'I never would have said it', the informative face of Spanish academies

"People are passionate about the language," says the academic and writer Soledad Puértolas.

'I never would have said it', the informative face of Spanish academies

"People are passionate about the language," says the academic and writer Soledad Puértolas. For this reason, the academies of the Spanish language (RAE and Asale) have just inaugurated a collection of informative texts called 'Speakers'. The first title is a miscellany full of short articles full of curiosities: I never would have said (Taurus).

At the presentation in the garden of the RAE headquarters in Madrid, academician Luis Mateo Díez described it as a "useful and delightful book" and read the prologue by the director, Santiago Muñoz Machado, which begins as follows: "The RAE has always tried reconcile the philological quality of the linguistic and literary works it publishes with its accessibility for all Spanish-speakers, regardless of their level of training”.

Thus, with this aim of reconciling quality with disclosure, this unclassifiable book comes to light, which will delight any speaker interested in language issues. In it you will find curiosities about some letters, such as the eñe or the hache; why Castilian and Spanish are valid names for the same language; or where the purest Spanish is spoken.

The book has had the collaboration of Puértolas and an editorial team, led by Alicia Escamilla and Fernando de la Orden. The secretary of the Asale, Francisco Javier Pérez, said: "Soledad Puértolas did not write it, but its imprint does exist."

For her part, the academic from Zaragoza reported: “I entered with the project started but it was at rest and we gave it a new impetus. The two lines that we have had in mind were that it be a book aimed at a pan-Hispanic public, so that they can see the variety and richness of Spanish, and the other line has been the informative vocation. The dictionary already has an informative aim, but this book goes one step further. It is a very varied and brief book, to encourage the speaker to know the language better”.


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