As they would say in her Canarian land, Dolores Corbella Díaz is already “a mainstay” of the Spanish language. She is a professor of Romance Philology at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), a position she achieved at the age of 37, she has been elected a member of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) in the plenary session held this afternoon by the institution in Madrid. “It was in the first vote”, in which two thirds of the votes are required, Corbella reported in a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS. Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 62 years old, she is “the first Canarian to enter as a full academician in the RAE”, as she herself has underlined. Corbella will sit in chair d, vacant due to the death of the Hellenist Francisco Rodríguez Adrados on July 24, 2020. “It is a great responsibility and a commitment because more than 85 years ago a Canary Islander did not enter the RAE. The last one was the physicist Blas Cabrera Felipe, who read his speech [en enero de 1936] and then went into exile. So far there have only been four”, he added.
A great expert in the study of the Canarian dialect lexicon, Corbella directs the Department of French and Romance Philology at the University of La Laguna. She was director of the Institute of Canarian Studies and member of the advisory council of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Government of the Canary Islands, reports the RAE. In addition, he co-founded the research institute Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMyR).
The one chosen today was already a corresponding academic of the RAE in the Canary Islands since 2015 (as a correspondent) and opted for the third time to enter the institution. On the previous two occasions, she was defeated in the votes by the playwright Juan Mayorga, in 2019, and the philologist and novelist Paloma Díaz-Mas, in 2021. Today she was the only candidate. Corbella has confessed that she was not very clear about trying again. “Those who have introduced me insisted that it was important for my knowledge as a lexicographer, for the technique of making dictionaries. Nothing is achieved without effort”. Corbella’s candidacy had been endorsed, as established by the RAE statutes, by three academics: Emilio Lledó, José Antonio Pascual and Carme Riera.
Regarding the use of language, he considers: “We should be concerned about the actual use and taking it to dictionaries. Language is the most democratic thing there is and we should not impose it, but be close to it, to that reality”. In addition to her status as a lexicographer, she wants to contribute her study “for years of the Canarian lexicon, which is a compendium of the Andalusian and a bridge with the American”. And about inclusive language she points out: “What is needed are female referents, I am a lexicographer, a word that the Dictionary only picked up from 1984.
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The chosen one now has a period of two years to read her entrance speech. Corbella declares that it will deal with “the archeology of words, analyzing where they come from, when they are documented”, focused on the Canarian lexicon, “which is a variety that is recognized and well studied today, but I have to focus, I am still active, with my classes,” he added.
Corbella belongs to the editorial or scientific council of several publishers and magazines in his specialty, although circumscribing his merits to the study of the Canarian language would be an alilaya (a frivolity), as his countrymen would express. She is the author of more than one hundred and thirty articles and some thirty scientific monographs. The first major publication of her line of research was Lexicographic treasure of the Spanish of the Canary Islands (1992; 1996). “It marked a milestone because other similar works were made from that model in other areas”, he pointed out.
Since then, she has co-authored publications such as differential dictionaryfrom 1996; Example dictionary of Canarianisms (2009), Canary-American lexicon treasure (2010), Historical dictionary of the Spanish of the Canary Islands (2001; 2013) or a work by whose name you already want to consult: Atlantic Sugar Lexicon (2014), in which he showed that many terms in this field that were believed to be American were previously used in the Canary Islands.
Always a defender of the voices of her land and their use, not only of the most popular ones, like bus for bus, but also of archaisms, like drawer for drawer, she is also the author of the natural history dictionary (2014), dedicated to the figure of the enlightened Canarian José de Viera y Clavijo, biologist and historian.
His research has also been directed to other lands for his knowledge of American Spanish and Portuguese, as highlighted in the monograph Spanish and Portuguese in contact. Lexical loans and interferences (2017), and the book History of the Spanish lexicon and digital humanities. Corbella has also edited collective works, such as The Spanish of the Canary Islands today: analysis and perspectives (nineteen ninety six), New contributions to linguistic historiography (2004), Linguistic historiography in the Hispanic sphere (2007), Dialectological research today (2009) or The Atlantic sugar route: History and documentation (2012).
Among his awards, the Philological Research Prize stands out, which was awarded in 2011 by the RAE jointly with Cristóbal Corrales —whom he considers his “master”—, for the work Canary-American lexicon treasure. Both philologists have formed the so-called La Laguna school of lexicography. It was precisely with Corrales that he published his latest title, The covert canarity of Benito Pérez Galdós (2020), in the centenary year of the novelist’s death.
The RAE has 46 academic chairs and after Corbella’s election the letters A, q and X are vacant. Currently there are 40 full academics, seven of them women, waiting for their entrance speeches to be read by Paloma Díaz-Mas , José María Bermúdez de Castro and now Dolores Corbella. The places are for life and as a curiosity there are eight letters of the alphabet that do not have a chair: v, w, x, y, z, Ñ, W, Y.
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