This is an interesting article I read today in
El Nuevo Día, Abril 27, 2005
What's happening with Spanish today (from a Puerto Rican point of view).
Some of you may or may not know that languages have a governing body and subsidiaries in countries where that particular language is spoken. The Spanish governing body is
La Real Academia Española founded in 1713 in Madrid. Since Spanish is the official language of over twenty countries the RAE supported the need to have
Academias Hispanoamericanas to resolve the resulting complexities of the Spanish speaking world. As a result other subsidiary
Academias were founded in Ecuador (1874), México (1875), Sto. Domingo (1927), Puerto Rico (1955) and a North American establishment in NYC in 1973. (There are more in other countries see article for the entire list).
This article is a tribute to the 50th anniversary of
La Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española and the challenges it faces with Spanish and Spanish in
PR. The challenges that the
Academia Puertorriqueña faces in the 21st century include:
● Spanish today coexists with other languages in the greater majority of Spanish speaking countries.
● the population of Spanish speakers in non-Spanish speaking countries continues to increase. (Especially in the USA and Brazil)
● In all places the challenge is how to deal with technological terms and new words etc.
Among the many projects they are working on, one includes the first
Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas which
La Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española has contributed to since 1999.
In order for the
La Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española to keep pace they are in constant communication with all the other respective
Academias and with the RAE in Madrid to keep up to date with new linguistic usage in the Spanish speaking world and to give immediate attention to newly-coined words. As well, since
PR is an official bilingual country (bilingüismo oficial y político) the challenge is even greater for their local governing body as compared to others to keep pace with a very high number of anglicisms and their would be Spanish equivalents.
El español y el inglés de Puerto Rico
● From a cultural and linguistic point of view English is very strong in
PR due to the movement of Puerto Ricans back and forth to the island. It is believed that "everyone" speaks English in
PR. However, although there is a significant number of English speaking Puerto Ricans as per the article "el grueso de la población isleña es monolingüe". (the bulk of population is monolingual).
● The public educational system is deficient when it comes to teaching Spanish and English thus further effecting the vernacular language. However, trends show that those who have a strong command of Spanish have the same command in English.
● The article also states that the academic deficiencies
PR faces in Spanish applies to all of Latin America and Spain.
I found the article interesting because it compliments my theory that Spanish is facing very tough challenges in the 21st century to keep up with technological, business and administrative terms. The usage of the Internet for everything and anything has exacerbated the problem in my opinion. There are not enough Spanish terms in the aforementioned fields equivalent to English terms. I for one will keep a high level interest in this area as Spanish is forced to evolve. I just hope it does not sound anymore English than it already does at times. I don't know if the equivalent governing body in the DR is facing the same degree of challenges as
La Academia Puertorriqueña but surely as evidenced by other articles on this subject matter the DR has its fair share of English "influence" in the same sectors. The challenge has become one not only of
PR and DR but of all Spanish speaking countries.
Here is the link:
http://www.endi.com
Go to FORO and click on "Cincuenta años de la Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española".
LDG.
(64)
Lo que está pasando con el español desde el punto de vista puertorriqueño
