The Royal Spanish Academy and Regulating the Spanish Language

As every translator knows, languages are living phenomena. They are constantly changing and evolving, and even splitting into dialects and new languages over time. In the modern age, many countries have language councils or official bodies which seek to protect the stability and usability of a language. These institutions sometimes issue spelling reforms, for example, or they might come up with translations for loan words to stop their language being bogged down in American imports.

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For me personally, I have been most interested in how the Spanish language has evolved and been shaped over time. My Spanish master’s programme focused not just on the peninsular version of the language, but on Latin American language and culture, too. And now, after having lived in Spain for 24 years, I have been able to witness first-hand how this incredible, mammoth language has grown, incorporated new words from abroad, and adapted to the needs and whims of a society that has borne witness to incredible change.

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It is fascinating to me that such a language as large as Spanish – with 460 million speakers across 22 different countries – can be kept coherent and stable. The reason this has been possible, of course, is in large part due to the regulatory work of the Royal Spanish Academy (In Spanish: Real Academia Espa?ola, or RAE for short). This prestigious institution is based in Madrid and its mission is to protect the purity and clarity of the Spanish language. But how exactly does it do this, and what challenges does it face? To answer these questions, let’s start where it began … all the way back in 1713.

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History of the Royal Spanish Academy

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The Royal Spanish Academy was founded in the early eighteenth century on the initiative of Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena. At this time, Spanish was still a relatively young language – its first official codification had only happened some 200 years ago, coinciding more or less with the discovery of the Americas. Before then, it had largely been considered a vulgar language, fine for the hoi polloi but not worthy of being spoken by high society.

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By 1713, Spanish enjoyed much greater prestige and was changing rapidly. There were concerns that it might fragment, and that future generations may even be unable to read seminal works such as those written by Cervantes. The Academy was therefore founded with the aim to “fix the voices and vocabularies of the Spanish language with propriety, elegance and purity”. Although based in Spain, it was always conceived as a regulator for the whole of the Spanish language, wherever it was spoken.

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The Academy published its first so-called Orthography in 1741, and in 1894 it opened its headquarters in Madrid. Over the years, it has published a number of seminal publications, including numerous versions of its Orthography (most recently in 2010) and a dictionary of the Spanish language. The Academy was modelled on similar ventures in France and Italy, namely the Academia della Crusca and the Académie Fran?aise.

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Impacts on the Spanish language

The Royal Spanish Academy has introduced a number of major and wide-reaching reforms over the years. Some of the most notable include:

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-?????? Upside-down question mark introduced in 1754: The second edition of the orthography declared that one question mark was not enough. It therefore stipulated that an upside-down question mark should be introduced at the beginning of the sentence, so readers know right away that they are reading a question rather than a statement. At first, this edict applied only to long sentences, but in 1870 the RAE updated its guidance to say it should be used even for shorter ones as well.

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-?????? Dropping Ch as a separate letter: Yes, up until 2010, Ch used to be regarded as a separate letter in the Spanish alphabet, coming after C in the alphabet. This change flared up tensions across the Atlantic, with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela fuming that he would from now on be known as Hugo ávez. An editorial in a Mexican paper asked of the reform: “Would the United States accept dictates from England over the use of English?”

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-?????? Solo loses its accent (and then gets it back): Up until 2010, the word solo was habitually written either as sólo (with an accent) or solo (without). The purpose of the accent was to distinguish between whether it was being used as an adverb, meaning only/just, or as an adjective meaning lonely/single. The reform decreed that the accent should be dropped in all cases. After the rule struggled to catch on, however, the Academy updated its advice in 2023 to say that the accent can still be used when there is a risk of ambiguity.

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Pan-Hispanic collaboration

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So it is clear that the Royal Spanish Academy has wielded major influence over the Spanish language on both sides of the Atlantic. But how did it come to retain its position on a global scale?

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As revolution swept across the Americas in the nineteenth century, many of the newly independent questions began questioning their relationship with the mother country and its language. In 1823, a Venezuelan linguist named Andrés Bello even published an alternative orthography for the Spanish language. It was used officially in Chile for a time and was never accepted by the Royal Spanish Academy, however it eventually ended in failure and was abandoned.

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Later in the same century, many Latin American countries began establishing their own language councils. The first of these was established in Colombia in 1871 and others soon followed, such as La Academia Mexicana de la Lengua in 1875. Although these were independent to begin with, the RAE made great efforts to collaborate and join forces with official bodies in other countries. This work eventually culminated in the foundation of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE) in Mexico in 1951.

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The Association has held 26 congresses since its founding, and in 2010 it participated as a co-author in the publication of the latest edition of the RAE Orthography. Today, it considers issues concerning the use of Spanish in the Americas and has worked together with the RAE to publish multinational reference works such as the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts and the Dictionary of Americanisms.

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Future challenges – Is Spanish an inherently sexist language?

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Going forward, the Academy faces many challenges to its mission. For one thing, the use of anglicisms is sharply on the rise due to contact with the United States and the increasingly globalised and online nature of modern society. One of the most interesting and complex issues facing Spanish, however, is the question of gender.

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Because Spanish has both masculine and feminine nouns, there are often cases when achieving gender neutrality is difficult, or when the masculine form must take precedence over the feminine. A number of alternative practices have emerged to get around this. For example, it is common to hear people say ‘chicos y chicas’ instead of just the masculine chicos, which traditionally encompasses both boys and girls. In writing, it is not uncommon to see formulations such as ‘chic@s’ or ‘chicxs’ where the @ sign is inclusive of both genders and the X transcends the male-female binary to also include non-binary identities, although it is nigh-on impossible to pronounce.

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In 2020, the Academy ruled on a related practice – the use of the neutral e instead of the gendered vowels a and o (for example, ‘chices’). The Academy declared that this is “artificial and unnecessary” as the masculine form can already be used to encompass both genders. It is also worth noting that many Spanish-speakers oppose these new practices which are viewed as being politically charged and sometimes exclusionary.

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In any case, it seems like this will be a crucial issue for the RAE going forward, and one it will need to address if it is to preserve the unity of the Spanish language so that it may continue as a single yet diverse entity, regardless of age, location or political stripes.

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Plain sailing through the Spanish language

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I hope you have enjoyed this article, and if you need some help of your own navigating the Spanish language and its many disparate yet interconnected markets, you can rest assured that COMUNICA is the right agency to help you do just this. With an office in the south of Spain and many deep links with linguists on both sides of the Atlantic, we possess a thorough understanding of how Spanish is used today, and the subtle differences that inflect its meaning in different countries and regions. So if you need content created or localised in the Spanish language, please do not hesitate to get in touch and let’s see what we can do for you.

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P.S. Be sure to also check out the COMUNICA blog for more inspiring content, and feel free to share your own insights and ideas about Spanish, language regulation and the RAE!