Royal Spanish Academy and Association of Academies of the Spanish Language Prince of Asturias Award for Concord 2000

The Royal Spanish Academy and the Academies of the Spanish Language are the bodies charged with conserving, enriching and uniting a cultural heritage - our language - that can be considered as the most valuable that the Spanish American community has. The cultural importance of the Spanish language, spoken by almost four hundred million people, is increasing; the Royal Academy and the American Academies have made a fundamental contribution to this.

There has been a mutual link between them since 1965 through the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, which unites 22 bodies ranging from the Royal Spanish Academy to the American Academies, and including associate members. They represent, promote and protect the Spanish language by organising different congresses and seminars which the different Academies jointly take part in.

Under the guidance of the head of the Spanish Academy, the basic mission of its permanent commission is to coordinate the work of the different academies, especially work on making the Dictionary of the Language, collecting material for the Reference Corpus of Modern Spanish and producing the Academy's Dictionary of South American Terminology.