Vargas Llosa: America was a tower of Babel before the arrival of Europeans

This is how Vargas Llosa opened the VIIIth International Congress of the Spanish Language, celebrated until Saturday in the city of Córdoba and whose next edition will be held in 2022 in his hometown, Arequipa, as announced during the ceremony Teatro Libertador San Martín, in the presence of the King and Queen of Spain and President Mauricio Macri.

"They do not agree on the number of languages ​​and dialects that existed in Latin America at the arrival of the Spaniards and the Portuguese – at least 1,500 say some, others bring the sum to 3,000 – but the Americans did not understand each other and that is why America was a tower of Babel when the Europeans arrived, "said the writer in his speech.

Vargas Losa pointed out, however, that "controversies generated by conquest disappear when it comes to language". No one is questioning the importance that it has meant for America to unite in a single will to express, in one language, the extraordinary diversity that characterizes. "

They can not agree on the number of languages ​​and dialects existing in Latin America upon the arrival of the Spaniards and Portuguese "(Mario Vargas Llosa).

About the controversies, the author of "Conversación en la Catedral" was held against Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. "I would like to quote a letter that López Obrador sent to the King of Spain and Pope Francis, inviting them to apologize for the violence committed during those years, which Juana Ines de la Cruz called rudos", he anticipated.

"I have the impression that the Mexican president has been cheated as a recipient, he had to send to himself and answer, or answer, the question of why Mexico, which joined the western world five centuries ago thanks to Spain, and 200 years are independent and sovereign, so many millions of Indians are still marginalized, poor, ignorant and exploited.

The director of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, attended the opening ceremony. his partner of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero; and that of the Argentine Academy of Letters, José Luis Moure; the rector of the National University of Córdoba, Hugo Juri; the Spanish academic and writer Carme Riera and the writer Santiago Kovadloff.

From the ceremony, which was honored by the former owner of Victor VICTOR Victor Garcia de la Concha in recognition of his contribution to the construction of a plural and collective language, also participated the governor of Cordoba, Juan Schiaretti, and the mayor of the provincial capital. Ramón Mestre