At half past ten in the morning, about thirty retirees were sitting in front of the Gran Teatro Falla in Cádiz. Some in wheelchairs, others in plastic. There were clouds and the breeze was blowing, and protocol dictated a blanket. They had been waiting for over an hour, all expectation. It is what they have to put on a sarao at the doors of your house – the Fragela nursing home –: you have no choice but to go out and see. “Here what is missing is a lid, the small glass, like at the fair,” a nurse burst out laughing. “What was there to say?” asked a woman. Fe-li-pe! Fe-li-pe!” There was still more than an hour left for the King to enter the door to inaugurate the IX Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE), but the public always arrives before to warm up. In the end they were able to shake his hand. Mission accomplished: this is how the morning is spent.
Inside, the King was greeted with applause. «The great Hispanist convocation that we are going to celebrate –this time in Cádiz– has become, due to its importance, diffusion and continuity, the most relevant event in the Spanish language, and also, to a large extent, the place where they have sat the bases of pan-Hispanic language policy,” he said, already from the lectern. His speech was a journey through the history of these congresses, a reminder of the power of Spanish, in data and facts: it is the second most spoken language in the world, in 2100 it will be spoken by 6.3% of the world population, America can cross paths without changing language. And so.
The theme of CILE was miscegenation. That is why Don Felipe stressed that “Spanish, from its origins, is a mestizo language.” «This miscegenation transcends social coexistence, education, and the entire cultural, literary, artistic world, infrastructures, architecture, medicine or law; and it does so in all the nations that speak it. That we speak it… We hope to hear here, in Cádiz, the beautiful words coming from Nahuatl, Quechua, Quiché, Guarani and other Amerindian languages».
And it ended with a message that was, at the same time, a wish and a request and a duty. «We have the opportunity that our language, in addition to being universal, is increasingly global. Language is one of our great assets that we have to preserve, take care of, but also promote. (…) Language unites us now and, therefore, it is a future project for tomorrow. We have to know how to seize the moment. This is the time for Spanish, with all its voices, its twists and nuances, with all its accents, with all its richness and diversity. Let’s not miss the opportunity that History puts before us. The 21st century must be the century of Spanish. Let’s make it possible.”