spanish

Spain is all abuzz with the recent publication of a new book of Spanish grammar compiled and edited by the Royal Spanish Academy, in conjunction with affiliate Language Academies around the Spanish-speaking world.  A book of this nature has not been released since 1931, and affiliate Language Academies have been asking the Royal Language Academy in Spain to be more descriptive, rather than prescriptive, in its grammar, so this new edition seems to be a response to that.  The book, according to this item in the BBC News online, is the result of 11 years of work, and comes out to around 4,000 pages (and at 120 euros, it’s no minor investment).

The significance of the Academy’s descriptive approach to grammar is sure to be felt outside of Spain.  For many years, any grammatical norm in a Latin American country was considered incorrect if it was not spoken in Spain and codified by that country’s Language Academy.  One example would be the grammatical form “vos”, used to informally address a single person in place of the standard Spanish “tú”, which is used in multiple countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica and Guatemala.  It looks as though the powers-that-be of the Spanish language are finally recognizing and accepting the richness of the language, spoken by roughly 500 million people worldwide.

The release of this tome may also serve as a reminder to non-Spanish speakers that the language is much, much richer than they realize.