Manuel Alvar facts for kids

Manuel Alvar (born July 8, 1923, died August 13, 2001) was a Spanish expert in languages and history. He was a university professor who studied how the Spanish language changes in different places. This is called dialectology. He also studied the history of languages, known as philology.

Throughout his life, Manuel Alvar helped create many linguistic atlases. These are like maps that show how people speak differently in various areas. He was also the Director of the Real Academia Española for four years. This is a very important group that looks after the Spanish language. He was also a member of language groups in Europe and Latin America.

Manuel Alvar's Early Life and Schooling

Manuel Alvar was born on July 8, 1923, in Benicarló, Castellón de la Plana, Spain. He started his studies at the Universidad de Zaragoza. There, he learned from José Manuel Blecua, a famous Spanish language expert. Alvar later moved to the Universidad de Salamanca. He finished his degree in Philosophy and Spanish Literature in 1945 with top honors.

Just three years later, he earned his doctorate from the Universidad de Madrid. His main teaching job was at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Alvar married Elena Ezquerra, who was a historian. They had seven sons. Many of their sons also became academics and loved languages, just like their father. For example, one is a dictionary expert and language professor. Another teaches about Romance languages. A third teaches about Latin languages.

Manuel Alvar passed away in August 2001 from lung cancer. He was 78 years old. He is buried in Chinchón, a small town near Madrid.

Manuel Alvar's Work and Studies

Studying Language in the Field

Manuel Alvar's research helps us understand how Spanish dialects changed over time. He wrote about this in his book Manual de dialectología hispánica (1996). His studies covered Spanish dialects in Spain, especially in Andalucía, the Canary Islands, Navarra, and Aragón. He also studied Spanish dialects in the United States, South America, and Central America.

For example, in his 1953 book El Dialecto Aragonés, Alvar looked closely at Spanish in the Aragón region. He studied its history, how it was written, names, and how sentences, words, and sounds changed.

For a later project, "Atlas lingüístico y etnográfico de Aragón" (1979-1983), Alvar and his team visited people in the Aragón region. They wrote down words that people said by themselves. He used a similar way to collect information from people in the Canary Islands. He then published a language map of that dialect in 1975.

Alvar believed it was better to make smaller language maps for specific regions. He thought this was better than making very large national maps. His Atlas Lingüístico de España y Portugal shows this idea.

Teaching Spanish Language

Manuel Alvar spent a lot of his life teaching. He started teaching in 1947 at the University of Salamanca. In 1948, he became the head of the Spanish languages department at the University of Granada. Alvar also taught at the Autonomous University of Madrid and Universidad Complutense. He became head of departments at both universities in 1968 and 1971.

From 1965 to 1968, he directed a program in Málaga that taught Spanish language and culture to people from other countries. He was known for his strong passion for teaching Spanish to foreign learners. In 1966, Alvar created an advanced Spanish language course at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). He led this course until 1997.

He was also a visiting professor at many universities in Spain and other countries. He was nominated for awards at several universities in North and South America, and Europe.

Being Part of Language Academies

Manuel Alvar was a member of several important language academies. He was the Director of the Real Academia Española from 1988 to 1991. This Academy, located in Madrid, is the official group that looks after the Spanish language.

Alvar was also a member of the Academia Colombiana de la Lengua. This group focuses on how Spanish is used in Colombia. He was also part of the Academia Argentina de Letras and the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua. These groups also work to keep the Spanish language pure and to encourage its study.

Alvar was a member of several history and culture academies too. He was appointed director of the Real Academia de la Historia in 1999. This Academy studies the history of the Spanish people. Starting in 1963, Alvar also directed the CSIC Department of Linguistic Geography and Dialectology. This is Spain's largest public group for Spanish language research.

Manuel Alvar's Legacy

His Influence on Language Studies

Manuel Alvar's work on how language changes in different places (dialectology) was very important. But he also studied other topics. These included Romance languages, historical linguistics, place names, and medieval literature. He even helped create the Spanish Medieval Dictionary in 1978. He also worked on translations and the history of the Americas.

In dialectology, Alvar wrote or helped create many language maps and research projects. These focused on the Spanish language in Spain and Latin America in the second half of the 20th century. Some of these include the Atlas Lingüístico y Etnográfico de Andalucía (ALEA) and the Atlas Lingüístico de Hispanoamérica.

Alvar was also part of the Executive Committee of the Atlas Linguarum Europae (ALE) in Holland in 1971. This was a huge language map project supported by UNESCO. It included many different language families from across Europe.

Awards and Recognition

Manuel Alvar received many important awards during his life. After he passed away, awards were created in his name to honor him. He gave lectures all over the world. He also received many honorary degrees from universities.

In 1991, he became a member of the Colegio Libre de Eméritos at the University of Madrid. Alvar won the famous Premio Nacional de Literatura in 1976 for his work on language and geography. He also led the Fifth International Congress of Linguistic Studies in the Mediterranean in 1973.

Alvar received a Fulbright grant for his work on "Atlas de los marineros peninsulares." He won the Premio Nacional de Investigación for his 1960 book "Estructura del léxico andaluz." He also won the Premio Nacional de Literatura por Aragón in 1976.

In 1985, the Institución Fernando el Católico created a special position called "Manuel Alvar Chair of the Linguistics Department" to honor him. In 1992, the National University of San Juan (Argentina) created the "Instituto de Filología Manuel Alvar." The Fundación José Manuel Lara (in Seville) gives an award for excellence in the humanities each year in Alvar's name, starting in 1993.

Manuel Alvar's Main Books

Manuel Alvar wrote more than 170 books and 600 scientific articles. Here are some of his most well-known works:

• 1947: "Dialectical Boundaries in the Pyrenees"
• 1953: "El dialecto aragonés" (The Aragon dialect)
• 1960: Texto hispánicos dialectales (Text of Spanish Dialects)
• 1961: Atlas lingüístico y etnográfico de Andalucia (Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Andalusia)
• 1969: Variedad y unidad del español (Variety and Uniformity of Spanish)
• 1976: "El dialecto riojano" (The Rioja dialect)
• 1977: Estudios lingüísticos sobre la Amazona colombiana (Linguistic Studies of the Colombian Amazon)
• 1996: Manual de dialectología hispánica: el español de América (Manual of Spanish Dialectology: the Spanish of the Americas)
• 1996: Manual de dialectologia hispánica: el español de España (Manual of Spanish Dialectology: the Spanish of Spain)

See also

In Spanish: Manuel Alvar para niños