RAE criticizes the inclusive language proposed by Congress: "There is a desire to increase the distance with the real world"

The institution remembers that in language societies with other "morphological properties" of the gender they are not "more democratic"

    MADRID, 13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) has prepared a note in which it criticizes the document of recommendations to promote the use of inclusive language in the Congress of Deputies approved last December, stating that "there is an implicit desire to increase the distance , already considerable today, between the official universe and the real world".

The Academy refers to that series of recommendations on the use of language approved more than a month ago by the Congress Board, of which the PSOE, Sumar and the PP are part. The guide includes the classic proposals for the use of inclusive language such as replacing, for example, "employees" with "staff", or "citizens" with "citizenship", as well as differentiating the use of masculine and feminine in the designation of professions. and activities (deputy or members of Congress).

Furthermore, it is committed to "avoiding excessive use of the generic masculine" and it is discouraged to "use expressions or words that incur grammatical errors, lack of legibility or that are not included in the RAE Dictionary." The document also asks to avoid the use of 'at' or 'x' instead of gender endings or 'e' for endings.

In its note, the RAE recalls that "it is more than evident" that each person can express themselves with the linguistic formulas "that they freely choose", although highlighting that in the documents published by the institution it is defended that "many uses are not sexist." grammatical and lexical aspects of Spanish that the authorities present as such".

"The equality of men and women in our country is not supported by asking citizens (whether they are parliamentarians or not) to make constant syntactic, morphological and lexical balances to avoid linguistic options that belong to their natural way of expressing themselves," he stressed. , also in reference to other pronunciations regarding inclusive language.

Nor does the academy consider that progress is being made in achieving democratic equality between men and women by "artificially forcing" the grammar and lexicon of the Spanish language. On the contrary, he sees it necessary in this case to arbitrate legislative measures that lead to the equalization of rights, improving the education that young people receive in school and "working in many other ways for a society that effectively reflects all those values." ".

The RAE points to the interpretation that the Congress recommendations make of the so-called 'inclusive masculine' as "the most conflictive point", highlighting the "paradox" that the same document implies that it speaks of "replacing it", but at the same time ask to "avoid excessive use" of this resource.

"The Congress Board document implies, from its very title ('Recommendations for a non-sexist use of language in the Parliamentary Administration') that speakers who do not apply the resources set forth therein express themselves in sexist language," The institution directed by Santiago Muñoz Machado has lamented, recalling that this criterion is also applied in other official Administration documents prepared in recent years.

"The daily language of the majority of the millions of Spanish speakers around the world would therefore be sexist, including that of the Spanish parliamentarians themselves when they do not speak from the rostrum or do not draft legislative projects," he noted.

Furthermore, he warns that with these criteria it would also be equally sexist "the language of literature, essays, science, cinema, journalism, legislation and many other areas (not necessarily colloquial or informal) in which written texts in Spanish they are not usually written applying the resources that the Administration recommends".

And he also highlights another "contradiction" when the Congressional report says that its recommendations on sexist language could not be applied to more literary texts. "It is possible to think, on the one hand, that the expressions of supposedly sexist language mysteriously cease to be so when they do not appear in official texts. The other option, even more worrying, consists of assuming that Spanish speakers are authorized to express themselves in sexist language unless they represent the Administration or write public speeches," he stressed.

That is why the RAE "suspects" that, behind this "peculiar" dilemma, lies "the implicit desire to increase the distance, already considerable today, between the official universe and the real world." "Although it would be expected that administrations would work to shorten it, they seem more interested in applying again and again the double standards that so patently reveal it," they criticized.

Despite celebrating that the report takes into account some aspects already analyzed by the RAE - such as the recommendation to avoid the '@' or the letters 'e' or 'x' - the RAE understands that there is no progress towards achievements "arbitrarily modifying morphological, syntactic and lexical options that Spanish shares with many languages".

"THE RAE has shown on numerous occasions that it fully shares the conviction that women and men must have the same rights and duties in democratic societies, and is equally aware that this has not yet been fully achieved. said equation between us. But societies in which languages ​​are spoken that organize the morphological properties of gender in a different way are not necessarily more democratic than ours," he criticized.

With these 'Recommendations for a non-sexist use of language in the Parliamentary Administration', Congress seeks to fulfill the mandate of the Equality Law of 2007, which urges public powers to "implement non-sexist language in the administrative field ", as well as the first Equality Plan approved by the Cortes Generales in 2020.

For its writing, the guides on the subject prepared by other public institutions have been used as a basis - the Senate, for example, already has its own -, as well as the current grammatical rules and the recommendations on inclusive language of the Royal Academy. Spanish.

The regulatory reform approved at the beginning of the legislature to regulate the use of co-official languages ​​in the Chamber already included an additional provision so that, in the shortest possible time, "a review" of the text of the Congressional Regulations would be undertaken to adapt it to the gender inclusive language.

As parliamentary sources informed Europa Press, there is no date to begin this review of the Chamber's rules, but the plan to carry it out in this legislature is maintained. Of course, for the moment, the approved guide will have to be applied in parliamentary documents.