The Peruvian Academy of Language or …of the Language (Academia Peruana de la Lengua, APL) is a cultural institution that brings together literary figures, writers, poets, linguists, and scholars specializing in the use of the Spanish language in Peru. It is a collective member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies.
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Establishment
It was established in Lima on 5 May 1887 as a corresponding academy to the Real Academia Española. On 30 August of the same year, its first public session was held in the assembly hall of the National University of San Marcos, where Francisco García Calderón, a former President of Peru, was elected as its first president.
Although it was formally established in 1887, its inauguration had been delayed due to the War of the Pacific: during the Chilean occupation of Lima, a large portion of the books from the National Library of Peru were taken to Chile as war spoils. This event led Ricardo Palma to prioritize the reconstruction of the National Library, setting aside earlier plans to inaugurate the APL.
García Calderón was succeeded by Ricardo Palma, first as president and later as director. Palma was a staunch defender of peruanismos (Peru-specific Spanish usages), which he documented in his works Papeletas lexicográficas and Neologismos y americanismos, and lobbied the Real Academia Española to formally accept them.
Among its members is Mario Vargas Llosa, recipient of the Premio Cervantes (1994) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (2010), who also held a seat at the Real Academia Española. Other notable members have included Víctor Andrés Belaúnde, Guillermo Hoyos Osores, Augusto Tamayo Vargas, Luis Jaime Cisneros, and Aurelio and Francisco Miró Quesada. In the field of Quechua linguistics as it relates to Peruvian Spanish, Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino has been a key contributor, while Martha Hildebrandt specialised in peruanismos — particularly Lima-specific usages and archaisms — publishing her findings in the Lima newspaper El Comercio.
The current president is Harry Belevan, elected to succeed Eduardo Hopkins Rodríguez.
The Academy hosted the VIII International Congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies in 1980.
Members
Deceased members
Francisco García Calderón y Landa
Ricardo Palma
José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma
Víctor Andrés Belaúnde Diez-Canseco
Aurelio Miró Quesada Sosa
José Jiménez Borja
Augusto Tamayo Vargas
Luis Alberto Sánchez Sánchez
Estuardo Núñez Hague
Luis Jaime Cisneros Vizquerra
Francisco Miró-Quesada Cantuarias
José Agustín de la Puente Candamo
Fernando de Szyszlo Valdelomar
Edgardo Rivera Martínez
Martha Hildebrandt
Ismael Pinto Vargas
Eugenio Chang Rodríguez
Luis Alberto Ratto Chueca
Mario Vargas Llosa
Corresponding Peruvian members
Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Armando Zubizarreta
Luis Enrique López
Rocío Caravedo
Julio Ortega
Pedro Lasarte
Juan Carlos Godenzzi
Jesús Cabel Moscoso
Corresponding foreign members
James Higgins
Humberto López Morales
Julio Calvo Pérez
Raquel Chang-Rodríguez
Isabelle Tauzin-Castellanos
Inmaculada Lergo
Pedro Lastra
Stephen M. Hart
Juan Jesús Armas Marcelo
César Ferreira
Thomas Ward
Honorary members
Johan Leuridan Huys
Antonio Gamoneda Lobón
Jorge Eduardo Arellano