Spanish language authority.

• Author: Bianco, Adriana
• Position: !Ojo!

IN 1713, THE ROYAL Academy of the Spanish Language was founded in Madrid with the objective of stopping Gallicisms and other corruptions threatening the Spanish language. The stated purpose was to "clean up, define, and give splendor" to Castillian Spanish.

Years later in 1726, the six volumes of the Diccionario de autoridades appeared. They were the precursor to the famous Diccionario de la lengua espanola, the ultimate authority and reference point for the Spanish language. Over the last 250 years, Spanish language academies have been founded in all of the Spanish speaking countries. The first was the Colombian Academy, founded in 1871, and the last was the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, founded in New York in 1973.

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Since Spanish is the second most common language in the United States and is spoken by more than 45 million of its inhabitants--now fifteen percent of the population and growing--the topic of the Academy and the Spanish language have taken on particular importance.

The Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Espanola (ANLE) is based in New York and is directed by writer Gerardo Pina-Rosales, Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at Lehman College, City University of New York.

Pina-Rosales says: "In the 1960s in New York, a group of Spanish and Latin American writers and professors, including Odon Betanzos Palacios, Eugenio Chang Rodriguez, and Juan Aviles, were inspired by the ideas of the great philologist Tomas Navarro Tomas to oreare an academy of Spanish language in the United States. Since the United States is an English speaking country, there was a fair amount of resistance to the idea even though Spanish is the most widely spoken language on the continent. The International Congress of the Academy approved the North American Academy of Spanish Language in Lima in 1973, and ANLE was incorporated into the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language with equal rights in 1980."

Since then, ANLE has been promoting the correct use of the Spanish language and the conservation of the Hispanic heritage. It encourages Spanish speakers to maintain their linguistic roots and it promotes...