CULTURE-ARGENTINA:
Spanish, the Divided Language
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 (IPS) - Academics, writers, artists and social
organisations in Argentina defend linguistic diversity and accuse the Royal
Spanish Academy of trying to ''appropriate'' the Spanish language.
They plan to hold their own ''counter-conference'' parallel to the Third
International Congress of the Spanish Language, to take place in November in
Argentina.
''The main objection to the official meeting comes in response to the
very purpose of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), which has no objective
other than to appropriate the language and tell Spanish-speakers how they
should speak,'' linguist Rodolfo Hachén told IPS.
Hachén, a professor of ethnolinguistics at the public National University
of Rosario, is one of the organisers of the parallel meeting, which will be
called the Congreso de LaS LenguaS (Congress of the LanguageS).
But the head of the Argentine Academy of Letters, Pedro Barcia, told IPS
that such criticisms ''merely repeat a commonplace that has already been
resolved.
''Since 10 years ago, the RAE neither accepts nor rejects terms, but when
incorporating words, seeks a consensus among all of the academies in
Spanish-speaking countries,'' he said.
Barcia maintained that the RAE - the institution that regulates the
Spanish language - no longer has authority over the language, because it
was forced to recognise that nine out of 10 Spanish-speakers are from Latin
America.
''It is incredibly ignorant to continue arguing that the RAE imposes the
language on the rest of the world's Spanish-speakers,'' he said.
''Not even the dictionary will continue to be called the dictionary of
the Royal Spanish Academy, because starting with the next edition, it will
become the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, and all of the decisions
reached are 'pan-Hispanic','' Barcia added.
Hachén is aware of these advances, but says the academies still want to
maintain control over the language.
Like a number of social institutions and other academics, Hachén will
only take part in the ''counter-conference'', the first Congreso de LaS
LenguaS, whose organisers believe that ''the only 'owners' of a language are
its speakers, who do not need academies or institutions to impose the rules
for speaking properly.''
Argentina is hosting the third official International Congress of the
Spanish Language, whose first edition was held in 1997 in the central
Mexican city of Zacatecas and the second in 2001 in Valladolid in northern
Spain. The meetings are inaugurated by Spain's prime minister and King Juan
Carlos.
The official November congress is organised by the RAE, the Cervantes
Institute - which answers to Spain's Education Ministry - and by an
executive committee comprised of representatives of the Argentine government
and the Argentine Academy of Letters.
Under the theme 'Linguistic Identity and Globalisation', this year's
congress is scheduled for Nov. 17-20 in Rosario, Argentina's third-largest
city, located in the eastern province of Santa Fe.
The prominent guests invited to take part include the presidents and
prime ministers of Latin America and Spain, and writers like Héctor Tizón,
Juan José Saer and Ernesto Sábato from Argentina, Mario Benedetti of
Uruguay, Spain's Francisco Ayala and Mexico's Carlos Fuentes.
U.S. President George W. Bush has also been invited to attend. ''Ask the
Argentine government, they invited him,'' Barcia responded when asked by IPS
why the president of an English-speaking country was invited.
Argentina's under-secretary of culture, Magdalena Faillace, said the list
of writers and speakers who have been invited cannot yet be released.
''These congresses are already 'canned' when they reach us, because they
follow a programme that has already been tested and tried in previous
congresses,'' she said.
Faillace admitted that there were ''obstacles'' standing in the way of
deciding on the content of the congress and the names of the panellists
until ''the RAE and the Cervantes Institute reached a decision.''
''The congress is part of the Spanish state's policy, aimed at
consolidating and strengthening the language throughout the entire
Spanish-speaking community,'' she said.
Barcia, meanwhile, said the restrictions with respect to who is invited
is the result of a ceiling on the number of participants.
There is only space for 150 participants, including writers, experts and
speakers, and there are 22 countries with academies of letters that have a
right to be represented at the congress, without surpassing the limit on the
number of guests.
To compensate those who are unable to attend due to lack of space, the
local academy will publish a 400-page volume containing papers and works by
37 Argentine experts and writers, shortly before the official congress
begins. The theme of this year's congress will provide the book's title.
Barcia said the name of the writers who have been invited cannot yet be
revealed because the Spanish organisers are awaiting confirmation of
attendance. The fear is that at the last moment, a top-level writer will bow
out, and will have to be replaced by someone who was not on the original
guest list.
It is perhaps the organisers' decision not to release the names of the
invited guests that most irritates academics, writers, artists, indigenous
communities and social organisations in Argentina and other Latin American
countries, as well as speakers of the Catalonian, Basque and Galician
languages in northern Spain, who have also come out in support of the
''counter-conference''.
Those who agree with the arguments motivating the parallel conference,
like Argentine writer Osvaldo Bayer, his Uruguayan colleague Eduardo
Galeano, and Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, believe
that ''linguistic and cultural pluralism, far from being an enemy to be
fought, make it possible to share and build knowledge,'' according to the
organisers.
Hachén criticised the ''closed manner'' in which the RAE organises the
congresses of the Spanish language, and said the Congreso de LaS LenguaS is
not moved by a spirit of ''opposing anyone'' but of ''advocating linguistic
self-determination.''
He admitted, however, that ''an inevitable polemic'' with the RAE would
arise.
Hachén said a number of universities and research centres in Argentina
were not invited, just as ''they refused to invite Colombian Nobel
Literature prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez'' due to ''ideological
questions.''
When asked, Faillace merely confirmed that García Márquez was not on the
guest list.
Hachén pointed out that García Márquez has been an outspoken critic of
what he sees as Spain's intention of controlling the Spanish language.
Sábato, in the meantime, in his essay on 'The Castilian (Spanish) that We
Speak' published in the book 'The Writer and His Phantoms', says languages
''are made by an entire people'', and states that ''the existence of the
academies have the same social and psychological root as the police.''
(END/2004)
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