The foundation, in the words of its president, director of the Real Academia Española, Víctor García de la Concha, “is a fundamental step towards the unity of the language, it collaborates for the compliance of its objectives with all those institutions related to the defense of Spanish”. The main responsibility of the Foundation is to maintain the unity and “purity” of the Spanish language. Other primary main objectives of the Foundation include:
Promote good usage of Spanish in all media, including, but not limited to, print, radio, television, and Internet
Provide uniform criteria in the usage of Spanish
Respond quickly to language questions through its inquiry service
Devise linguistic reports on new difficulties that arise in the Spanish language and to broadcast them
Publish and update the Manual of Emerging Spanish, which serves as a form of dictionary for the Agency EFE
Issue Certificates of Linguistic Quality. These are offered to the publications that adhere to the recommendations of the Fundéu, and guarantee its idiomatic correction. Businesses, companies and institutions can hire the service of quality control of the foundation for its memories, pamphlets, instruction manuals, web pages or advertising backups.
Edit specialized books about linguistic questions
The Foundation has created and maintains a web page in which the elaborated materials by the foundation can be found.
The book Manual de español urgente, first published in 1985, is an important tool in helping media in the use of Spanish, including clarifications on the meanings of neologisms from many fields. It is also responsible for clearing up any misunderstandings pertaining to the Spanish language. One of the main foci of the manual has been to provide alternatives to English words and phrases that have begun to influence the language. The manual also clears up any misinterpretations of how proper Spanish would utilize diverse linguistic aspects, such as pronunciation, orthography, and punctuation. The 19th edition was published in 2015. An example from the Manual is
incendiario Es alguien ‘que incendia con premeditación, por afán de lucro o por maldad’. Se diferencia del pirómano en que este sufre una enfermedad llamada piromanía y disfruta provocando fuegos y viendo las consecuencias del incendio. Es impropio usar esta última voz para el que, por ejemplo, prende fuego a un bosque por intereses económicos o por venganza.
For example, in regards to “el seseo” and “el ceceo”, the Manual of Urgent Spanish says:
El seseo, es decir, la pronunciación de las letras c y z como s, es característico de algunas zonas meridionales de la Península, de las islas Canarias y de América. Esta pronunciación está admitida por la norma culta. No así el ceceo.
Wikilengua
In 2008, The Foundation of Urgent Spanish launched Wikilengua, a wiki licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA, which serves as a resource tool of the recognized use of Spanish. With the contribution of the Spanish community, frequent doubts can be consulted and corrected by using the Wikilengua webpage. Being open and accessible to everyone, Wikilengua may also serve as a medium to reflect the diversity and richness of Spanish in its multiple varieties spoken in more than twenty-one countries. Wikilengua is open and free of charge for reading and contributing. Wikilengua is constructed and grows around a community of authors, translators, editors, linguists, professors, students, journalists, and in general all people who are interested in Spanish, individually or as part of some entity, who would like to share their knowledge with hundreds of millions of other Spanish-speakers.
