an interesting article in DL today about limited vocabulary and grammar of dominicans that preoccupies dominican language academy. they say that an average dominican with little or no education uses around 1,500 words; someone with university/college education uses 3,500; a professional uses 8,000 and a small number of intellectuals use around 20,000 words.
the academy wants to help dominicans learn more about their language. in order to achieve this they organize various activities throughout the country, such as book presentations, lectures, workshops, courses as well as linguistic and literary gatherings.
https://www.diariolibre.com/opinion...tical-y-eso-no-deja-de-preocuparnos-HL8386786
definitely something worth attending if i see any of those activities announced to take place in PP area.
I read the article and really where does one begin? To a certain extent Dominican speech from an academic stand point has issues. A small segment of the population that has access to education comparable to high standards in other countries will benefit from an initiative like this. However, the rest of the population that has a public school education, some education or none at all will not benefit from this initiative.
First of all, how literate is the target group? Books, workshops, academic presentations will challenge a semi-illiterate population. I think what the academy wants to do is fantastic but they need to make sure they reach that segment of society that is referenced in the article in order to make a change in the Dominican vernacular.
In the article, a comparison is made to only one country, Mexico. It would have been valuable to compare it to at least one country in each region. In the article, it is stated that a Mexican street vendor has a better command of Spanish than a Dominican street vendor. It’s one example and overly simplified which does not scratch the surface regarding the scope required.
However, anyone who has familiarity with Dominican speech as compared to Spanish spoken in other countries should recognize
la pobreza del idioma and it’s about time an academic institution addresses it because the education system is broken.
One aspect I also look at is the literary contributions. As an avid reader of Spanish literature I always ask myself where are the Dominican authors? They should be throwing their hat in the arena with other huge producing countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Spain. These countries have major contributions to literature. However, it’s tied to this academic problem which has hampered speech, literacy, and having a good command of Spanish of a large segment of the population.
How I would love to see this have a positive impact in years to come. I hope the launch and the initiative inspire the academy to be more involved in addressing some of they key issues of the Dominican speech population.
-MP.