Talk:Royal Spanish Academy

Confusion about wording

 * For instance in 1994 it ruled that the Spanish consonants ch and ll would be alphabetized normally, and not as separate letters as in the past.

I find this sentence incredibly confusing. The most obvious interpretation, for me, of normally would be placing ch after cz and ll after lz, as I learned to do it a few years ago when I took Spanish (and I can only assume most of the native Spanish speakers learned to do as well). The most obvious interpretation, for me, of as separate letters would be that c and h are separate letters, resulting in placing ch after cg. Only the phrase in the past hints that the situation is in fact the exact opposite of the one I would have otherwise surmised. Does anyone disagree? Does anyone agree? Can we think of a better way to say this? 66.32.73.115 01:45, 22 December 2004 (UTC)


 * Where are you from? What the author was saying was that the entity 'ch' was thought of as a (1) letter. A single letter. If it weren't a separate letter, its parts would fall into the normal alphabetical order of the dictionary. As a separate letter, it had its own place after the letter c. Don't let the fact that the letter 'ch' was composed of two characters confuse you. The same goes for 'll'. --Djacobs 18:56, 7 April 2005 (UTC)


 * It is a quite logical and reasonable confusion. That isn't a terminology in general use. And it isn't essential to characterize it as being "one letter" in order to alphabetize it as if it were. Gene Nygaard 14:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Non neutrality
I find this article to be a little bit non neutral and certain statements, just like the one that says that its goal is "to assure that Spanish speakers will always be able to read Cervantes". It does not have any documentation or reference.

On the other hand, I am a native spanish speaker from Latin America and I have never perceived that it receives criticism from us for being too conservative. People just talk the way they want to as long as we understand ourselves no matter what the dictionary says; even though we recognize when we are not speaking in a correct manner.

It looks to me the article is incomplete and needs revision. A good source to add a few things (even though that isn't a really complete article either) is the spanish version of the article. Dominican 17:10, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Connotation of the English translation of "fija".
I changed the translation of the motto "Limpia, fija y da esplendor", from '[The academy] cleans, fixes and gives splendor' to 'cleans steadies and gives splendor' because in English, the verb "to fix" can mean either to fix something which is incorrect or to fix something which is not anchored. The latter is a more accurate interpretation of the Spanish use of "fija". NichCharles 23:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've checked this with a friend who is a linguist in Spain and whose native language is Spanish.  I asked her what the motto meant in English, and she says that "fija" in that motto means "it settles" or "it establishes", which sounds more precise in English than "steadies" or "affixes".  (Also, as hinted to above: the verb "fijar" never means "to correct" or "to repair" like "to fix" does in English.  "Fijar" always means "to fix in place" as in "to nail down".)  --Closeapple 23:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think in this case "fijar" is best translated to "establishes" because ultimately the academy does establish the language. It does not necessarily "fix" the language as we think of fix in English.--MrNiceGuy1113 (talk) 16:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Wording was "... sets and gives splendour". I changed it to "... sets and casts splendour" because I think is a better translation. Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

"Fijar" also means "to keep an eye out" as in "Fijate en lo que haces" = "Keep an eye out on what you are doing"; I guess this meaning is just an extension of "to fix in place". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.160.77.20 (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that meaning is only applicable as a pronominal verb, meaning it requires the presence of a "me", "se", "te", "nos" or "os", which is NOT the case here. Check it out. Also I'm willing to bet the actual meaning here is #4: "Determinar, limitar, precisar, designar de un modo cierto. Fijar el sentido de una palabra, la hora de una cita."/"To determine, delimitate, precise, designate in a concrete way. [Fijar] the meaning of a word, the time for an appointment". Also, I know it's been nearly a decade since this discussion, but when did the translation get changed back to a mere "fixes"? 213.94.18.239 (talk) 16:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Clarification on purpose and recognition
I am commenting here because of a minor heated debate in the "Spanish Language" discussion page (don't know if any of the same folks read this discussion as well). There has been some debate about the role of the RAE with regard to the Spanish language which this article does not directly address. It occurs to me that it is worth addressing this (or at least more acknowledge the controversy).

The debate is basically how widely the RAE's authority extends in defining the language. That is to say, is it fair to say that the RAE's definition of Spanish is considered the "correct language" by the majority of the Spanish-speaking world or is it more fair to say that the RAE defines a standard that is recognized as only applying to a minority of the Spanish-speaking populous. The article seems to imply the former but does not directly answer the question.

One particular reason to ask this question is so as to answer the following question. When writing about the contemporary Spanish language in general, is it more appropriate to write about the RAE standard and mention the colloquial dialects (as presumably the RAE would recommend) or is it more appropriate to write about the colloquial use of the language and mention the RAE as one attempt at standardization (as usually is done with English since there is no well established standard)? --Mcorazao 20:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It is actually more complicated than that. For things like including words in the Diccionario de la Lengua, the RAE sends word suggestions to the national academies for approval/comments before including them. On the other hand, for things like ortography and semantics they tend to be rather more prescriptive, though they do note local variants when it is pertinent to do so. Finally, the RAE also tends to update their own manuals to reflect (more or less) current usage of the language so in that sense it is also descriptive. Then you also have to consider the role of the national academies... I know this doesn't really answer your question, but hopefully will help you realize this is not a black/white situation. -- Run e Welsh | &tau;&alpha;&lambda;&kappa; 22:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

nonsense
I think this paragraph is nonsense:
 * «In 1959 it added an acute accent (from upper-right to lower-left) to the orthography (spelling) of conjugations, for example, to: reunió ("reunited", "gathered together") a past form of: reunir ("to reunite", "to gather together") to ensure that the individual letters eu were spoken individually, and not as a single-sound diphthong.» —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.38.181.214 (talk) 15:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Whoever wrote it may have been thinking about present tense forms like reúno, reúne. Anyway I took it out and replaced it with a general paragraph about orthography and the RAE. Still needs some work. CapnPrep (talk) 19:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Weasel-worded ideological sentence
What does it mean to say that the Academy "has come under fire" for not using free licenses? WHO has made this criticism? Phrasing it as an impersonal sentence just makes it seem that this is some Linux user with an agenda about "free licenses" invading the article for ideological reasons. Bullofconfusion (talk) 23:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Trivia from Ch (digraph)

 * Each board member of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) has traditionally been assigned a seat at the board that is identified by an uppercase or lowercase letter of the Spanish alphabet. Thus, given that traditionally the digraphs ch and ll were considered single letters in the Spanish alphabet (with their own names che and elle), the Academy has four of its seats labelled CH, ch, LL and ll. This practice has been maintained even after the Association of Spanish Language Academies ruled in 1994 that, in order to facilitate international compatibility, these two digraphs be no longer collated as separate letters.

Removed trivia from other article that doesn't really belong. May be added in a section here, where it's a little more appropriate, and a link placed in the other article. — Eru·tuon 01:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Translated pieces from Spanish Wikipedia article
Krubo (talk) 01:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Added second paragraph.
I translated the second paragraph from the Spanish Wikipedia. I am not completely sure of the translation of the founding charter quote, which in Spanish is as follows: "velar por que los cambios que experimente [...] no quiebren la esencial unidad que mantiene en todo el ámbito hispánico." Anyone who can help fix or confirm this please let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrNiceGuy1113 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Limpia, fija y da esplendor – verbs and/or adjectives?
At the risk of being accused of carrying out original research, or worse, of turning this into a forum, and notwithstanding the translation issue mentioned above, I'd just like to raise the issue of whether the motto of the RAE uses verbs or adjectives. In short, an editor has postulated that the "correct" translation is "Clean, fixed, and casts splendour" (adjective + adjective + verb...), whereas there is no doubt in my mind that it should be "[it] cleans, sets, and casts splendour" (verb + verb + verb...), which has been the consensus to date (translation issues mentioned above notwithstanding).

The reference given to "prove" that we're dealing with adjectives is precisely the reference I was going to give to "prove" that they are verbs, but I finally refrained from doing so because, apart from being a primary source, it don't "prove" nothin' either way. So, just to set the ball rolling, mottos take many forms ("Fortune favors the bold", "Who dares wins", "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" or, to use well-known Spanish mottos, "Dios, Patria y Libertad" and "Una, Grande y Libre") but they need to follow some sort of elementary syntactical/grammatical pattern. BTW, it's true that in phrases like "Ready, steady, go!" the transition is adjective + adjective + verb, but there we ain't talking about a motto, are we?

Why should the guys (women were not admitted to that august body until 1979) who had obviously spent no small amount of time thinking up a motto for their learned institution dedicated to linguistic prescription go from adjective + adjective + verb when the logical/natural structure would seem to be be either adjective + adjective + adjective OR verb + verb + verb? They're obviously not exhorting anyone to do something: they're simply stating what their function is.

OK, so the bottom line is that "the RAE cleans, sets, and casts splendour" to the language, not that "the Spanish language is clean, set, and casts splendour". Q.E.D. --Technopat (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

PS. There is, of course, an even deeper bottom line which is that y'all come up with countless reliable sources, each offering different translations, and none of which will concur with Wikipedia's accepted version, thereby casting the shadow of a doubt over the whole issue of the reliability of what are considered reliable sources. Spanish sighs! --Technopat (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Just for the record, I've never been too happy with the translation of the motto, but as I have unable to come up with a better suggestion, am willing to accept the consensus version as it stands. --Technopat (talk) 11:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, those are in word to word order "adjetive, adjetive conjuntion verb adjetive"--201.189.148.157 (talk) 04:31, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

At some time before April 2021 the translation of the motto has been corrupted again, this time to "To clean, make certain, and give splendor", which is one of the worse versions so far. I'm changing it back to "Cleans, sets and shines". 81.37.92.190 (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Probably a translator I know would agree with you, because she is adamantly against transliterating, but I bring objection to the use of "shines" because in the motto in Spanish they didn't choose to use a single word as "shines" (transliterated as [lang:es] "brilla"), they chose to write "gives splendor" (transliterated as [lang:es] "da esplendor"). Why did they choose to use an obscure phrase instead of a single word? I don't know. So to try to also reflect such action of the original author of the motto, I chose to translate it as "gives splendor". Thinker78 (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 01:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "Clean, fix, and give splendor" "(The RAE) cleans, fixes and gives splendor" is perfectly correct, but with all due respect, it seems pointless to debate what the proper translation of the motto should be in English, since there is no single transcendently true translation. It seems in order to decide what it should not be, if that can be demonstrated.  Believing that the best translation may be a matter of taste, I can only offer at the moment the sentiments expressed in my edit summary: There are quite a few correct ways this could be translated, but the translation does not have to be so literal: a more elegant translation is "It purifies, it fixes, and it dignifies". I stand by that—as far as I know, the RAE itself does not give an official English translation. Carlstak (talk) 02:23, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, what you stated first is not perfectly correct, unless you are assuming it is "(They) clean, fix, and give splendor". But considering that the RAE is referring to itself, the correct form would be "(The RAE) cleans, fixes and gives splendor".--Thinker78 (talk) 00:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've struck that out and corrected it. I even had noticed my mistake previously, but got distracted and forgot to do so. I plead mental fatigue from general lack of sleep.;-) Carlstak (talk) 01:44, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Cast → bestow or confer
Following on from previous objections regarding a "better" translation of "da esplendor" (casts splendour), any objections to "bestow" or "confer"? These terms are pretty archaic, but so is the motto. --Technopat (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Prescriptive?
For me, this article makes the Academy sound quite prescriptive. How-ever, this quotation from the Director sounds otherwise: "'La Academia', recordó Salvador Gutiérrez, 'no dicta las normas, sino que estudia el lenguaje que se habla, recoge y expone;....'" (http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/2013/12/12/52a9d8fd63fd3d0c788b4576.html?a=e1017c79219ff622f70c967f089b38f1&t=1386869710&goback=.gde_660437_member_5817333889084985345#!). Kdammers (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The DPD is considered of prescrive nature as is stated in they works and other interviews. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.20.54.77 (talk) 05:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Any references on RAE's work actually being perceived as prescriptive rather than the self-declared "notarial" attitude? Right now I'm seeing a contradiction between the intro's position (prescriptive) and the "Fundamentals section" (notarial), and I'm about to make note of the later in the former while also keeping mention the former's position, but seeing no references supporting the prespictivist position and having no idea where to find them, I'm very tempted to add a "citation needed" in there. 213.94.18.239 (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I started on an expansion on this using the es article but stalled as busy elsewhere. I still plan to expand it.   scope_creep Talk  20:01, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Quote - not verifiable
Its aristocratic founder described its aims as "to assure that Spanish speakers will always be able to read Cervantes" – by exercising a progressive up-to-date maintenance of the formal language.  scope_creep Talk  22:12, 10 July 2024 (UTC)