The IX International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE) held in Cádiz and closed this Thursday has revealed the good health of Spanish in all its areas and its respectful unity of diversity, but also some of its shortcomings. This was recognized by the director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), Santiago Muñoz Machado, and the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, who made a “more than positive” balance. “It has been a ‘bastinazo’ (one pass, a pepinazo)”, he said, resorting to popular Cádiz speech. Despite this optimism for the universal expansion of our language, there is still a long way to go. “The displacement of English as the lingua franca in the world is impossible,” acknowledged Muñoz Machado, who asked for more resources from the State to support the Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asale).
This organization confirmed on Thursday night that the 2025 CILE will be held in Arequipa, hometown of the Peruvian-Spanish Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa and where this meeting should have been held, moved to Cádiz due to the political instability in the Andean country. The writer was notably absent from the congress, which was not attended by the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, and in which his colleagues José Manuel Albares, Nadia Calviño and Isabel Rodríguez were present. It is estimated that it has generated more than 54 million impacts in the media in 70 countries.
“We have confirmed a feeling of great optimism for the growth of Spanish in the world and the exponential increase in students”, the leaders of the congress congratulated themselves at its closing. They celebrated the strength and maintenance of the unity of Spanish “within the diversity of a mestizo language” that increasingly merges more naturally with other languages, bearing fruit in Spanglish or Portuñol in literature or cinema.
Quality
But Muñoz Machado lamented the loss of quality of the language on the networks and the abandonment of the Spanish regulations in the digital sphere. “It is necessary to strengthen the works that constitute the pan-Hispanic norm that includes the academic regulation and that have enormous diffusion, such as the academic dictionary (DLE), with more than a billion visits a year,” he said. “In this congress we have updated the main works of the Academy”, he congratulated himself, confirming that the ‘Dictionary of synonyms’ will be available in autumn, together with the DLE update, and that the digital edition of the Pan-Hispanic of doubts.
In the opinion of Muñoz Machado “there is a lot to invest in education” and to achieve a greater presence of Spanish in international institutions. “Germany and France spend more, and the Cervantes and the universities deserve more support from the State, knowing that the royal academies are not educational,” he stressed. “It is extremely difficult to displace French from English as languages in the European institutions, and displacing English as the world’s lingua franca is impossible. There is no one in the big corporations and in the big world politics that does not handle it, but what we aspire to is to gain more diffusion”, he said.
The director of the RAE asked for more support and more money for Asale, which integrates 22 other institutions. “We need the support of the State to be able to function and we are not asking for huge amounts. We are content to function with dignity, but we barely have enough money to pay for the secretary we have on the second floor. There must be more money for Asale: it is a first degree diplomatic operation and the most important association in cultural matters that Spanish has something that does not exist in any other country. It is a miracle that we must protect », he concluded.
The director of the RAE is not concerned about the document signed by a thousand personalities from around the world warning of the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) and asking for the momentary suspension of their investigations. “AI causes illusions and some concerns. The power of the invention is enormous, but there are no robots that can impose themselves on human intelligence, as required by the first principle of robotics”, he said, admitting that it is a concern for the European Union and Unesco.
“We work with Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, which have the tools to use canonical Spanish and respect the rules, just like humans do,” added Muñoz Machado. “While in the US it is said that self-regulation is best, that each company sets its ethical limits, we believe that the path is to establish regulations so that whatever they want is not done anywhere and anywhere” he explained.
Frictions, urgencies and egos
Both Muñoz Machado and García Montero wanted to minimize the friction experienced between the organizers of the Congress -RAE, Cervantes and Exteriors- and that both blamed the urgency of completing in three months what should have been prepared in three years. The frictions were due to urgency and perhaps some clash of egos.
«If what happens around the discussion of a tilde happens, let’s imagine when more than 1,300 people have to move around the world and decide how and where things are organized. There are certain personalities who sometimes have reactions that are not prudent for the spirit of cooperation, but we must be grateful that despite the difficulties this congress has been able to be held on schedule and with a more than reasonable development”, explained the director of Cervantes .
«Each congress shows that the collaboration of the institutions is very important and Cervantes is clear that it was lucky that, after Zacatecas, Asale joined the organization. That is why collaboration with all countries is essential,” said García Montero. “From there, there are situations in which friction arises, and in this case the last-minute need to change from Arequipa to Cádiz favored some kind of urgency and that situations in which friction arose have been resolved.”
Muñoz Machado celebrated that the Spanish language is today “a matter of State”, as evidenced in Cádiz. «Aid is available from the Government to develop important language policies. But from the point of view of the activity, the RAE is very jealous of our autonomy and we keep our distance from politics”, he said. “We are not a state body and it is not possible for it to be, but we are pleased to see that the Government is interested in the language as a cultural matter of interest to Spain,” he concluded.
«If what happens around the discussion of a tilde happens, let’s imagine when more than 1,300 people have to move around the world and decide how and where things are organized. There are certain personalities who sometimes have reactions that are not prudent for the spirit of cooperation, but we must be grateful that despite the difficulties this congress has been able to be held on schedule and with a more than reasonable development”, explained the director of Cervantes .
«Each congress shows that the collaboration of the institutions is very important and Cervantes is clear that it was lucky that, after Zacatecas, Asale joined the organization. That is why collaboration with all countries is essential,” said García Montero. “From there, there are situations in which friction arises, and in this case the last-minute need to change from Arequipa to Cádiz favored some kind of urgency and that situations in which friction arose have been resolved.”
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