen. “El español en América: de la conquista a la Época Colonial”. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/el-espaol-en-amrica-de-la-conquista-a-la-poca-colonial-0/html/00f4b922-82b2-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_2.html. S.f. Consulta del 2/14/16.

KRAMER, Samuel Noah. (1988). History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History. Philadelphia, PA. University of Pennsylvania Press. (3^ra ed.)

Translation:

You have filled my heart with emotion, tears are welling up in my eyes! What clarity you have poured into this article! What a way to weave one stage into the next in the evolution of the Spanish language without falling prey to the spider’s web of “historicism” but rather giving it a modern, fresh, and clear take. Congratulations! You don’t know how pleased I am to embark on this project in the company of someone with your vision!

In this moment of painful events–that bear witness to how much work we have ahead–education and clear information are not just essential, they are the only option. In doing my part from my professional place, I am applying plain language to promote respect and tolerance.

Among many other pieces of information that require a clarity makeover are clauses to prevent  discrimination. If you do not have an anti-discrimination clause, don’t just use one in gibberish; instead, adapt it to your audience in plain language! Education starts with clarity.

This is one example of how much clearer the message can be. Some of the techniques used here:
1-ditched repetition
2-use of cohesive ties
3-deletion of obvious content

BEFORE:

XYZ does not support and will not tolerate its Service being used to discriminate against others, especially when based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, ancestry or national origin. You are not permitted to use the Service in a manner which would or would likely incite, promote or support such discrimination and you must not use the Service to incite or promote hostility or violence. If we believe in our sole determination that your use of the Service is being used to discriminate, especially if based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, ancestry or national origin, we may permanently or temporarily terminate or suspend your access to the Service without notice and liability for any reason.

AFTER:

At XYZ, we will not allow you to use our Service to unlawfully discriminate or support hostility or violence based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.

If you do, we may terminate or suspend your access to the Service without notice or liability.

In October 2019, the World Economic Forum, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation worked on a pandemic simulation (a mock-up) called Event 201.

The simulation was an exercise to understand the challenges of a pandemic and figure out ways to respond. For the scenario, the group modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic. It was not and could not have been a prediction of Covid-19.

They hypothesized (imagined) that a new type of coronavirus appeared. There are now 7 types of coronaviruses that affect humans. Coronaviruses are common in animals (particularly, bats) and, occasionally, they “jump” to humans. They are called “zoonotic,” literally meaning a disease that humans get from animals.

The Purpose

Real epidemic events are increasing, and have health, social, and economic consequences. Therefore, it is important to understand the risks, measures, and collaboration that would be needed during a pandemic.

The Simulation

Event 201 simulates an outbreak of a fictional coronavirus first transmitted from pigs to people in farms in Brazil. Remember, this is all a mock-up, running on computers, much like a video game. The model was based on the coronavirus SARS-CoV. It is a pathogen (disease-causing agent) that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. This is a real illness that affects your airways and causes dry cough, headache, discomfort, and body aches. Some infected people suffer from diarrhea, and most develop pneumonia.

The spread in the model is slow at first. But, eventually, the virus adjusts to its new human hosts and gets good at jumping from person to person. Person to person transmission rapidly grows in dense, low-income neighborhoods, and finds its way to big cities.

From big cities in South America, the disease travels by flight to Portugal, the United States, and China and then elsewhere. At first, some countries seem able to control it, but the diseases comes back (is reintroduced) and no country can keep it under control. The simulation uses only 300 US and 300 international cities in its model.

In the first year of the simulation, no vaccine is developed. The only thing the simulation had to help the sick was a fictional antiviral drug (a medicine to treat the sick). But, in the simulation, that drug cannot stop the spread of the disease.

Since this fictional coronavirus is a new pathogen, all humans are “susceptible”, meaning we are all prone to catching the disease (like we are for real about Covid-19). For old diseases, humans develop “herd immunity” (also called community immunity). The word “herd” refers to the fact that we humans are indeed a pack of animals in nature! Herd immunity means that enough people can resist an infectious disease because they got a vaccine or caught the illness. Enough immune people make it unlikely for the disease to spread from person to person. (This is why vaccines are SOO important! People who cannot get a vaccine, like newborns and those chronically ill, get protection from the community barrier.)

During the initial months of the simulated pandemic, the number of cases doubles every week. The simulation also keeps track of the deaths and the social and economic consequences, which become more and more severe.

The simulation ends after 18 months of pandemic spread. In its fictional outcome, the disease kills 65 million people. The spread slows down at this point because there are very few “susceptible” people left. That means people are no longer prone to catching the disease because most have caught it and recovered.

The simulation suggests that the spread of an infectious disease like the fictional coronavirus would continue until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed. From that point on, the disease becomes an “endemic” childhood disease. An endemic disease is a disease that is constantly present in an area or population, but in relatively low frequency. For example, HIV is endemic in the US, where 1 in 300 people are infected, ) and Hepatitis B (HBV) is endemic throughout the world.

The Takeways

The group concluded that a new severe pandemic would cause grave illness , suffering, and social and economic disruptions worldwide. To them, the Event 201 pandemic simulation of 2019 “vividly demonstrated” gaps in readiness and in global communication and collaboration needed to respond to such a threat. They issued recommendations for “public-private cooperation for pandemic preparedness and response.”

As the event organizers emphasize, their simulation is not a prediction of our actual situation. But some of their recommendations are proving useful in the current, and actual, pandemic of Covid-19.

One more fact I want to highlight about our real Covid-19 pandemic: the unintended good from this unexpected evil is that we might be helping curve climate change! The shelter-in-place has slowed down pollution and greenhouse gases. It has been a “vacation for the planet” (in the words of my daughter) that we should consider giving again, for everyone’s sake.

Covid-19 is causing the most disruptive effect on lifestyle seen in the 21^st century. The news on global climate change didn’t prompt people to change habits. The international economic crises of the late 2000s didn’t prompt people to change habits. But a direct threat on individuals by a tiny pathogen has prompted people to change habits.

As a consequence of necessary quarantines, self-imposed cautionary measures, health experts prompted social distance, and government mandated travel restrictions, Mother Earth and all its creatures, including us humans, are getting an unexpected break. This break comes in the form of cleaner air.

Satellites operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, orbiting the planet to monitor air quality, picked up a remarkable change: a substantial drop in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution compared to average levels of pollution. The decline is particularly prevalent over China and northern Italy. Nitrogen dioxide is a harmful chemical emitted by gas vehicles, gas motors, power plants, and any machine that burns fossil fuels.

In China, the impact is so stark, it could be presented as a before and after makeover. The image below shows, from NASA, shows the concentration (density) of nitrogen dioxide in China before and after Covid-19 quarantines went into effect. NASA announced this finding with this headline: Airborne Nitrogen Dioxide Plummets Over China.

In northern Italy, a video produced by ESA (the European Space Agency) shows the steady decrease in emissions of nitrogen dioxide over Italy during the last month. Italy had its first reported case of Covid-19 in mid-February and since then a steady slow down of movement, until the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conti ordered a lockdown of northern Italy on March 8.

The slowdown of activity, which includes power plants and industrial facilities ramping down, has resulted in a drop of air pollution levels tallied so far to be near 30%. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said to NPR that he has “spoken to people in Shanghai who said that it’s been some of the most pristine blue skies that they remember over the winter.”

Mr. Myllyvirta has worked on the first study to quantify the burden that air pollution from fossil fuels inflicts globally. The cost is about US$8 billion every day, amounting to over 3% of global GDP. Myllyvirta explains that this “far exceeds the cost of transitioning to clean energy.”

In terms of health, epidemiologists explain that it would be a misrepresentation to describe air pollution reductions as a benefit from coronavirus. In the short term, individuals, especially for those with underlying conditions, are at greater risk from the virus than from pollution.

However, this sizable impact should get us all thinking about the long term effects, after the virus has subsided and/or effective treatment and prevention developed (which are being pursued aggressively by companies like Regeneron, and research centers like Sunnybroook.)

In his interview with NPR, Myllyvirta pointed out that after the global financial crisis, which did have a temporary effect on emissions, governments rolled out “the biggest stimulus package in the history of mankind”. This drove global emissions up for years, worsening an already fragile situation for nature.

Hopefully, as a species, we can learn from this and reduce air pollution permanently. At the human level, we need the reduction because air pollution is a serious risk to health. Fine particles from pollution enter the bloodstream through the lungs and cause asthma, heart attacks, respiratory problems, cancer, and neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. The World Health Organization estimates that almost 5 million people die each year from causes directly related to air pollution. At the broader level of nature and all of its creatures, we need the reduction because if we have evidence of these terrible effects on us, how can we think we are not affecting the flora and fauna of the world?

Once the coronavirus crisis is over, what can we do go about our lives in better more responsible and joyous ways than before?

The virus is spreading as a disease (so far over 90,000 people infected and over 3,000 dead) but is also spreading a lot of confusion.

As a pathogen (a cause of disease), COVID19 seems to spread from person-to-person when people are in close contact with one another (about 6 feet or 2 meters apart) and through droplets from an infected person (from coughing or sneezing). These droplets only travel about 3 feet (a meter) before they land on people’s mouths, eyes, or noses or on surfaces from which they can be “picked up.”

As a source of confusion, COVID19 generates uncertainty because people are unsure of how a virus works and what constitutes cause for alarm.

Pathogens

A pathogen is a disease-producing agent that may or may not be foreign to the body. We normally live with trillions (as in 1014 or 100 000 000 000 000) of non-human creatures in our body. Most are bacteria and make up our normal flora, non-human cells that we do not only live with but live by.

Sometimes, if our immune system is weakened, normal flora can cause trouble, and also pathogens which are not part of our normal flora will sneak in and cause trouble. Here’s where viruses come in.

Each individual pathogen causes disease in a different way. Bacterial pathogens, which are single cell organisms, carry specialized virulence (hostility) genes, but can be treated with antibiotics. Fungi and protozoan parasites are multi-cellular organisms that are harder to treat than bacteria.

Viruses are not even cells. They are made up of a single nucleic acid type—either DNA or RNA that makes up their genome (their biological mold). Nucleic acids are the alphabet and engine of life: they store genetic information and enable protein production. And proteins are, quite literally, the building blocks of life).

Some viruses exist more “naked” than others. Their genome can be protected by a single protein coat (capsid) or further wrapped in a fatty coat (lipid bilayer).

There is another form of infectious pathogen, smaller and rarer than viruses called prions. They are evil twins of regular proteins with a deformed structure that can bully other proteins to deform. An example of this is the Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy).

How Viruses Work

Viruses are protein machines. While they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, they all consistently make three types of proteins. Viruses make proteins for reproduction that essentially make copies of the virus, proteins for packaging the virus and delivering it to other host cells, and proteins that modify the structure or function of the host cell.

While bacteria, fungi, and protozoan parasites have in common have their own machinery for nutrition and reproduction within their cells, viruses are absolute free-riders. They use the nutrition and reproduction machinery of their hosts. They act as an uninvited guest who raids and ransacks your kitchen leaving a trail of destruction as they move on to your neighbors’ kitchen.

A single virus particle (a virion) that infects a single host cell can produce thousands of offspring. These offspring either end up killing the cell by bursting out of it (a process called lysis) or turning the cell against itself through chronic infection (long lasting) or cancer. Multiply that by the many cells they attack… and we have a big problem.

Vaccines

Vaccines are dead or inactivated pathogens or products derived from them that prompt a beneficial immune response. Some inactivated vaccines include vaccines against polio, hepatitis A, rabies and some influenzas. Some attenuated (tamed pathogens) vaccines include vaccines against yellow fever, measles, mumps, and rubella. Vaccines for tetanus and diphtheria use inactivated toxic compounds. Subunit vaccines use a fragment from a pathogen to promote the immune response, like the vaccines against Hepatitis B and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Last, but not least, conjugate vaccines combine weka and strong antigens (chemicals that prompt the body to fight infection) so that the body remembers to react to the weak ones, as in the vaccine for Haemophilus influenzae type B.

Levels of Spread

Diseases spread. After all, pathogens—like all living things—are programmed for survival. Sometimes, disease even helps restore balance to an ecosystem.

But how far and fast disease spreads can be very concerning not just to humans but for all hosts harmed in their path.
Let’s talk about “demics”: epidemic, pandemic, endemic. We often use these words interchangeably to talk about the spread of disease. And, sometimes, we even use it to describe behaviors, as in “There is an epidemic of bullying in schools.”

When disease strikes, epidemiologists study the incidence (when and where disease happens), prevalence (proportion of people affected), and containment (treatment and control) of diseases. Based on the two first factors diseases can be:

• Sporadic: the disease is not frequent, such as foodborne illness like Salmonella or E. coli.
• Clustered: the disease appears temporarily as bunch of cases in one area, for example, cancer cases after a chemical or nuclear spill, or contamination like the lead incident in Flint, Michigan from using a corrosive water source.
• Endemic: the disease is constantly present in an area or population, but in relatively low frequency. When the disease is constantly present but in high levels when compared to happens in other populations, it becomes hyperendemic. For example, HIV is endemic in the US (1 in 300 people infected) but hyperendemic in Africa (6 in 300).
• Epidemic: a disease suddenly spikes, that is, the number of cases grows rapidly and above what is normally expected. If the epidemic is clustered, that is, the disease suddenly spikes but is limited to a geographic area, it is called an outbreak. For example, the Zika outbreak of 2016 was limited to warm climate areas in the Americas (including the Southern US).
• Pandemic: this is an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting large numbers of people. HIV was a pandemic (between 2005 and 2012) and has infected over 75 million people worldwide; currently 35 million people around the world are infected (about 21 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, which amounts to 5% of the African population).

Past and Current Pandemics

In addition to HIV, many diseases have caused, and continue to cause pandemics.
Influenza pandemics have occurred more than once: in 1918, influenza killed 40-50 million, in 1957 it killed 2 million and in 1968, 1 million. Asian influenza killed 2 million people in 1957.

Tuberculosis is an ongoing pandemic that kills over 1.5 million people every year.

Malaria, despite being a preventable disease is almost at the level of a pandemic, killing ½ million people every year.

The smallpox pandemic in the 20th century killed almost 500 million poeple. Edward Jenner in 1798 confirmed that cowpox provided protection against smallpox, but it wasn’t until 1959, that a global eradication effort was launched. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a huge campaign and in 1980 smallpox was declared eradicated and continues to be the only human disease eradicated to date.

The Black plague killed more than 75 million people from 1347 to 1351. And even after, the plague continued to strike Europe, the Middle East and beyond for centuries, returning every 10 to 20 years. The plague had wreaked havoc before, when it was called the Plague of Justinian, striking Europe in 541 CE and killing 50 million people in one year, which amounted to half the continent’s population at the time.

(A note on plague: this is not an epidemiologic term. It refers to a contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, such as bubonic plague.)

Phases of a Pandemic

The WHO has articulated phases of a pandemic to help people and governments prepare and respond to disease spread. The phases are based on the spread of influenza and designed to address viruses that jump from animals to humans.

• Phase 1: no animal viruses are reported to cause infection in humans.
• Phase 2: first level of threat; a virus is confirmed to have jumped from an animal to humans.
• Phase 3: sporadic cases or small clusters happen, but human-to-human transmission has either not occurred or hasn’t gained a level of transmission that can cause a pandemic (human-to-human transmission may occur in close contact).
• Phase 4: human-to-human transmission happens easily or animanl-to-human transmission has caused a community-wide outbreak.
• Phase 5: human-to-human transmission of the virus has caused the spread of disease to at least two countries in a WHO region.
• Phase 6: the disease is declared a pandemic. It has spread to at least one other country outside a single WHO region.

The duration of each phase can vary and be influenced by weather, climate, response, or the virus spontaneously weakening.

Is COVID-19 a Pandemic?

The causes for concern include that fact that the virus can kill healthy adults in addition to sick elderly people, and that it can spread at an exponential rate (an infected person, even before symptoms, can spread the disease to several other people).

A study on data from China‘s Infectious Disease Information System suggests the virus can kill 1 of every 100 infected; this is a higher rate than the flu.

On this one, I agree with Bill Gates, who recently wrote, “Covid-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about. I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise.”

Health Literacy is the set of world and health knowledge and beliefs, general intelligence and literacy, and communication skills that allows an individual to seek, obtain, understand, assess, and apply health information in daily life and health care contexts. This ability is mediated by:

·      the individual’s culture, education, language, and situational and emotional constraints;

·      the demands and complexities of the healthcare system;

·      the knowledge, beliefs, intelligence, literacy, and communication skills of health care and health information providers who have a responsibility to provide health information in plain language;

·      the use of plain language in communication materials. that is, the sharing of information in coherent, cohesive, adequate, and accessible language;

Operationalizing this definition would call for separate assessments for:

–  individual health literacy

–  provider health communication aptitude

–  communications/materials plain language

–  system accessibility

Comments

Health communication is an interaction, and, to promote a successful interaction, several factors must come together that include the capacities of the individual and the abilities of health communicators, the clarity of the information and materials used, and the traits of the system in which the health information exchange happens.

Bringing together the dimensions that contribute to or affect successful health communication takes caution. Some proponents of a broad definition of health literacy lift the responsibility of comprehension off the individual to replace it with the obligation for clear communication by the providers or the system.

However, shifting the definition of health literacy away from the individual undermines intervention opportunities. We must consider in parallel individual knowledge and skills—accumulated through experiences and education, and mediated by values, interests, and intelligence—and the knowledge and skills of interlocutors, the clarity of materials, and the intricacies of the system that individuals and providers operate within.

So, rather than one or the other, a wider definition of health literacy must include a multidimensional construct that acknowledges the four dimensions at work. We must also remember that health communication happens not only in disease-driven exchanges but also in health-driven situations that include daily and lifestyle choices.

For these reasons, we should promote a baseline of 21st century knowledge through education: how the human body and the natural world work, what decisions are individual choices (DNR, termination) versus social needs (immunization, right to choose.) Without this, citizens are not equipped to make personal health decisions or weigh in on policy choices. Health education should begin in the early school years and continue throughout life, building on previous knowledge. We should also promote a baseline of 21st century cultural competence through professional training and continuing education. Both of these ideas are discussed by the National Academy of Medicine in A Prescription to End Confusion. Without a doubt, the intricacies, injustices, and inefficiencies of the healthcare system need addressing. While outside the scope of this article, certainly revisiting laws and structural issues is essential for the future. Last, but not least, something we can address from within the community of health communicators is the clarity of materials.

The use of plain language is gaining momentum and we are at a great pivotal moment to dispel some myths about clarity. Plain language started out as clarification and simplification of information for lay audiences. Today, it encompasses a wide range of strategies with the goal of presenting information clearly and adequately to a range of audiences. But, there is no one-size-fits-all plain language set of rules. Clarity among experts in the same field looks different from clarity among non-experts, people with cognitive or physical disabilities, or even experts of different fields.

A crucial point to remember is that quick tips like “use everyday words” or “be specific” belong to different levels of adaptation for clarity. The first one applies to the adequacy of the text for a lay audience (it doesn’t apply to clear technical text). The second one applies to the textuality or coherence of the text for any audience. Every text, no matter its audience, should be as specific as possible: redundancies of content or meandering off topic will confuse any reader.

One last point about individual skills assessments or screenings: they must become more comprehensive. Both oral and written skills matter; but it is important to remember that text is not merely a recording of speech. We should look at developing a more robust tool for health literacy assessment. For academic language skills, a group of researchers led by Paola Uccelli developed CALS (Core Academic Language Skills), an instrument that moved away from a one-dimensional predictor (vocabulary) to a cohort of skills (including complex terms, complex syntax, discourse markers, anaphoric reference, expository text organization, metalinguistic vocabulary, and writer perspective). This is relevant to reconsider health literacy assessments that focus on medical vocabulary as a predictor and expand them to include the knowledge and deployment of a repertoire of language forms and functions that better reflect ability and comprehension.