Royal Spanish Academy

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) is a Spanish cultural institution based in Madrid, Spain. This and twenty-three other language academies corresponding to each of the countries where Spanish is spoken make up the Association of Spanish Language Academies (ASALE).

It is dedicated to linguistic regularization through the promulgation of regulations aimed at promoting language unity within the various territories that make up the Spanish-speaking world and guaranteeing a common norm, in accordance with its founding statutes: «to ensure that the changes that experience [...] do not break the essential unity that it maintains throughout the Hispanic sphere".

It was founded in 1713 on the initiative of the enlightened Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, VIII Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena, in imitation of the French Academy. The following year, King Felipe V approved its constitution and placed it under his protection.In 1715, the Academy approved its first statutes.

The linguistic guidelines that he proposes are collected in various works. The priority ones are the dictionary, abbreviated DLE (art. 2 of its statutes), periodically published twenty-three times from 1780 to today; and grammar (4th), published between 2009 and 2011. It carries out its functions at the main headquarters, inaugurated in 1894, at 4 Felipe IV street, in the Los Jerónimos neighborhood, and at the Center for Studies of the Royal Spanish Academy and ASALE, at Calle Serrano 187-189, in 2007.

History

Foundation

Cover of the first edition Foundation and statutes of the Royal Spanish Academy (1715).

In 1711, Spain, unlike France, Italy and Portugal, did not have a large dictionary with a comprehensive lexicographical repertoire elaborated in a collegiate manner. The initial nucleus of the future Academy was formed that same year by the eight novatores who met in the library of the Madrid palace of Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, located in the Plaza de las Descalzas Reales in Madrid.

The Royal Spanish Academy was founded in 1713 at the initiative of Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, VIII Marquis of Villena and Duke of Escalona, with the purpose of «fixing the voices and words of the Castilian language in its greatest property, elegance and purity ». The objective was to fix the language in the state of fullness that it had reached during the XVI century and that had been consolidated in the seventeenth The Italian Accademia della Crusca (1582) and the French Academy (1635) were taken as a model for its creation. The first official session of the new corporation was held in the house of the Marquis of Villena on July 6, 1713, an event that is recorded in the minute book, initiated on August 3, 1713. Its creation, with twenty-four chairs, was approved on October 3, 1714 by Royal Decree of Felipe V, who welcomed it under his "protection and Royal Protection". This meant that the academics enjoyed the pre-eminence and exemptions granted to the servants of the Royal House. final.

Motto

Illustration with the slogan of the Academy (Edit of 1822).

In the awareness, according to the view of the time, that the Spanish language had reached a moment of utmost perfection, the purpose of the Royal Academy was «to fix the voices and words of the Castilian language in its greatest property, elegance and purity." This purpose was represented with an emblem formed by a crucible placed on fire, with the legend: "Clean, fix and give splendor". Therefore, the institution was born as an efficient work center, according to the founders, "at the service of the honor of the nation."

This vocation of collective utility became the main hallmark of the Spanish Academy, differentiating itself from other academies that had proliferated in the golden centuries and that were conceived as mere literary gatherings of an occasional nature.

Assurance

Fachada del Monte de Piedad de Madrid, next to which was the old Palacio del Marquis de Villena, the first meeting place of the Royal Academy.

Opening of the current building of the Royal Spanish Academy, 1894, The Spanish and American IllustrationJuan Comba's drawing.

In 1723, the marquis was granted 60,000 reales a year for his publications. Fernando VI allowed him to publish his works and those of his members without prior censorship.

In 1726, the first volume of the great dictionary of the time (the Dictionary of Authorities) was published and, in 1741, the orthography (the Spanish Orthographía). And later, in 1771, a grammar.

In 1784, María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda, the first woman with a doctorate from the University of Alcalá, was admitted as an honorary academic and, although she gave her thank-you speech, she never appeared again. She is counted among the first women academics in the world, there was not another female academic until the election of Carmen Conde as number academic in 1978.

In 1842, they requested a loan of eighty thousand reais for two years to finance the new Dictionary from José Nicasio Gallego, who was the secretary of the Royal Corporation itself. Through said loan, the Academy mortgaged all its assets. In 1847, the mortgage could be paid off.

In 1848, the Academy reformed its organization through new statutes, approved by Royal Decree. Successive royal decrees (1859, 1977, 1993) approved new reforms.

National Academies

After the independence of the American countries, the Royal Spanish Academy promoted the creation of corresponding academies in each of the young Spanish-American republics. This decision was motivated by the central idea of the movement called Pan-Hispanism or Hispano-Americanism, according to which the citizens of all nations of Spanish origin have the same language as their common homeland (Spanish) and share the heritage of the same literature. that there were precedents for national academies created independently of Hispaniola, such as the Academia de la Lengua de México (1835), which was dissolved to make way for the corresponding Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (1875), and that some of American academies, such as the Argentine Academy of Letters (1931), had no statutory link with the RAE until ASALE was founded. Since 1870, various Spanish-American academies statutorily subordinated to the RAE were established in America, which were called corresponding for maintaining a relationship by postal correspondence with the parent academy. To these were added the Argentine Academy of Letters, the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language, the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and the Equatoguinean Academy of the Spanish Language. These twenty-two academies, which have the same rank and conditions as the RAE, constitute with it the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE), founded in 1951 within the framework of the I Congress of Academies held in Mexico.

ASALE is the body for collaboration among all of them in the promotion of a pan-Hispanic language policy. This policy, embodied in numerous joint work projects, was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord in 2000, granted to the Royal Spanish Academy, together with the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language.

Countries with a Spanish language academy.

A new vision

On October 20, 1993, the Fundación pro Real Academia Española was established, an entity whose purpose is to attract economic resources to finance the activities and initiatives of the Academy. It is governed by a board of trustees, whose honorary presidency corresponds to the King of Spain, the presidency to the governor of the Bank of Spain and the vice-presidency to the director of the Royal Spanish Academy. The members correspond to other academics, presidents of the autonomous communities and private companies, as founding partners.

Facsimile of a page of the first edition of the statutes of the RAE (1715).

In the last statutes approved in 1993, it was considered necessary to subordinate the old founding motto —"Clean, fix and give splendor"— to the higher objective of working at the service of the language unit. The first article establishes, in this sense, that the Academy «has as its main mission to ensure that the changes experienced by the Spanish language in its constant adaptation to the needs of its speakers do not break the essential unity that it maintains throughout the Hispanic area». In this way, a commitment that the Academy had already assumed since the XIX century was sanctioned.

The Foundation is open to the participation of individuals through the corresponding financial fee, benefactor members, and among the subsidized activities are the creation of the data bank, the Student Dictionary, the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Dudes, the Normative Grammar and other works in project or development such as CORPES (Corpus del Español del Siglo XXI) or the Historical Dictionary.

Objectives

The first article of the statutes of the RAE says:

[...] has as its main mission to ensure that the changes experienced by the Spanish Language in its constant adaptation to the needs of its speakers do not detract from the essential unity that it maintains throughout the Hispanic sphere. It must also take care that this evolution preserves the genius of the language, as it has been consolidated with the running of the centuries, as well as of establishing and disseminating the criteria of ownership and correction, and of contributing to its splendor. In order to achieve these ends, he will study and promote studies on the history and the present of Spanish, disseminate literary writings, especially classic, and non-literary, which he considers important for the knowledge of such issues, and will seek to keep alive the memory of those who, in Spain or in America, have cultivated our language with glory. As a member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, he will maintain a special relationship with the Correspondent and Associated Academys.

Academics by number

The 46 full members of the Royal Spanish Academy are elected by co-option by the rest of the academics. Academic number seats are called “seats”, which have traditionally been distributed according to the letters of the Latin alphabet used in Spanish, both uppercase and lowercase (with the exception of seats in special or regional sections). According to a norm of respect, the provision of the position for a new academic begins from the sixth month after the death of the previous occupant of the corresponding chair.

The number academics are currently:

Notable Academics of the Past

Cover of the illustrated magazine The Sphere April 2, 1927. News of the election of Antonio Machado as a member of the Royal Spanish Academy (one of the few who neither spoke nor used the chair).

As a significant fact, the only one of the four Nobel Prize winners in Spanish Literature who did not enter the RAE as an academic was Juan Ramón Jiménez (awarded in October 1956 and died a year and a half later, on May 29, 1958).

Presence of women in the RAE

In 1784, perhaps due to pressure from the Court, María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda was admitted as an honorary Academician.

In 1853, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda applied for admission, which sparked a lengthy debate after which an agreement was reached not to accept women as full-time academics, a resolution that the Academy used until the beginning of the century XX and that would earn her the consideration of anti-feminist. In 1912 the petition of Emilia Pardo Bazán was rejected, despite the support of different institutions, under the agreement of 1853.

Concha Espina's candidacy was likewise rejected on two occasions (1928 and 1930), although in 1928 the Academy accepted Blanca de los Ríos's candidacy, which was put to a vote but was not elected. The candidacy of María Moliner was accepted and put to the vote in 1972, although on this occasion the vote was won by a large majority by the linguist Emilio Alarcos Llorach.

In 1978, almost three hundred years after its founding, the presence of women in the Royal Academy was accepted, Carmen Conde being the first woman to serve as Full Academician, occupying the K chair. Those of other women of recognized prestige in the world of letters have followed, such as Elena Quiroga de Abarca (1983), Ana María Matute (1998), María del Carmen Iglesias Cano (2002), Margarita Salas (2003), Soledad Puértolas (2010), Inés Fernández-Ordóñez (2011), Carme Riera (2013), Aurora Egido (2014), Clara Janés (2016), Paz Battaner (2017), Paloma Díaz-Mas (2022), Dolores Corbella (elected in 2022) and Asunción Gómez-Pérez (elected in 2022).

Organization and operation

According to its statutes, the RAE is made up of the following members:

• Number academics (46 in total)
• Spanish academics (up to a maximum of 60)
• Appropriate academics
• Academics of the number of American academies (which by law are corresponding academics)
• Academic fees.

Boardroom of the Royal Spanish Academy. Election of new president on November 22, 1906 in which Alejandro Pidal and Mon (No. 6 in photography) were investigated.

A governing board governs the Academy and supervises all matters related to its good operation, both in relation to its internal functioning and its relations with state agencies, and the other Academies. This board is chaired by the director of the Academy and is made up of the vice-director, the secretary, the censor, the librarian, the treasurer, the vice-secretary and two deputy members. All these positions are elective and, with the exception of the members, who are elected every two years, they can be held for four years, extendable only once.

The Academy works in plenary session and in Commissions that meet weekly. The Commissions have the mission of preparing the proposals that will later be examined by the Plenary to decide on their approval. Currently there are the following commissions: Delegate of the Plenary and for the Dictionary, Institute of Lexicography, Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Language, Publications and Bulletin, Harmonization of Academic Works, Harmonization of Linguistic Terminology, Conservative Commission of the Lope de Vega, Commission for the III Centenary of the RAE, Social Sciences, Scientific and Technical Vocabulary, Human Sciences, Culture I and Culture II.

The Plenary, made up of all academics, meets during the academic year on Thursday afternoons. Once the minutes of the previous session have been approved and any general topic has been discussed, the attendees present amendments and additions to the Dictionary. Immediately afterwards, the proposals formulated by the different Commissions are examined. Resolutions, in the event of disparity of criteria, are adopted by voting.

At the service of the works that the Academy develops in plenary or in Commissions, the Institute of Lexicography works, made up of philologists and lexicographers who carry out support tasks for the elaboration of academic dictionaries.

On April 16, 2020, it held the first virtual plenary session in its history due to the extension of the confinement measures due to the state of alarm caused by the coronavirus.

Santiago Muñoz Machado, director since 2018.

Directors of the RAE

Since its creation, the RAE has had thirty directors. There were also some cases of temporary directors, such as Vicente García de Diego, accidental director (1965-1968), and Rafael Lapesa, interim director (1988).

The position of director of the Royal Spanish Academy entails the position of president of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE).

RAE Publications

Volume V of the edition Dictionary of the Castilian language (1737).

Dictionary of Legal Spanish (2016).

Joint publications of the RAE and the Association of Spanish Language Academies (made up of the twenty-four Spanish language academies in the world).

Dictionaries

• Spanish language dictionary (DLE(1.a edition: 1780, 23rd edition: 2014); a volume of 2376 pages (it has 93 111 entries and 195 439 aceptions—of these, 18 712 are americanisms). Until the fourth edition (1803) took the title Dictionary of the Spanish languagefrom the fifth (1817) and until the fourteenth (1914), Castilian language dictionary by the Royal Spanish Academy. In the fifteenth edition (1925) the name was changed Castilian language for Spanish language, title that remains until the most recent edition. The 1914 edition and the previous editions are in public domain. The latest edition with all its updates can be accessed entirely on the internet at https://dle.rae.es/?w=diccionario.

• Essential Dictionary of the Spanish Language (2006): a volume of 1660 pages with 55 000 views. It is a summary work that made it a bridge between the 22nd and the 23rd edition.

• Pan-Hispanic dictionary of doubts (DPD) (2005): a volume of 834 pages. It is intended to resolve doubts related to the use of the Spanish language throughout the Spanish-speaking community. It is available online at the RAE site.
• American Dictionary (DA) (2010): a volume of 2400 pages (with 70,000 entries and 120 000 views). It is a lexicon repository specifically aimed at collecting Spanish words spoken in America.
• Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish (DEJ) (2016): a volume of 1669 pages (has 30 000 entries). Work carried out in collaboration with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) of Spain. Available in full online at https://dpej.rae.es/
• Student Dictionary (1st edition: 2005, 2nd edition: 2011): a volume of 1544 pages (has 40 000 entries). Work aimed at high school and high school students. Replaces the RAE School Dictionary (1996).

• Practical dictionary of the student (1st edition: 2007, 2nd edition: 2012): a volume of 852 pages (with 30 000 entries). Adaptation for Hispanic America Student Dictionary. Work for sale only on the American continent.

Grammar

• New grammar of the Spanish language (1st edition: 1771, last edition: 2009-2011). The latter is the first Pan-Hispanic grammar and replaces the previous one Grammar of the Spanish language (1931) and Sword of a New grammar of the Spanish language (1973). The first edition of this work is in the public domain

• Published in three different versions according to the extension:

1. New grammar. Full edition (2009 and 2011): 3 volumes totaling 4808 pages. Tomos 1 and 2: Morphology and Syntax (in 2009); Volume 3: Phonetics and Phonology, together with the DVD The Voices of Spanish (in 2011).
2. Manual of the New Grammar (2010): a volume of 750 pages.
3. New basic grammar (2011): in pocket format of 326 pages.

• RAE also published two other non-institutional grammars:

• Grammar of the Spanish language (from RAE scholar Emilio Alarcos Llorach, 1994).
• Descriptive grammar of the Spanish language (3 volumes, directed by Ignacio Bosque and Violeta Demonte, 1999).

Spelling

• Orthography of the Spanish language (1st edition: 1741, last edition: 2010). Since 1999, it is a pan-Hispanic orthographic work and replaces the New rules of prosody and spelling 1959 and the previous academic edition of 1999. The first edition of this work is in the public domain

• Published in three different versions according to the extension:

1. Orthography. Full edition (2010): a volume of 864 pages.
2. Basic language (2012): in pocket format of 252 pages.
3. School spelling (2013): in 64-page format.

• The good use of Spanish (2013): a volume of 560 pages. It is a work of linguistic norm aimed at solving grammatical and orthographic doubts and uncertainties.
• Spanish Language Style Book (2018): a volume of 568 pages. It is a Spanish language style book according to the Pan-Hispanic standard.

Other publications

• Dictionary of authorities (Original title: Dictionary of the Castilian language, which explains the true meaning of the voices, their nature and quality, with the phrases or reasons to speak, the proverbs or sayings and other convenient things of the use of the language6 vols, 1726-1739). There is a facsimile edition of 2013, commemorating the third centenary of the institution. The first edition of this work is in the public domain

• New Lexicographic Treasure of the Spanish Language (NTLLE(2 DVD, 2001), digital database of 50 Spanish language dictionaries from Antonio de Nebrija (1495) to the Academic dictionary of 1992, which includes all those published by the SAR until then. It is the first academic publication on DVD published in the world. Its version is accessible from the RAE website: NTLLE.
  • It should not be confused with the work New Lexicographic Treasure of Spanish (s. XIV-1726) [11 vols., 2007], by Lidio Nieto Jiménez and Manuel Alvar Ezquerra, which reflects the history of words through all dictionaries, glossaries and repertoires since the centuryXIV until 1726, date of publication Dictionary of authorities RAE.
• Primitive Hispanic lexicon. VIII-XII century (first volume: 1976, incomplete). Glossary of the Iberian lexicon primitive. Made by Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Rafael Lapesa.
• Manual and illustrated dictionary of the Spanish language (1st edition: 1927, 4th edition: 1989).
• Bulletin of the Royal Spanish Academy (from 1914).

Current projects

• New Spanish Historical Dictionary (NDHE). In the development phase. He'll replace Historical dictionary of the Spanish language (first volume of 1933-1936, incomplete) and Historical dictionary (wrought between 1960 and 1996). It will use as a base New Lexicographic Treasure of Spanish (s. XIV-1726) and Dictionary of authorities. It will present in an organized way the evolution of Spanish lexicon over time.

Classical Library of the RAE

• The Classical Library of the Royal Spanish Academy presents, in 111 volumes, the fundamental works of Spanish and Spanish-American literature until the end of the centuryXIX in critical editions, scored and approved. The first work published in this collection, started in 2011, was the Singing from my Cidand every year new titles are published. See the complete list of works here.

Commemorative Editions

All the works are published by the RAE and the ASALE.

• Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), by Miguel de Cervantes. Published in 2004 on the occasion of the fourth centenary of its publication and republished in 2015 by the fourth centenary of the author's death.
• Hundred years of solitude (1967), by Gabriel García Márquez. Published in 2007 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its publication and the 80th birthday of the author.
• The most transparent region (1958), by Carlos Fuentes. Published in 2008 on the 50th anniversary of its publication and the 80th birthday of the author.
• Pablo Neruda. General anthologyPaul Neruda. Published in 2010 on the occasion of the Fifth International Congress of the Spanish Language, which was not finally held in Chile due to the earthquake.
• Gabriela Mistral in verse and proseGabriela Mistral. Published in 2010, also on the occasion of the Fifth International Congress of Spanish Language.
• The city and the dogs (1963), by Mario Vargas Llosa. Posted in 2012 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of a "fundamental work of the Latin American boom", as the RAE stated in a statement.
• Reuben Darius. From symbol to realityRuben Darío. Published in 2016 on the occasion of the centenary of the author's death and coinciding with the VII International Congress of the Spanish Language.
• The hive (1951), by Camilo José Cela. Published in 2016 on the occasion of the centenary of the author's birth.
• Essential Borgesby Jorge Luis Borges. Published in 2016 for the 30 years of the author's death.
• I the Supreme (1974), by Augusto Roa Bastos. Published in 2017 on the occasion of the centenary of the author's birth.
• Rayuela (1963), from Julio Cortázar. Published in 2019, in the framework of the III International Congress of Spanish Language in Córdoba, Argentina.
• The President (1946), by Miguel Angel Asturias. Published in 2020.
• I broke up in his century. An anthologyJosé Martí. Published in 2021.

Third Centenary Collection

They are special editions of works by Spanish authors from the 19th and 20th centuries that commemorate the 300th anniversary of the institution. The collection began with La busca, by Pío Baroja, and Misericordia, by Benito Pérez-Galdós.

Magazines

The RAE publishes two magazines in digital format and open access:

• Bulletin of the Royal Spanish Academy (BRAE): Scientific, semi-annual and open-access journal specializing in Spanish literature and linguistics.
• Bulletin of Linguistic Information of the Royal Spanish Academy (BILRAE): Revista de acceso libre sobre temas de Normantividad linguistic.

Works on the RAE

• History of the Royal Spanish Academy (1999), by Alonso Zamora Vicente.
• The Royal Spanish Academy. Life and history (2014), by Víctor García de la Concha.
• At the bottom of the letter. Fantastic geography of the Spanish alphabet (1.a ed. 2001, 2nd ed. 2007, and 3rd ed. 2014). Work in which different scholars pay tribute to the alphabet letters that designate their places in the corporation.
• Academic speeches. Pedro Álvarez de Miranda leads the edition of 12 entrance speeches by academics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The commemorations of the Third Centenary are included and published by the New Library.

Royal Spanish Academy Award

The «Royal Spanish Academy Award» is a literary award given by the Royal Spanish Academy since 2004, annually, alternating between the categories of literary creation and philological research.

Fonts

References