Santiago Muñoz Machado, director of the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy): "Destroying the language does not end discrimination."
The Spanish jurist Santiago Muñoz Machado (Pozoblanco, 1949) heads the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and asserts the tradition that links him to other members of that body who also did not come from linguistics, philology, or literature. He said on Friday afternoon at the headquarters of the Argentine Academy of Letters (AAL) , where he has a busy meeting schedule, that "the Academy has had jurists for the 300 years of its existence, because jurists are people who play with words." and we are always mulling over the language."
The director of the RAE and president of @ASALEinforma , Santiago Muñoz Machado, has taken office as a corresponding member of the Argentine Academy of Letters ( @canalaal ): https://t.co/NWR5ZybSpU . pic.twitter.com/rFcDQqy7Sj
— RAE (@RAEinforma) July 18, 2025
Muñoz Machado's presence in Buenos Aires now, and in Chile in the coming days, serves a dual purpose: on the one hand, to present his monumental, thousand-page essay , *De la democracia en Hispanoamérica *, which traces a genealogy of the region's republican systems and analyzes the historical weaknesses that have prevented the stabilization of that system of government. He did so a few days ago at the University of Buenos Aires' Faculty of Law, in an event organized by the National Academies of Letters, Law, and Moral and Political Sciences.
But the intellectual, who is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Valencia, and the University of Alcalá de Henares, and president of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE), also spends part of his time talking about the RAE (Spanish Royal Academy of Spanish), what its role is, whether it rules over the language or not , and the challenges that Spanish faces in the face of artificial intelligence . I spoke with Clarín about all of this.
The current director of the Royal Spanish Academy Santiago Muñoz Machado poses for a photo at the Academia Argentina Letras. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu.
–The articles we publish on language tend to generate a lot of interest among readers. What's your hypothesis about this focus on language?
These things also happen in Spain. We have the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundeu), sponsored by the EFE Agency and the Academy, whose mission is to promote the proper use of Spanish in the media. It publishes a daily article dedicated to a word. Some newspapers have a regular section for these articles, and it's widely followed. Then, there are at least three or four major television programs dedicated to words: Pasapalabra, Cifras y letras, and others. My hypothesis is that we communicate with language every day, that it permeates our lives, that it unites us most as a people and that identifies us. Therefore, it's natural that we're interested. In the case of the RAE (Spanish Royal Academy of Spanish Studies), it's a very old institution, with 300 years of work behind it, and that has done a great job for the language. We have good reason to be proud of what we've done. It maintains a very important prestige, not because we have any sanctioning power behind us for those who break the rules, but because of its "auctoritas," the authority generated by the respect earned over the years.
The RAE maintains a very important prestige, not because we have any sanctioning power, but because of the authority that comes from earned respect.
–You are a president with a profile that strays from traditional disciplines like linguistics or philology, and you are not a storyteller or poet either. What does the perspective of a jurist, which has not been the majority opinion of the last century, contribute to the RAE?
–If I may, I have a point of disagreement because the Academy has had jurists throughout its 300 years of existence. We jurists are people who play with words and are always mulling over the language. We're all about argumentation; we need words to express ourselves in our profession. They say it's an eloquent profession. Therefore, there have been many academics from this discipline, but not only that. The Diccionario de Autoridades (Dictionary of Authorities), which was the first dictionary published by the Academy, between 1726 and 1739, is composed of words from the basic literature of the time, but also from the legislation in force at the time. This is often forgotten, but Don Quixote and the Compilation of the Laws of the Indies were equally valuable. Therefore, there has been a significant presence of jurists in the RAE. Now, what does a jurist contribute? First, to lead the Academy, one must not forget the institution's basic purposes, because no matter how specialized one is, this is a community in which the specialty is somewhat lost to the benefit of the whole. Over the years, for the first time in the Academy's history, we have produced a specialized dictionary, in this case a legal dictionary, and we will publish more over time. I also believe that, from the perspective of someone who is not strictly a linguist, a more generalist view is provided to the RAE, one more closely linked to the different expressions of society.
–During your first term (2018-2022), you had to deal with a major financial crisis. Why was the RAE lacking resources?
When I arrived at the Academy as director, I started in a very difficult financial situation because the national government had significantly reduced the aid we received. That day, before the press, I said that the Academy was a matter of state. And I explained that the RAE's resources to carry out its work and interact with other language academies around the world were a matter in which we were putting the best of our culture at stake. There is nothing more important in the shared culture we have with America than language, and the most important institution in this regard is the Royal Spanish Academy. Later, I requested an audience with the President of the Government and told him the same thing. And although things improved from then on, I also engaged civil society in many ways, because we interacted with many institutions and companies that responded. Now, we are in a better situation; we have enough money to develop the projects we are involved in.
The current director of the Royal Spanish Academy Santiago Muñoz Machado poses for a photo at the Academia Argentina Letras. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu.
–You admitted in a recent interview that many people don't really understand what the RAE does. A moment ago, you clarified that you don't go around punishing people who misuse the language. So, what exactly does the RAE do?
–The RAE is a public law corporation. That means it's a privately-based association with statutes that were approved by the government and that receives some public resources, but it has no connection with political power. It's a completely independent association that focuses on a segment of Spanish culture: the language. It's an entity of this type because it's impossible for the language, like the culture, to be governed by anyone, nor for there to be "instructions" from a power about how it should or shouldn't be spoken. What the Academy does is the same thing it has done throughout its history, focusing on three fundamental works, which function like the great cathedrals on which the language is built: on the one hand, the dictionary; then, grammar; and finally, spelling. These have remained essential works over time, the service they provide to Spanish. How is that done? Well, it's done the opposite of what many believe. It's not the Academy that sits down on Thursdays to decide how Spanish speakers should speak; on the contrary, it takes note of how Spanish speakers speak in order to build its own regulations based on that observation. How is this done? Because we have "spies" all over the world who tell us how people speak there. These are the Argentine, Chilean, Mexican, and Spanish universities, where there are people who pass on to us words and the context in which they are used. This material ends up in our linguistic corpora, which have millions of units that allow us, whenever we consider defining a word to add it to the dictionary, to detect how it is used (for example, if it is insulting or derogatory) and the context in which it is commonly used in each place. This also allows us to record the Spanish language in use, understand how the language is used, and from there, incorporate it into our standard to propose that it be widely adopted and that people consider it the standard language.
–A few years ago, with inclusive language, there was the idea that by modifying the language, generating new declensions, eliminating some generic masculine forms, it was possible to transform society and also minimize machismo. Do you believe that language has that transformative power in a society?
–The power of language is indisputable. The use of language as a tool of power by the political class, by governments, by institutions, or by associations that wield power in society is indisputable. But it's important not to exaggerate. Public power cannot impose ways of speaking. The only times in history where this has happened are during the era of fascism or authoritarian regimes. Therefore, independent institutions like academies should set the rules. What has happened with inclusive language is that some groups, with very good intentions, have thought that language can be fundamental to achieving the sudden disappearance of all forms of discrimination based on gender or sex. Well, I hope so. It's true that there are many forms of discrimination that appear in language. At the Academy, for example, we have made significant corrections to the dictionary, because there were definitions that began with "man" and disparaged women or used the masculine incorrectly to refer to professions. For example, the definition of "judge" was "the judge's wife." We've corrected all of this, and it's true that we can try to avoid the excessive masculinization of language, but without abandoning its system. Our language is so beautiful and deserves to maintain some tools, like the generic masculine, which is very difficult to do without. That's why the Academy says it's willing to do everything possible to achieve this goal of gender equality. And what it goes on to say is that language is not to blame for this discrimination, and therefore language should not be penalized to achieve goals that won't be achieved by destroying it.
It is true that we can try to avoid the excessive masculinization of language, but without abandoning its regime.
–In 2020, the RAE published the document “Report of the Royal Spanish Academy on inclusive language and related issues,” in which it rejects the use of x, @, or e to erase declensions that mark gender. Was this a unanimous decision among all members of the institution?
–There was practically unanimity, yes. Perhaps some academics, who are somewhat more inclined to make concessions, maintained that the language system is a macroconcept that is superior to the specific varieties of each moment. For example, this is what happened with some feminine forms like "membre" / "miembra," about which some academics have said there's no harm in using them because they're well-constructed from a grammatical point of view. Some are more open, while others say no way, because it's not in practice. That's the key we work with. Language can change a lot as a result of these kinds of gender claims or because of how young people speak. It can change, and when it changes, we'll incorporate it, but it will be after verifying that change.
–Young people are a group that allows themselves to transform language a lot, incorporating words from other languages, changing them, even inventing them. Have you analyzed how much of this persists over time and is eventually incorporated?
–There are many things I can tell you on this subject. First, I want to express our conviction that our language has always been a hybrid, always appearing mixed with many forms that come from other languages, and nothing has happened to us so far because of that. This complaint about us, for example, admitting many Anglo-Saxon neologisms. Well, previously we borrowed them from Arabic, and then from Hebrew, and later from French and Spanish, it's made up of all that. In the case of young people, we'll see what all these variants yield. For now, we're studying them, following them, and they matter to us, of course. And we'll see if it's something rather ephemeral, tending to disappear, or if some of these things remain. In fact, we take into account the ephemeral nature of innovations, and that's why we try never to rush and wait before echoing any of these changes. However, we always start from the idea that language evolves. Although we have found that it evolves very slowly and that linguistic changes take many years. Now, when we see these changes and when they actually occur, we respond to them by modifying our own regulations, first by incorporating them into the dictionary, which is the first point of entry into academic regulations. It's also true that our followers sometimes complain that we rush to incorporate neologisms. That's why one of the things we've done now with artificial intelligence is to use programs to create neologism observatories, which scan the most significant press in all Spanish-speaking countries to identify linguistic developments we're not aware of. This allows us to study them and see to what extent they are becoming established, to what extent we can incorporate them into our works and continue improving and modifying the dictionary.
The current director of the Royal Spanish Academy Santiago Muñoz Machado poses for a photo at the Academia Argentina Letras. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu.
–You've been quite cautious about the Spanish used by machines. What does the RAE have to say or do about it?
–We've been very concerned about this phenomenon because it seemed to me that artificial intelligence is truly an extraordinary help for our services: to improve service performance, to identify neologisms, to answer linguistic questions, for proofreaders... it can be a fundamental tool. But at the same time, it has the fundamental danger that the language spoken by machines is a language decided by the algorithm builders, and they could misuse the language and even ruin it. My concern has been this: for 300 years, we have managed to maintain the unity of Spanish, with the effort that this entails across an immense geography. It would be good if machines came now to fragment it. That's why what we've done is try to talk to the big technology companies so that they follow our rules and train their machines with them. And in that sense, it has worked because the connection has been made, and just as we have the promise that they will. The end result that we now appreciate, and that is within everyone's reach, is that the machines that use our language do not do it badly.
–Less successful and unanimous is the issue of diacritical accents on words like “solo” or “esta.” There are scholars who don't obey the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy of Spanish Language). How intimate is this dispute that scholars like the narrator and journalist Arturo Pérez Reverte bring to social media?
– This is a story that amuses us. We're amused that the accent mark has become an issue of international debate. While we're amused, let's say there's also something that bothers us because it seems the RAE only addresses the accent mark when it does so many things that ultimately don't get attention because people get distracted by these jokes, which are a very minor issue. In this regard, protests still exist, and there are people who ignore the rule, although it must be said that the Academy's rule ultimately became very flexible because it says the accent mark can be used to emphasize one meaning or another. And that's how it's stayed. We're not going to monitor how many people add accent marks and how many remove them. We don't have accent mark inspectors.
Institutional visit of the director of the RAE and president of ASALE to the Argentine Republic and the Republic of Chile: https://t.co/qfM1iWbkpp . pic.twitter.com/JoziGxWVl1
— RAE (@RAEinforma) July 14, 2025
–The last question is less entertaining. In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, there are political movements that advocate a certain purism (identitarian, national, familial) that opposes that of "outsiders." Can language also be an element of exclusion in this sense?
There may be racists, although in the RAE there aren't any. No one has ever thought of belittling a Spanish speaker or a person who has acquired knowledge of Spanish for the way they pronounce it or the way they say it. They are respected, and if their use is deficient, they try to teach it. I live in Madrid, which is a very cosmopolitan and tolerant city, so we don't notice any differences between people based on where they were born. On the contrary, strong reactions arise against anyone who tries to impose these differences based on origin. In the RAE, we use the concept of pan-Hispanic to refer to a language specific to each of those countries. The Spanish of Spain, or that of Argentina, or that of Chile are from that nation. They are not borrowed languages. We are the homeland of that language, but the language is specific to each of those countries. And pan-Hispanicism is an ideology that allows us to work together on its regulations. And we do so with a rigor that people can't imagine how almost miraculous it is, because we can reach agreement among all these countries on every modification to a language standard, since it goes through all the academies before being approved. This is the greatest diplomatic power we have, because we have a consensual, friendly, respectful, and tolerant path to cultural penetration in all our countries, defending values that are our shared values.
Clarin
