Maíz vs. Lápiz vs. Feliz

Question

Does maíz have an accent because it is a "hiato"?
That is the only thing that will make sense for me because it doesn't follow the rules found in the words lápiz and feliz.

Answer 1

Maíz has an accent to stress the "i" sound. Mah-EES. Without the accent it would sound like "mice." Whenever the weak vowel in a dipthong is stressed it gets the "tilde."

Consider "historia" and biología. Historia sounds like ees-TOH-ria. Whereas biololgía sounds like "Byo-lo-HEE-ah.

Here's a link to an article I wrote on accent marks. I have also bumped it up to the first page of questions and answers.

Link to accent marks

In the modern teaching of languages we avoid the use of words like "hiato." There are better ways of explaining stress and accentuation. - Daniela2041, Apr 17, 2016

Great post D D , it needs posting again. - ray76, Apr 17, 2016

Answer 2

¡Sí, señor!