The Spanish Language Needs Our Help

Filed in archive Latin Chat , Latin Culture on April 13, 2007

Dear words from our childhood, words that designate objects that no longer exist and words that were replaced by "extranjerismos" (an innovation in the Spanish language whose source is a foreign language) will be part of a "virtual reserve".

The Apadrina una Palabra (Support a Word) is a project created by the Escuela de Escritores de Madrid (Writers School of Madrid); the project's goal is "to save the greater possible number of those words threatened by the lexical poverty, swept by the politically correct language."

Between 1992 and 2001, more than 6.000 Spanish words lost their space in the dictionary of the Real Academia Española (Spanish for "Royal Spanish Academy", RAE). Javier Sagarna, director of the School, says:

"The RAE just testifies that something is like it is, that language has its own vital process and evolution; as 6.000 (words) have disappeared, 10.000 new ones have been added."

The project was created in collaboration with the Escola d'Escriptura del Ateneo de Barcelona (Athenian of Barcelona); the campaign is also directed to the words of the Catalan language that are at stake of being forgotten. "There are more than 3,000 Catalan words that already have "padrino" (Godfather) in the www.ateneubcn.org website", Sagarna emphasized.

To support a word is simple: you just have to fill the form in this page. Introduce your name, your electronic mail, the word that you want to support, along with a brief commentary about your reasons to support it; and its meaning.

You can support words in Spanish (clicking here) and in Catalan (clicking here). You can support any word in disuse that is or has been in any of the editions of the RAE's Dictionary. You can also vote in five words suggested by others. A course of "The joy to write", from the School of Writers, will be raffled among all the participants.

So, which word are you going to choose?