A healthy discussion about the future and the tensions of the language

The congress of the language was completed yesterday in Cordoba; José Luis Moure, president of the Argentine Academy of Letters, pleaded for the closing speech for the promotion of the unity of the language

Cordoba-. In his book
The fashion systemRoland Barthes is busy studying what he himself calls a system of signs other than spoken or written language. In the fire of the ideas of writers like Balzac and Proust, as he admits in one of the interviews
The grain of the voice, try to understand the meaning of the clothes. It may sound like a whim to think about these things when you're in the middle of this VIII

International Congress of Languages

, but maybe the example helps. For the moment, Barthes was a semiologist, so he spent his whole life reading signs and studying how the systems of meaning work. The quote comes to mind because, as we know, dress codes reflect both individuals and institutions, convey symbolic values ​​and reveal ways of perceiving the world.

But let's explain the facts. Most guests of this great quote from the Spanish word, which ended yesterday, received a very specific indication from their hosts: the dress code required a dark outfit (gray or blue) and a tie. Only Joaquín Sabina ignored this recommendation, which perhaps he had not been given knowing that he would never respect it, and he took the stage of the Teatro del Libertador San Martín with a black leather jacket. The protocol is the form.

What matters perhaps in this scene, at the risk of losing lightness, is to understand if this sign of clothing speaks volumes about the will of academics who embrace this confidence in the formalities (and language as form) of 'open to transformations. linguistic which proposes with vertiges sometimes excessive, and others motivated by fugitive modes or febrile ideologies, the pressing current. A certain prejudice tends to make us think, perhaps hastily, that this provision is small, but things are not so simple. This is evidenced by an episode in an unusual and well – known way that happened not long ago in the online consultation section of RAE 's official website, when it was not so long ago. a user left this question smiling and intentional:

"The following is a very common question among us, Twitter users," he wrote, "we would like to know if" I invite you to my house to watch Netflix "is written with G or with J".

The response of the Royal Academy of Spain was immediate: "Whatever its meaning, the verb" to take "is written with" g "the way the sound [j] go before "e", "i": catch, take; and with "j" the way this sound goes before "a", "or": lame, let's take. "It takes a very good mood and a good understanding of the digital audience to give this answer.The first time the makers of this article have turned to irony with such impudence.

Preach in the land of infidels

Sometimes the media, plagued by journalistic anxiety, tires the listener or the reader by anticipating events that do not occur. The long-awaited debate on the derivations that can allow inclusive language has had a modest presence. It emerged that in some newspapers, such as Luisa Valenzuela, who quoted Lacan for the first time by saying that the woman was out of language, then by George Steiner, for whom the Greeks had been able to devote himself to philosophy because women They took care of the daily needs. "Many, even today, seem to fear an inclusive language," he warned, "as it symbolically threatens male supremacy and perhaps even monotheism itself."

At the closing session, José Luis Moure, president of the Academy of Letters, left in a memorable room, itself a tribute to the Spanish language, firm position, although sometimes affected by resignation and disenchantment . He pleaded for the preservation of the unity of the language through the exemplary model culture, said that it was the school that had to strive to cope with the The hostility of oral varieties, which predominated now, and that it was not possible or desirable for academies to take a prescriptive or condemnatory guard over supposed deviations from the language, in the manner of preachers in the land of the infidels.

"The administration of the common language should not leave his natural home, namely the human spirit," he said in a sad conclusion: "What is today a curiosity playful or a scientific concern – the story knows, that tomorrow can be a tragedy ".

Antonio Seguí: the teacher and his characters

Under the curatorial of Clelia Taricco, the exhibition "Antonio Seguí, Calligraphy: 30 years of writing" is a selection of paintings imported from France, where the artist of Cordova lives since the 60s, specially chosen in the framework of the VIIIth International Language Congress. Spanish The exhibition, which extends from the 70s to the present day, occupies the upper floor of the Cabildo de Córdoba. In the rooms of the ground floor will be proposed "Mirá Seguí", a participative and playful exhibition. The show continues until May 19 and is a special occasion with the artist who invented the most recognizable characters.