The RAE of Spain are taking the national language to debate – whether to stay faithful to the roots or to move towards a modern, more international and arguably more useful Spanish.

The progression of the Spanish language has been under scrutiny for many years, as words from the official dictionary get replaced, removed and altered, though never more so than now, when e-mails, online chat and text messages are seeing a quickly increasing usage.  Furthermore, people are travelling a lot more nowadays and for this reason languages are being mixed up a little; with programmes such as Erasmus, students are meeting people from all over the world and borrowing their langauge too!

What kind of spanish do you prefer to learn? Spanish in Salamanca?? or Spanish in Seville??

The main ways in which Spanish is changing is through anglosaxonisms and the removal of accents (for example the RAE is seriously evaluating the removal of the accent from “éste“, “ése” y “sólo” due to the fact that on occasion they are used, and on occasion they are not used – resulting in a problem for some Spanish speakers!

As far as anglosaxonisms go, words that have already made it into the official Spanish language include “fútbol” (football), “cederrón” (CD ROM)  and “espónsor” (sponsor).  These words have had to pass through the RAE’s Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas which is effectively a limbo dictionary, where words go which are commonly used but not counted as official.

Pure Spanish or international Spanish, which would you choose?

Whilst there is argument to keep the more traditional, more beautiful Spanish, the RAE reccognises that Spanish has to keep up to pace with commercialism, industry and technology – a task which means the language has to be flexible  to cope.  And whilst there is some argument that the anglosaxonisms could be used but without changing their spelling, this would take away a very important Spanish: that, unlike English, it is phonetic.  On the negative side, changing the spelling to make the words phonetic to Spanish speakers means there is less international sense and less recognition of the history of these words.

Regional accents are another trait which comes under the looking-glass when considering the learning of an language.  In Spain the regional differences are really quite pronounced – with Andalucia having a very closed, difficult to understand pronunciation and provinces such as Catalonia having their very own language!

A great place to study Spanish is Salamanca – a city which features on the Route of Castellano thanks to its stunning history.

Avila also features on the Route of Castellano – it’s a beautiful city near to Salamanca to which many Spanish language schools do excursions.

So what would you do? Remove the accents and with it possibily the Spanish accent too?  Or keep to the more traditional Spanish but not move with the trends – and so perhaps contribute to Spanish not being so much used in industry…  It’s a tough decision – pure versus international.  The students of Salamanca’s language school have the benefit of both – to learn a good international Spanish but in the traditional setting of a city with lots of history!

Let us know your opinions about to the extent Spanish should be changed – are you in favour or against?  What do you prefer?