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by pvaldes
724 days ago
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There are royal academies in each Spanish speaking country. Is a very old institution that creates diplomatic links and a help net between countries on everything related with the Spanish dictionary. They solve doubts for free, or publish American Vocabulary dictionaries (so American people can understand other American people). If you want to understand Spanish this is the best resource available https://www.rae.es/ Not all people in this academy descend from the Borbons. Not all people there are from Spain. All are voted by their peers based in their perceived merits. Is a meritocracy, not a monarchy. Some people appreciate the fact that there are experts on Spanish language trying to help everybody. Other will keep saying the equivalent to "Experts thing that are better than me" or "Death to conquerors. Mine is better, Murica!!". Everybody has their own choice, but the reward is ending with a language that nobody will understand. A very silly prize. |
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Any centralized institution that is in charge of overseeing a large and diverse number of countries that have evolved spanish over the past ~400 years is, in my eyes, set to fail.
Now, I do use RAE all the time to check definitions, but I see it as a "descriptive" body, in charge of creating some definitions. But even some of those definitions have to be "scrutinized" and can't be literally and blindly trusted. For example, check the definition of "gitano", which has a clear pejorative connotation. That is not wrong, is just the reality of how the "spanish speaking world" expresses itself. But should you take that definition by heart? I don't think so.
This is a clear example of "The Cathedral vs the Bazaar", as in Open Source vs privative software. I'm a hacker, I prefer a bazaar to a single institution dictating how we should talk..