PP and Vox declare war in the open accent of Valencia

ValenciaHeated debates on social media, letters of complaint from former students, and some criticism. The PP and Vox have managed to get the promotion of the dual bilingual name of the city of Valencia has generated a new controversy between the different sensibilities of political Valencianism and, in passing, reinforce the theses of the popular ones who accuse the universities and the Valencian Academy of Language (AVL) of promoting a language model far removed from what citizens use.

To bring about this split, the two parties only needed two actions. First, to promote the Valencian version of the name changing the open accent on the letter e to a closed one. Second, to commission a report justifying this change from an AVL academic, the retired grammarian and professor at the University of Valencia, Abelard Saragossà. who defends this formula since 1997.

The ingredient that accentuates the political background of the controversy is that the proposal –which is began processing at the end of 2023– coincides with the strengthening of Vox's attacks on the AVL, an institution that the far right has always advocated for its elimination. Given that this abolition is unlikely in the short term because the Statute of Autonomy would have to be modified – which requires the favorable vote of 66 deputies, while the PP and Vox currently have 53 – the ultras intend to take advantage of the precariousness of the conservatives – weakened by their management of the DANA – to paralyze the institution. To this end, they have opted to cut the entity's budget by 50%, which in 2024 was 3.9 million euros. And it seems that they will succeed, since the PP, which had already proposed reducing it by 25%, this week has been shown willing to make his partner's wishes come true.

The coincidence of the debate on the toponym with the attacks on the Academy and the fear that the Zaragoza report is being exploited has prompted the publication of some articles. in favor and against. It has also prompted a portion of the grammar school's former students to publicly urge him not to collaborate with those who seek to "exterminate Valencian." In a conversation with ARA, Saragossà distances himself from the proposal to include a Spanish version and maintains that his participation is limited to defending a denomination he considers more appropriate. Along these lines, when asked about Vox's actions, he does not hesitate to describe them as "anti-Valencian." He is less critical of the PP, which he supports. to build a minimum consensus. In fact, he will soon publish the first volume of a philological collection by the Valencia Provincial Council, chaired by the popular Vicent Mompó—one of the few PP leaders open to collaborating with Valencianism.

Regarding the strictly linguistic debate, Saragossà argues that the toponym with a closed accent is the one that corresponds to the pronunciation of the majority of citizens and that the regulations "should not be unnecessarily separated from the living language." He also adds that this pronunciation does not respond to the influence of Castilian, but to the evolution of Valencian.

Zaragoza's criteria are not shared by the majority of AVL academics, who in 2022 will validate that the official name was Valencia Considering that it was optimal for maintaining "the continuity" of the written tradition, they recommended that the pronunciation be "closed." This is a debate that will be repeated when the body has to issue a report on the new change. This assessment is presumed to be binding, but sources from the AVL acknowledge to the ARA that the council could try to circumvent it. "The legislation is very complex and may involve the involvement of the courts," they warn.