The academic overseers of the Spanish language have produced a new book on Spanish grammar aimed at drawing up guidelines for a language spoken by 500 million people in 20 countries.
The project has taken eleven years to complete and was produced by the Spanish Royal Academy and 21 sister organizations in Latin America and other countries where Spanish is spoken, such as the United States and the Philippines. The first two volumes are a massive 4,000 pages and a third volume is due out next year.
Simplified versions will be produced for use by students and the general public.
The new guidelines replace the Academy’s previous 1931 version and reflect the fact that modern Spanish is full of differences in grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary in Spanish-speaking countries around the world which, until now, have never been officially acknowledged.
The new guidelines do not set out to be a cut-and-dried dogma on what is correct and what is not but are more a recommendation as to what linguists generally accept to be proper Spanish. Strange variations, such as the Puerto Rican habit of switching subject and verb, more reminiscent of English, is acknowledged as a localism but not something textbook traditional.