Creation
In the United States, Spanish is the second language in terms of number of speakers after English, because the United States now has the second largest Spanish-speaking community in the world, after Mexico. That is why it is not surprising that an academy for the Spanish language was founded in 1973 in the U.S. by Tomás Navarro Tomás, director of the National Library of Spain, exiled in the United States. The official name of this academy is the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, translated as The North American Academy of the Spanish Language.
It is the academy “youngest” of the 22 academies that comprise the Association of Spanish Language Academies.
The group of Spanish speakers who live and work in the United States, now numbering more than 40 million, has generated the need for partnership on the Spanish language in a country where the lingua franca is English.
Publications: Newsletter and Glosses
The American Academy of Spanish Language periodically publishes a newsletter on cultural and literary issues, as a practical guide for those who use Spanish professionally in the United States.
On the other hand, since 1994 the Committee on Translations, under the leadership of Joaquin Segura, has published papers called “glosses”, which communicate the latest new developments in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy and provides information on possible Spanish translations of new words and phrases in English. These also include book reviews and contributions relating mainly to the field of translation.
The latest issue of glosses and the newsletter can be read online at the official site of the American Academy of Spanish Language: www.anle.us
(Versión en español: Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española)
