Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

CULTURE: Anglicisms, ‘Neutral Spanish’, and Linguistic Diversity

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 16 2004 (IPS) - How is the Spanish language affected by Anglicisms, the Internet and the use of a standard "neutral" dialect in movies and television? How can linguistic unity and distinctly regional nuances both be preserved? Can one country assume responsibility for preserving the integrity of a language spoken by 400 million people around the world?

These and other questions will be tackled by linguists, writers, journalists, publishers and representatives of national Spanish language academies at the 3rd International Congress on the Spanish Language, taking place this Wednesday through Saturday in the city of Rosario, in the east-central Argentine province of Santa Fe.

The congress, which will address the central theme of Linguistic Identity and Globalisation, is being organised by the Argentine Secretariat of Culture, under the auspices of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Federation of Academies of the Spanish Language, and the Cervantes Institute of Spain.

Magdalena Faillace, the Argentine undersecretary of culture and chairwoman of the 3rd Congress executive committee, told IPS that while globalisation has many positive aspects, such as the interconnection of the world through the Internet and the global dissemination of different cultures, it has also led to a concentration of power.

"The language of this unipolar world and of globalisation is English, and this has resulted in a homogenisation of ideas, lifestyles and customs, threatening all aspects of the world’s different cultures, including language," she said.

Faillece stressed that the goal of the congress is not to "demonise" the English language, but rather to draw attention to the threat it represents.

"We aren’t advocating the outright rejection of English, which is the dominant language in the world today. What we do want, however, is for the Spanish language to be defended, with all of the nuances and differences that enrich it in every country where it is spoken, and we want it to be promoted and taught as a foreign language in non-Spanish-speaking countries," she stressed.

Although the lead-up to the congress has been marked by controversy – over its themes, guest speakers and even financing – it will be the most highly attended yet.

The first congress, held in 1997 in Zacatecas, Mexico, drew 300 participants, while the 2001 meeting in Valladolid, Spain attracted 1,300. For this year’s congress in Rosario, almost 3,000 participants are registered.

This time as well, outside the agenda set for the congress itself, a debate will be held addressing the role of the RAE in preserving the supposed "purity" of the Spanish language. For many specialists, the RAE has been usurped in this regard by the joint efforts of representatives of all of the language academies based in different Spanish-speaking countries, who adopt decisions by consensus.

In any event, the organisers of the 3rd Congress were not able to prevent the holding of a parallel meeting that began on Monday, also in Rosario, called the 1st Congress of "LanguageS" (ending with a capital S).

Its participants are writers, academics and representatives of social organisations opposed to the control that they believe Spain still exercises over the Spanish language.

As for the 3rd Congress, discussions will revolve around three main topics. The first is "Ideological and Social Aspects of Linguistic Identity".

This section will include an analysis of the ties between Spanish and the other languages of Spain (like Basque, Catalan and Galician, since the language officially known as "Spanish" is in fact the Castilian dialect), as well as the relationship with the indigenous languages of Latin America, which are often completely ignored by national school systems, as is the case in Argentina.

Participants in this section will also address the effects on the language of population flows between the countries of Latin America and emigration from the region to other countries, such as the United States, where some specialists claim that a completely new language has been born: Spanglish, a mix of English and Spanish.

The next topic on the agenda is "The Identity of Spanish in Literary Creation". The speakers will include a wide range of well-known writers, including Carlos Fuentes and Carlos Monsiváis from Mexico, Alfredo Bryce Echenique from Peru, Cristina Peri Rossi from Uruguay, Jorge Edwards from Chile, Tomás Eloy Martínez and Héctor Tizón from Argentina, and José Antonio Millán and Juan Luis Cebrián from Spain.

Numerous Portuguese-speaking authors will participate as well, including Brazilian writer Nélida Piñón and Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese novelist José Saramago, who will participate in a tribute to Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato on Saturday.

This section of the congress will also feature a panel discussion on cinema and television and policies on the dubbing of movies and TV series, including soap operas, the most frequently exported and imported television genre.

The panel will debate the advantages and dangers involved in the expansion of "neutral" Spanish, a hybrid dialect designed to facilitate exports of TV programming within the Spanish-speaking market.

For the president of the Argentine Academy of Letters, Pedro Barcia, a standard dialect is detrimental to the Spanish language, because it eliminates the regional nuances that enrich it. Others, however, believe this neutral dialect is another vehicle for promoting the dissemination of the Spanish language, and should therefore not be scorned.

The third and final topic is "International Spanish and the Internationalisation of Spanish", and it will be addressed by specialists in communications, the media, and the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language.

The Cervantes Institute of Spain currently plays a leading role in the area of teaching Spanish to foreigners, granting international certificates for Spanish language proficiency.

However, various universities in other Spanish-speaking countries are also developing teaching and evaluation methods for certification purposes.

The participants in the 3rd Congress will attempt to reach an agreement on standard, unified criteria and the establishment of a single major certificate, like the Cambridge Certificate of proficiency in English.

Participants in the congress will be able to attend the ceremony commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quijote de la Mancha, which will include the launching of a new economically priced edition of the classic work by Miguel de Cervantes, with introductory notes by specialists and a glossary of terms used in the era when it was written.

The congress will also feature the presentation of a new Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts and Difficulties, although there will be only one copy, since the book will not actually be published until next May.

The new dictionary is the fruit of a joint effort undertaken by the academies based in various Spanish-speaking countries to reach a consensus on terms that have different meanings in different places, or for cases in which different terms are used to express the same meaning.