Total Spanish: The Politics of a Pan-Hispanic Grammar

Abstract

In the last days of March 2007, the beautiful and captivating colombian city of medellín hosted an often bland yet, on this occasion, surprisingly media-appealing event: surrounded by a generous cohort of reporters, the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language was holding its regular conference, the thirteenth since its conception in 1951. The gathering began on the twenty-first and culminated three days later, at the Teatro Metropolitano, with what could arguably be described as one of the most highly publicized events in the history of the Spanish language: the official approval of the Nueva gramática de la lengua española ‘The New Grammar of the Spanish Language’ (henceforth NGLE). The Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, and the head of the Spanish monarchy, King Juan Carlos I, presided over the ceremony, providing the occasion with the solemnity (and media pull) that it so critically required. After a series of opening remarks and speeches, the king stood, faced the academicians—one from Spain, one from the Philippines, and twenty from the Americas—and, as he called their names individually, asked, “¿Aprobáis la Nueva Gramática?” ‘Do you approve the New Grammar?‘ Each in turn, with a distinguished assembly of politicians, businessmen, and publishers as witnesses, rose and answered with a simple yet unequivocal “Sí.”