The Valencian Government remains determined to change the linguistic criteria in which the Administration expresses itself, although without an apparent intention to blow up the current linguistic consensus and current regulations. Yesterday, the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, presented to the Valencian Academy of Language a first draft with the changes he intends to introduce to “Valencianize Valencian” and “bring the language closer to the way it is “spoken in the street". For Councilor Rovira - who began the legislature by questioning the authority of the AVL -, the Valencian who had been employed by the Botànic for eight years “had become Catalanised”.
Given this proposal, the Academy, which according to the Statute of Autonomy “has the function of determining and developing the linguistic regulations of the Valencian language”, will prepare a report to ensure the suitability of the proposed changes. The intention, explained the president of the AVL, Verónica Cantó to the media, is to study “carefully” the modifications that want to be introduced and issue a report with the suggestions they deem appropriate. As Cantó recalled yesterday, since these are criteria for use by the Generalitat Valenciana, it is necessary that these comply with the regulations of the academic institution.
Sources explained that this type of report is common and that it was also carried out when the previous left-wing Valencian Government decided to introduce different criteria to those used by the PP executives.
Although the Ministry's desire is to be able to introduce the modifications soon, the truth is that no one dared to give a date.
As this newspaper already explained and Minister Rovira reiterated yesterday, the objective of these changes is to “Valencianize the Valencian of the administration and adapt it to the way in which Valencians use” the language. With the idea, the person in charge of Education emphasized, of returning to place the Valencian spoken in the administration “in a centered position.”
It does not seem that the strategy of the new executive chaired by the popular Carlos Mazón is to confront the AVL but rather to use the forms closest - within the current regulations - to the particularisms of the autonomy itself. However, in yesterday's meeting it was clear that all the formulas accepted by the regulations can continue to be used. Both parties recognized the cordiality of the meeting.
La Vanguardia already advanced some of the changes that were going to be proposed, such as allowing the use of the article 'lo' in informal writings, changing 'este' to 'aquest', using the suffix -iste ('journalist') or betting on words like 'grab', 'faena' and 'next'. Yesterday, the Council reported on other proposals such as the use of the form 'vos' both behind and before the verb, instead of 'us': 'He's going to give you money' or 'You have to finish your meal'. Another of the petitions is the use of the preposition 'for' as a complement that indicates purpose or destination in contexts and phrases like 'they were looking for you to ask you something' or 'they hired her to lead the investigation '.
As explained by the Department, the criteria also contain a section for place names, place names, abbreviations, the use of capital letters and lower case, among many other aspects of the language that is intended to be that of the Administration in all spaces, both in oral relations and in written ones of an informal, less formal and more formal nature.
