Why are abbreviations reversed in Spanish?

Question

Is there a particular reason that acronyms of proper nouns are reversed in Spanish?

VIH/SIDA = HIV AIDS
SRAS = SARS

There are others but I can't remember off the top of my head.

@fedorqui'SOstopharming': as a French, I'd say that English speakers got them backwards too ;-) — Taladris, Feb 27 '20 at 00:23
The really fun ones are the ones that should be reversed but often aren't, like "realidad virtual", sometimes written as RV and other times as VR. Amusingly, from what I've seen, foreign companies (like Valve) will call it RV, but native ones (like videogame blogs) will call it VR. — Aaron F, Feb 27 '20 at 15:29
@fedorqui'SOstopharming' SI units, conceived in France, is an example of an acronym originating in France, reflecting the Romance word order. Many other international acronyms we use today originated in the U.S., reflecting its modern dominance in many areas of science, technology and politics, so that the Romance word order is an inversion of the original, not the English/Germanic one. — Peter - Reinstate Monica, Feb 28 '20 at 08:08
ADN = DNA is a common one that is isn't quite reversed between the two languages — WaterMolecule, Feb 28 '20 at 16:17
they are not reversed, they are just different. e.g.: USA: EEUU, WHO: OMS, ... Spanish uses Spanish words, not English words, otherwise it would be called English... — njzk2, Feb 28 '20 at 21:55
@aloisdg - Spanish is only recognized as an official language in two countries outside of the Americas, for a total of 20. English has a total of 58, and French: 29. If there's centrism, it should be called Frenglish because it conquered Africa. Except money trumps everything, and if you live in India and are fluent in En, you can make 4x more (and about ~$5k more in the US). Given that's the most populous democratic country on the planet, English wins. Or German. — Mazura, Feb 29 '20 at 03:55

score 54 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 26 '20 at 11:00

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They are not reversed, just translated. It just happens that in English adjectives tend to go before the noun, whereas in Spanish it is usually the other way around:

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) → Virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH)
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) → Síndrome respiratorio agudo grave (SRAG)
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) → Síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida (SIDA)

edited Feb 26 '20 at 11:00

jacobo

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answered Feb 26 '20 at 09:57

OnlyThenDidIReckonMyCurse

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I'd like to go one step further and ask why the adjective/noun order is different in Spanish vs English ;-) ? Any historical reason? – udidosa Feb 27 '20 at 02:29
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Because Spanish is a dialect of Latin, and English is a dialect of German. (Using dialect in a loose sense here) – Josh Wulf Feb 27 '20 at 03:53
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@udidosa It's a historical thing. Spanish is a Romance language, while English is a Germanic language. – Enrico Feb 27 '20 at 09:20
Wow, this seems to be a super hot network answer. Long time no see such scores on answers. Congratulations. – wimi Feb 27 '20 at 10:11
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@wimi I don't really get why, it was a pretty straightforward question. – OnlyThenDidIReckonMyCurse Feb 27 '20 at 10:44
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It is wrong to say "they are translated into Spanish". Not necessarily. They just follow the structure of the Spanish language. – Lambie Feb 27 '20 at 15:29
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This word order difference is used effectively and efficiently in Brussels, for example. Belgium is bi-lingual, and Brussels as the capital has all street names in both languages, Flemish (Dutch) and French. The French street names are often something like "rue de Carl" while the Flemish is "Carlstraat". The signs are written with a small "rue de" on top, then a big "CARL" in the middle and again small "straat" below: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Street_signs_in_Brussels#/media/File:Bruxelles_rue_Baron_Horta_1001.jpg – Jörg W Mittag Feb 27 '20 at 21:24
@wimi I'm surprised too! it's my first question here and I didn't expect it to blow up. Anyways it's great :) – udidosa Feb 28 '20 at 05:44
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@JörgWMitta in the Basque Country they also have similar signs on some streets "calle [name] kalea", where calle is Spanish and kalea is Basque. – Tom Fenech Feb 28 '20 at 09:51
@JoshWulf "Descendent" would be a much more accurate (and much less loaded) word. (Also, there's a difference between "German" and "a Germanic language".) – chepner Feb 28 '20 at 21:53
This begs the question: why are the Spanish so arrogant to rename everything? If the original researchers gave it an English name, shouldn't the name be just that: English? Instead of trying to pronounce or change the name (as they often do with my name in Spain/France it offends me greatly when it's mispronounced on purpose). – paul23 Feb 29 '20 at 06:01
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@paul23 Disease names are not proper names, they should describe what they are naming, and they are subject to change. Anyway, it's not as if Spanish were the only language to do that, so you should be asking "why is the rest of the world so arrogant to rename everything?". Mispronouncing a person's name on purpose is just wrong, though. – OnlyThenDidIReckonMyCurse Feb 29 '20 at 08:33
@JörgWMittag a similar thing is seen in much of heavily-bilingual Atlantic Canada, with street signs saying things like "Rue MacDonald Street". – Robert Columbia Feb 29 '20 at 11:58

Why are abbreviations reversed in Spanish?

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