Real Academia Española

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Royal Spanish Academy
Arms of the Royal Spanish Academy
Abbreviation RAE
Motto Limpia, fija y da esplendor
Formation 1713
Headquarters Madrid, Spain
Region served Spain
Official languages Spanish
Director José Manuel Blecua Perdices
Main organ Junta de Gobierno
Affiliations Association of Spanish Language Academies
Website www.rae.es
Real Academia Española
Native name:
Spanish: Real Academia Española
Location: Madrid, Spain
Coordinates: 40°24′54″N 3°41′28″W / 40.41492°N 3.691173°W / 40.41492; -3.691173Coordinates: 40°24′54″N 3°41′28″W / 40.41492°N 3.691173°W / 40.41492; -3.691173
Official name: Real Academia Española
Type: Non-movable
Criteria: Monument
Designated: 1998[1]
Reference #: RI-51-0010191
Real Academia Española is located in Spain
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Location of Real Academia Española in Spain

The Royal Spanish Academy (Spanish: Real Academia Española, RAE) is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone (Spanish-speaking) nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies. The RAE's emblem is a fiery crucible, and its motto is "Limpia, fija y da esplendor" ("[It] cleans, sets, and casts splendour").

The RAE is a major publisher of dictionaries and grammars, and has a formal procedure for admitting words to its publications. Its website includes an online dictionary and other resources, all in Spanish. Its most famous publication is the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española (Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the Royal Spanish Academy), the "DRAE".

Contents

[edit] History

Title page of Fundación y estatútos de la Real Académia Españóla (Foundation and statutes of the Royal Spanish Academy) (1715)

The Real Academia Española was founded in 1713, modelled after the Italian Accademia della Crusca (1582) and the French Académie française (1635), with the purpose "to fix the voices and vocabularies of the Castilian language with propriety, elegance, and purity". King Philip V approved its constitution on 3 October 1714, placing it under the Crown's protection.

Its aristocratic founder, Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and Duke of Escalona, described its aims as "to assure that Spanish speakers will always be able to read Cervantes" – by exercising a progressive up-to-date maintenance of the formal language.

The RAE began establishing rules for the orthography of Spanish beginning in 1741 with the first edition of the Ortographía (spelled Ortografía from the second edition onwards). The proposals of the Academy became the official norm in Spain by royal decree in 1844, and they were also gradually adopted by the Spanish speaking countries of Latin America.

Several reforms were introduced in the Nuevas Normas de Prosodia y Ortografía (1959), and since then the rules have undergone continued adjustment, in consultation with the other national language academies. The current rules and practical recommendations are presented in the latest edition of the Ortografía (1999).[2]

In 1994, the RAE ruled that the Spanish consonants "CH" (ché) and "LL" (elle) would hence be alphabetized under "C" and under "L", respectively, and not as separate, discrete letters, as in the past. The RAE eliminated monosyllabic accented vowels where the accent did not serve in changing the word's meaning, examples include: "dio" ("gave"), "vio" ("saw"), both had an acutely-accented vowel "ó"; yet the monosyllabic word "sé" ("I know", the first person, singular, present of "saber", "to know"; and the singular imperative of "ser", "to be") retains its acutely-accented vowel in order to differentiate it from the reflexive pronoun "se".

[edit] Criticisms of the Academy

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The Royal Academy has[who?], especially in the Spanish-speaking Americas, been criticized for being excessively conservative and slow to change; for excessively concentrating upon linguistic usages of the region of Castile, while dismissing variant usages from other parts of Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries; and for being slow in revising its authoritative Diccionario de la Lengua Española[citation needed].

Moreover, the dictionary has been criticised[who?] for its partial definitions and somewhat limited coverage. For example, the DRAE definition for dinosaurio ("dinosaur") only covers Sauropodomorpha, just one of the many groups of dinosaurs that existed.

Supporters respond that the RAE's purpose is not registering ephemeral Spanish usages, but to protect a united Castilian language and prevent national variants from becoming incomprehensible to other Spanish speakers[citation needed].

Critics[who?] have acknowledged, however, that recent editions of the Diccionario de la Lengua Española de la Real Academia Española (the 20th, 21st, and current 22nd editions) show distinct improvement. One innovation was its publication of a paperback edition in 1992. Partnerships[clarification needed] with companies such as Telefónica, IBM, and Microsoft, enabled[clarification needed] the RAE to update and adapt to the current information-technology era, offering a free on-line version of its Diccionario, which may be consulted free of charge at its website.

[edit] Composition

Main article: List of members of the Real Academia Española

Members of the Academy are known as Académicos de número (English: Academic Numerary), chosen from among prestigious persons in the arts and sciences, including several Spanish-language authors, known as Los Inmortales (English: the Immortals), similarly to their Académie Française counterparts. The Números are elected for life by the other academicians. Each academician holds a seat labeled with a letter from the Spanish alphabet; upper- and lower-case letters are separate seats.

[edit] Current members

As of 2008, sorted by date of induction:

[edit] Notable past academicians

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] Publications

[edit] Joint publications of the RAE and the Association of Spanish Language Academies

  • Diccionario de la lengua española (Dictionary of the Spanish Language) (1st edition: 1780, 22nd edition: 2001, the 23rd edition will be published in 2013 to mark the tricentennial of the founding of the RAE). The first edition is in public domain.
    • The Diccionario esencial de la lengua española (Essential Dictionary of the Spanish Language) was published in 2006 as a shortened work to span between the 22nd and 23rd editions.
  • Ortografía de la lengua española (Orthography of the Spanish Language, 1st edition: 1741, latest edition: 2010). The edition of 1999 was the first orthography to cover the whole Hispanic world, replacing the Nuevas normas de prosodia y ortografía (New Rules for Prosody and Orthography) of 1959. The first edition is in public domain.
  • Nueva gramática de la lengua española (New Grammar of the Spanish Language, 1st edition: 1771, latest edition: 2009). The latest edition is the first grammar to cover the whole Hispanic world, replacing the prior Gramática de la lengua española (Grammar of the Spanish Language, 1931) and the Esbozo de una Nueva gramática de la lengua española (Outline of a New Grammar of the Spanish Language, 1973). The first edition is in public domain.
    • The Nueva gramática de la lengua española will be published in 3 different versions: The Edición completa (Complete Edition) includes 3,800 pages in two volumes to describe morphology and syntax (published December 4, 2009) plus a third volume of phonetics and phonology and a DVD (early 2010). The Manual edition is a single 750-page volume, which was presented at the 5th Congress of the Spanish Language which convened virtually in Valparaiso, Chile, due to the earthquake, and will be published on April 23, 2010.[3] The Gramática básica (Basic Grammar) is a 250-page pocket reference intended for school use, to be published in late 2010.[dated info][4]
    • The RAE has also published two other works by individual editors: Gramática de la lengua española (Grammar of the Spanish Language, by Emilio Alarcos Llorach, 1994) and Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (Descriptive Grammar of the Spanish Language, 3 volumes, directed by Ignacio Bosque and Violeta Demonte, 1999).
  • Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, 1st edition: 2005). Resolves doubts related to the use of the Spanish language.
  • Diccionario del estudiante (Student's Dictionary, 1st edition: 2005). Replaces the Diccionario escolar de la RAE (RAE Scholastic Dictionary, 1996).
      • Diccionario práctico del estudiante (Practical Student's Dictionary, 1st edition: 2007) is an adapted version for Latin America, and is for sale only in the Americas.

[edit] See also

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Database of protected buildings (movable and non-movable) of the Ministry of Culture of Spain
  2. ^ Real Academia Española (1999) (in Spanish) (PDF). Ortografía de la Lengua Española. pp. v–viii. ISBN 84-239-9250-0. http://www.rae.es/rae/gestores/gespub000015.nsf/(voanexos)/arch7E8694F9D6446133C12571640039A189/$FILE/Ortografia.pdf. Retrieved 2009-02-07. 
  3. ^ "El diccionario de americanismos incluye setenta mil entradas", Diario ABC (27 de febrero de 2010), 2010, http://www.abc.es/20100227/cultura-/diccionario-americanismos-incluye-setenta-201002271302.html 
  4. ^ "La Real Academia Española y la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española presentan la Nueva gramática de la lengua española.", Real Academia Española, 2010, http://www.rae.es/rae/gestores/gespub000016.nsf/voTodosporId/879EEE3982B5EBAFC12571640038E4E2?OpenDocument 

[edit] External links

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