LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  Language is at the beck and call of speakers and their social mindset: obey orders if you break owners. Words and expressions are current as long as they serve a purpose, otherwise, they are discarded, forgotten, and ostracized. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the President of the Community of Madrid, in Spain, has alerted me several times about Spanish vocabulary and expressions of the Castillian language. I recall offhand “tinta de calamar”, an expression I ignored before she used it in a public speech. Recently, she accused the nation’s socialist administration of trying to lead Spaniards “del ronzal” to its political convenience and advantage. I more than double her age and the word “ronzal” brought memories, as a boy, of my summers in my grandfather’s country house when I pulled “burros del ronzal”, when donkeys, mules, and horses abounded - they almost extinct now. That era is long gone; an era of “serones”, “ramales”, “albardas”, “azadas”… and yet, a woman in her early forties, ad-libb...

Clues I find on the Internet lead me to think, much to my regret, that learning is being watered down, trivialized, and banalized. The other day, an "expert" TV personality told the audience about the wonders of free Internet education available to all. She named one site where courses on multiple subjects could be taken: MOOC, or  Massive Open Online Courses. I rushed to check the site only to find that the courses are not free, although a few can be joined gratis. The offerings come from prestigious universities such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Complutense... on multiple subjects that range from the art of giving, to how to be happy. I peeked into one, about the European Union, offered by the University of Hong Kong, just to see. The lecturer has a thick accent that sometimes prevents the student from grasping what the man is trying to say. He added that he was not ashamed to admit he loves Europe, triggering the question: why should he be? Also, accessing from Spain, I find...

Today I was chagrined to learn that the Oficina del Español , Comunidad de Madrid, has disappeared for good. After a few years of erratic direction by unqualified and wayward directors, the office's instigator and designer, Isabel Díaz Ayuso , President of the Community, has done away with it. Why? The original idea was, and is, very commendable and makes sense in a Community that leads Spain in many facets: employment, foreign investment, tourism—both foreign and domestic—health services, law and order, liberty, and more. It would have been the leading champion of the Spanish Language if the original idea had been helmed by a qualified person. Isabel Díaz Ayuso failed to appoint the right person for the right job. The Oficina del Español , as originally framed, would have attracted scholarship, students, events, and, yes, money. The UK knows how to monetize the English Language, while Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries do not seem to be able to equal or emulate its efforts...

  Esta palabra, que puede tener varias traducciones, se asocia con: A bunch of grapes      un racimo de uvas A bunch of flowers    un ramo de flores A bunch of keys          un manojo de llaves A bunch of people      un grupo de gente A bunch of idiots        un hatajo de idiotas a bunch of coins            un puñado de monedas

  I have stated on different occasions that, I am not a believer, yet I am sold on traditions, rituals, and festivities of all kinds. Unfortunately, I am not a believer, but I can appreciate all the benchmarks and milestones that our Christian culture has laid out for us during a given year. Take the Epiphany, "the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi", the Three Wise Men , who searched for the newborn and on the 6th of January brought him gold, incense, and myrrh. Yesterday children in Spain woke up to open the gifts  Los Tres Reyes Magos had brought to celebrate that Epiphany. A harmless celebration that brings joy and mirth to the whole family, especially those with children. So, Felices Reyes Magos and Feliz Año Nuevo, de nuevo.    

You may recall my partiality to Tomás Navarro Tomás 's (1884-1979) Manual de pronunciación española , (1918), a copy of which (1972) is in my modest library. Common sense and clarity dominate this work, which, I believe, is the best in Spanish phonetics and pronunciation. Let me pick out a few quotations which, I hope, will prompt you to dive into this book: "... tratándose de personas cultas, las diferencias fonéticas entre castellanos y andaluces o hispanoamericanos son mucho menores que entre las clases populares." "... una fórmula pueril, que consiste en creer que la lengua española se pronuncia como se escribe." "... la pronunciación correcta rechaza todo vulgarismo provinciano y toda forma local..." "Sabido es que la lengua española presenta importantes diferencias de pronunciación, no sólo entre los diversos países en que se habla, sino entre las regiones de un mismo país, y frecuentemente entre las comarcas y lugares de una misma región....