Hispanic Culture Review received these photographs of Peru taken by Francisco J. Montero, from Washington D.C. His visual work has been published in Equiery Magazine, Diplomatic Connections Magazine, Polo Player’s Magazine and Hispanic Culture Review. Thank you, Francisco, for your collaboration.
Readers are welcome to publish their pictures in our blog and may send them to hcr@gmu.edu or hcr.gmu@gmail.com.
The new edition of the Ortografía de la lengua española (the Spanish Language Orthography), a publication of the Spanish Royal Language Academy (Real Academia Española, RAE), has caused debate in several Internet forums. This is according to the webpage of the RAE, an academy of professionals that works to maintain the unity and purity of the Spanish language.
Some of the most controversial rules are: the distinction of the “Greek i” (y) for “ye”, as well as the removal of the accent from the word “guión” (“script”) and the use of the accent to differentiate “solo” and “sólo” (“alone” and “only”, respectively).
Members of the social networking site Facebook have also created pages criticizing these standards. These pages are: “Me declaro objetor de conciencia de la nueva ortografía de la RAE” ( I declare myself a conscientious objector of the RAE’s new orthography), “No me gusta la nueva reforma ortográfica de la RAE ):” (I do not like the new orthographic reform of the RAE), among others. Some Internet users have also written negative remarks on Twitter.
Behind their casual criticism is perhaps a deeper polemic. Many Spanish speakers have been concerned by the RAE’s marketing practices since its governing committee appointed Victor García de la Concha as the Academy’s director. Some of them have commented on this situation in blogs such as Addenda & Corrigenda.
As stated on the RAE’s webpage, the approval of the new edition of the Ortografía de la lengua española will be formally announced on November 28, 2010 at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Mexico. The new orthography is scheduled to be published in late December.
Dr. Virginia Zavala, Associate Professor of the Linguistics Program at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, will present the talk “Racialization of the bilingual student in higher education: A case from the Peruvian Andes”. The event is going to take place on Monday, October 18, 2010, at 4:30 p.m. in SUB II, Room 5, at George Mason University (GMU). The activity, sponsored by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages and the Latin American Studies Program of GMU, is open to the public.
This talk analyzes how a specific type of pronunciation in the Peruvian Quechua-speaking context has been racialized and serves to legitimize discrimination toward students from rural areas. In turn, this discrimination leads to low academic performance and a university experience that is often traumatic. For more details about this talk, you can write to the following email: jleeman@gmu.edu.