The RAE has expressed this Tuesday its disagreement with the guide approved by the Congress of Deputies in December on the use of non-sexist languageespecially with his recommendation of do not abuse the generic masculine. The Royal Spanish Academy considers in a note published on its website that the ‘Guide for the non-sexist use of language and communication in the field of Parliamentary Administration’ poses a dilemma when prepare recommendations valid only for Congress and implies that the speakers who do not apply the resources there exposed are expressed in a sexist language.

In this way, the RAE points out that it would be sexist “the everyday language of most of the millions of Spanish speakers around the world, including the Spanish parliamentarians themselves when they do not speak from the rostrum or write legislative projects.” As well as “the language of literature, essays, science, cinema, journalism , legislation and many other areas (not necessarily colloquial or informal) in which texts written in Spanish They are not usually written using the resources that our Administration recommends.” The writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte believes that the aforementioned text is a “slap on the wrist from the Royal Spanish Academy to certain opportunistic parliamentarians and/or stupid plum men and women.”

The Congressional guide (the Senate approved a similar one on December 5) seeks adapt inclusive languages ​​to reinforce the principle of equality and eliminate linguistic expressions that exclude or make certain groups invisible. ‘Citizenship’ instead of ‘citizens’; ‘staff’ rather than workers; ‘presidency’ as an alternative to president or ‘parliamentary representatives’ as a substitute option for deputies are some of the recommendations of the guide.

A dilemma that, in the opinion of the RAE, “hides the implicit desire to increase the distance —already considerable today— between the official universe and the real world“. The RAE recalls that “it has shown on numerous occasions” that the necessary equality in rights and duties of women and men is not achieved “by arbitrarily modifying morphological, syntactic and lexical options that Spanish shares with many languages, whether Romance or No.” And that societies in which languages ​​are spoken that organize the morphological properties of gender, as well as concordance relations, in a different way, “are not necessarily more democratic than ours.”

The “most conflictive” point: the ‘inclusive masculine’

For the RAE, the “most conflictive” point of the Congress Board’s text is the interpretation of the so-called ‘inclusive masculine‘, “on which fundamental discrepancies persist.” “The text of the Congressional Committee dedicates several pages to presenting various ways to replace it, although it concludes this extensive relationship—in a perhaps somewhat paradoxical manner—by arguing that ‘excessive use’ of this resource should be avoided,” says the RAE.

The Academy remembers that the masculine gender is inclusive (in Spanish and many other languages) “in a large number of contexts” and “the fact that it is not so in some cases should not lead to the absurd conclusion that it never is.” “It is more than evident that everyone can express themselves with the linguistic formulas they freely choose. In any case, the RAE has defended in its documents that many grammatical and lexical uses of Spanish that the authorities present as such are not sexist.”

Also “that the equality of men and women in our country is not supported by asking citizens (whether they are parliamentarians or not) to do constant syntactic, morphological and lexical balances to avoid linguistic options that belong to their natural way of expressing themselves.” “There is no progress in achieving democratic equality between men and women forcing wayartificial grammar and lexicon of the Spanish language, but by arbitrating legislative measures that lead to the equalization of rights, improving the education that our young people receive at school and working in many other ways for a society that effectively reflects all those values”, concludes the RAE.