Burgos (EFE).- The director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), Santiago Muñoz Machado, has denied that the belief that the Hispanic Crown imposed the Spanish language in America is true.
In a conference entitled ‘The Hispanic monarchy and the language in America’, within the seminars organized by the Parliamentary Monarchy Chair of the University of Burgos, directed by the professor and former president of the Senate Juan José Laborda, Muñoz Machado has assured that the kings Spaniards did “just the opposite”.
“Not only did they not impose Spanish, but even the missionaries, who were concerned with Christianization, were also busy making dictionaries and taking care of indigenous languages,” he argued.
In his opinion, the change to Spanish in America is a process that lasted almost two centuries, especially in the last half century, during the reign of Carlos III.
In fact, he has pointed out that when the independence processes of American countries took place, of the thirteen million inhabitants, only three spoke Spanish.
He has assured that it was the pro-independence creoles who wanted to impose Spanish for State reasons, to have a single language.
The RAE denies that it was the Crown: The pro-independence creoles imposed Spanish for reasons of State
In fact, he has pointed out that when the independence processes of American countries took place, of the thirteen million inhabitants, only three spoke Spanish.
He has assured that it was the pro-independence creoles who wanted to impose Spanish for State reasons, to have a single language.
This extension of Spanish was reinforced by the role of the Royal Academy of the Language, which “was reviled at first as a supposed imperialist tool, but was later accepted, with the support of local philologists and jurists”, indicated Muñoz Machado.
He has also insisted on the importance of the laws to contribute to the hispanicization of America, because the laws were written in Spanish.
In this sense, he specified that Spanish laws were replaced by “very ephemeral constitutions in Spanish and, above all, by civil codes, which functioned as true constitutions.”
He has given the example of the Chilean Civil Code of 1855, which was written in exquisite Castilian and “served as a linguistic model, as well as a legal one, for which reason it contributed decisively to the implementation of a universal lexical and grammatical model for America”.
The RAE will update the dictionary with more than a thousand novelties at the end of the year
The dictionary of the Spanish language will add at the end of this year more than a thousand novelties to update uses, the director of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, announced this Wednesday in Burgos.
“This does not mean that more than a thousand new words are incorporated, but that uses are modified due to changes in meanings or the branding of words that have fallen into disuse, for example,” he explained to journalists before giving a conference.
Regarding the debate on the ‘solo’ accentuated or not, he commented that it is already “settled” and expressed his joy because it has shown “the interest of Spaniards in their language”.
Within the RAE it has caused “surprise and some amusement because it has been interesting to see how much the vocabulary of their language matters to Spaniards and I really liked that this is the case”, he added.
However, he recalled that this is a singular issue that academics analyze many every year.
The director of the RAE has delivered a conference entitled ‘The Hispanic monarchy and the language in America’, within the seminars organized by the Parliamentary Monarchy chair of the University of Burgos, directed by the professor and former president of the Senate Juan José Laborda.