One of the pleasant surprises I found during a visit to Spain last week -- in addition to "vegetable barbecue," a dish that I hadn't noticed in my previous trips here and is now offered in most restaurants -- is a new trend to officially modernize the Spanish language and make it much easier to read and write.

The Royal Spanish Academy, the nearly three-century-old institution in charge of regulating the Spanish language, is seriously considering eliminating cumbersome accent marks on widely used words such as este (this), aquel (that) and solo in coming months. Right now, these words carry accents when they are used in certain ways and not in others, which is a real headache for many of us. In addition, further down the road the Academy may officially adopt the phonetic versions of English words such as "marketing," "parking" and "sex-appeal."

These words are currently on probation: The Academy's Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Questions, an unofficial dictionary of frequently used terms that are under consideration for admission into the official Dictionary of the Spanish Language, has already accepted the words marquetin, parquin and sexapil.

The Academy's 46 judges, which include prominent writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Arturo Perez Reverte, meet regularly to discuss admissions from the unofficial Dictionary of Questions.

Among the words that have already made the transition from the Dictionary of Questions to the official Dictionary of the Spanish Language are esponsor (sponsor), cederron (CD-ROM) and striptease.

In an interview at the majestic building that serves as the institution's headquarters, Academy director Victor García de la Concha told me that the Spanish language -- like all languages -- is changing faster then ever because of globalization. Those languages that don't keep up with reality are likely to disappear, he said.

'A CONSISTENT WAY'

"Words travel much faster today because of the Internet," said García de la Concha, 75. "To survive, a language must be used by a large number of people in a consistent way and be up to date with technological innovations."

The trend to simplify the Spanish language has been going on for many years, García de la Concha said. The Academy eliminated accents from verbs such as entre (come in) and para (stop) many years ago. But now it is moving to eliminate accents in many more frequently used words, he said.

In addition, the Academy is about to publish its first common grammar rules for all Spanish-speaking countries as a joint effort with 22 national academies of language.

"Differences between the Spanish used in several countries are being pretty much neutralized," he told me. "More than 90 percent of the lexicon is the same in Spain and in Latin America."

Critics say that, in many ways, the Academy remains a pretty medieval institution. Its official dictionary still includes the word judiada (Jewish action), which it defines as "evil action, which used to be unfairly considered as typical of Jews." And it defines zorro (male fox) in a positive way, as a quick-witted man, while it describes zorra (female fox) as a prostitute.

García de la Concha told me that the "Jewish lobby" had asked the Academy for its removal, but that the institution is merely registering the word and noting that it was used in that way in the past.

In addition, there are no plans to eliminate the cumbersome ñ, nor to change combination of letters such as que for ke, as is increasingly being used in text messages.

NO EXCUSE

My opinion:

Despite vestiges from the Middle Ages -- there is no excuse for maintaining judiada, which is no longer in use in most countries, or to portray males in a better light than females -- I was glad to see some movement in efforts to simplify and modernize the Spanish language.

The moves to include English words should not alarm purists -- it's something that has been going on for decades. Just think of the word that describes the favorite sport in the Spanish-speaking world, futbol, which is a phonetic adaptation of "football," or the Spanish word mitin, an adaptation of "meeting." And the effort to eliminate accents is long overdue -- in the age of SMS text messages, where virtually nobody uses them, they are quickly becoming obsolete unless they are essential to understand a word's meaning.

I had always thought that the Academy was an anachronism which kept the Spanish language in a strait jacket.

But after visiting this royal institution and speaking with its director, I'm beginning to think that it is serving a good purpose by unifying the language spoken throughout the Spanish-speaking world, thus ensuring its survival and future growth. It only needs to scrap the last vestiges of its obscene racial and sexual prejudices, and then do some marquetin.

 

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