“It is the time of Spanish, with all its voices, its twists and nuances, with all its accents, with all its richness and diversity.” With these words the King has inaugurated, this Monday, the 9th International Congress of the Language that Cádiz has received as a gift to claim the city as the ideal place to claim miscegenation.
The King began his words by recalling, from the stage of the Falla Theater, that “Spanish is a mixed language and this mixing transcends social coexistence, education and the entire cultural world, literature, architecture, medicine or the law and it does so in all the nations where it is spoken”.
The congress, with the motto “Mestizaje and interculturalidad. Historia y futuro” that should have been held this year in the Peruvian city of Arequipa, moved to Cádiz, which was running for the next edition, last December after the political instability in Peru discourage the celebration in the hometown of Mario Vargas Llosa,
The Falla Theatre, where the chirigotas contest is held every Carnival, has been the setting chosen for the inaugural ceremony and the Kings have been received at its doors by hundreds of citizens gathered in the square that gives access to the theater to see and live up close the event.
The King has been in charge of closing the turn of words with a speech delivered after that of illustrious writers such as Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute; Elvira Lindo, Soledad Puertolas and Sergio Ramirez. He reminded the King that “through the language we transmit our ideas, receive emotions, communicate feelings and convey our affections”.
“Cádiz, a land where the cultures of the East and West are mixed, is”, the King concluded, “the ideal place to talk about miscegenation”
The mayor of the city, José María González, better known as Kichi, has been in charge of welcoming congressmen and guests, highlighting the suitability of Cádiz as the venue for the Congress, a city that “speaks with music”. González has used words typical of Cádiz to address those attending the congress, telling them “take advantage of the collá (opportunity) so that when it is your turn to ‘guasnajarse’ (go) you can say that this congress has been ‘a bastard’ (expression, in this occasion, of positive admiration) and enjoy the “tangai” (celebration)”
The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, has remembered the poet from Cádiz Rafael Aberti and has spoken of the sea. García Montero has said that “a language as solid as Spanish can add the different accents that feed it. Miscegenation is a way of recognizing the processes that end up in a common language”.
García Montero’s words did not lack a memory of Lola Flores, a native of Jerez (Cádiz), whose centenary this year marks the anniversary of her birth. The deceased artists uttered before the hubbub that broke out at her daughter Lolita’s wedding, a phrase that made history “if you love me, go away” and this Monday, in Cádiz, García Montero has elevated it to the academic category, acknowledging that this speech , so from Cádiz, from La Faraona is perfectly normative.
The writer Elvira Lindo, a native of Cádiz, has subsequently intervened, adding the experiences of her childhood to her memories and nostalgia for the city. While the also author Soledad Puértolas has lectured on miscegenation.
The writer Sergio Ramírez, Cervantes Prize winner, an illustrious Nicaraguan now deprived of nationality by the Daniel Ortega regime, with whom he carried out the Sandinista revolution at the end of the 1970s, has also intervened in the opening ceremony. Ramírez has put literature at his situation and that of so many compatriots. He has spoken of tyrants, of men who bark instead of using words and has granted their own language the status of homeland, “the only one that cannot be taken from you”
The opening day, held at the Gran Teatro Falla, also included the intervention of the director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and president of the Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asale), Santiago Muñoz Machado; the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares.
In this event, which will be held in Cádiz from this Monday until next Thursday, some 300 congressmen will discuss the reality of Spanish, its past, its present and its future, through presentations and debates that will take place at the Palacio de Congresos Cadiz, as well as in other emblematic enclaves of the city.
