This calm dramaturgy Royal Language Academy opened its doors this Sunday for you to enter with the honor you deserve, Canary philologist Dolores CorbellaBringing with him a treasure (in his own words) that he has cultivated in a unique way with the help of other devoted friends. As he stood up to read, he put the treasure of the Spanish language spoken in the Canary Islands on the academic table, as if polishing secrets or talismans, happy to describe the nature he had been working on for years. In the sea of some words, there were also the words of the poem according to his speech.
calm, smilingHe dealt with the bureaucratic details of his Presidency of the House of Scholars, and then separately seized several scrolls of his acceptance speech, delivered in front of the almost religious anticipation of the many canaries that filled the hall, officials, academics, classmates, students, graduates. The academy with an audience that gives atmosphere to the space before and after the main act. friendship celebration and alphabetical order. In this loving context, it seemed to have entered into a language, the Spanish we speak, that not only Dolores Corbella gave but also brilliance and packaging, authority and future.
Don Emilio Lledó, an academic in Tenerife who taught many of us to understand this word is the most serious thing in life, and went to celebrate the admiration that Dolores Corbella, who also taught, has now earned among her colleagues. The philosopher-professor, who helped us put the doubts of philosophy in order, was pleased with this confession, and that is how he greeted him and the others in his speech, as he had been selected by a short list of scholars. they now become his companions in his negotiations about the past and future of the treasure he brought and will share with his descendants philologists.
When we found ourselves in the middle of a quiet noise, especially exciting for the woman speaking to us, Don Emilio was like when one of his students came to the podium: to feel himself entering, again, where Corbella and the wise men of language belong. Such was the general atmosphere, as if playing the role of a newcomer. Longing for a way of speaking Spanish that circulates like a treasure in the veins of his research and books.
In the ‘A sea of words’ speech, which was welcomed in the silence bestowed by the Academy on the newcomers, the cry of a child who could not yet speak was heard shortly after the new academic started to speak. Grandson or son, any relationship, that cry was like the baptism of a new word that this woman, who made the dictionaries she studied the stuff of her wisdom, had not yet had time to decipher. In his speech, he commanded his gratitude, which included Lledó, José Antonio Pascual and Carme Riera, who had presented him, as well as his usual friends Inmaculada and his “peculiar family” Cristóbal Corrales. like the figure of Francisco Rodríguez Adrados sitting on that ‘d’ that had touched it before. Then there was Dámaso Alonso, the biggest word in poetry, so Between the philologist and the poet, it had the scene of loyalty to the past. claims.
Manuel Alvar, who opened the ethnographic passion in the Islands, was another of Dolores Corbella’s knocks, as was Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, the academic who was commissioned by the Academy to welcome the letter ‘d’ and the future. the house where he brought the lexicographical treasure that he cultivated and developed as the greatest asset of his legacy as a researcher. Through the ‘palaces’ of language, we Canaries’ journey through this identity with others to be a guide to greater compassion for the language we speak (and speak) has ended like an inland sea. , candidly, dedicated to the lines of Pedro García Cabrera: “I went to the sea for my voice” from the poetry collection “Hope keeps me”. Dolores Corbella of this poem”It perfectly reflects the relationship between the sea and the word that guides my entire speech.”, “describes my work and […] It is a touchstone for an islander: “The sea that I seek like a dream, / I swear to you, / don’t let it land on my forehead / fill it with roars and waves, / lift for me / give.” freedom to go anywhere.
It is much more than a song, it is a hymn, a hymn to which, at the end of the speech, Álvarez de Miranda forms part of the conversation that goes with it, an invitation between music and poetry, before Álvarez de Miranda answers it. The philological treasures of the academy will find their home and respect in a place where the personal names they shake like stones from the sea echo: Viera y Clavijo, María Rosa Alonso, Rafael Arozarena, María Dolores de la Fe, Carmen Laforet, Pérez Galdós, Álvarez Rixo, Iriarte or the stranger and ours. To quote a special name, Gregorio Salvador, a very memorable professor from La Laguna…
This is a unforgettable celebration of language, full of names as well as wise men, and in this history of general wisdom, Dolores Corbella was the interpreter and guide of a quiet session that is already history for the Canary Islands. Moreover, happiness with the passion he showed as he passed through the different rooms of the palace where he lived like the sea where the wisdom of the words he cared about.