<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, has defended the official status of Asturian because its absence from the co-official languages of the State "is not good for Asturians or for the pride of Spanish diversity."</strong></h4> García Montero spoke this Thursday, in his capacity as professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Granada, in a debate in the General Assembly of the Principality on the official status of Asturian in the autonomous community. The director of the Cervantes Institute was part of the group of experts and institutional representatives invited by political parties to advise on this issue. During his speech, in which he emphasized that it is not his job to decide the level of protection and official status Asturias wishes to grant its own language, García Montero affirmed that Spain is a “happily diverse country, and every Spaniard is immensely enriched for that,” and cited as examples his own poetic learning from works by authors with verses in Basque such as Gabriel Aresti, the Galician poems of Rosalía de Castro, and the Catalan books of Joan Margarit. “Spain is not only a diverse country: it is a country proud of being so,” he affirmed. “It could not be otherwise when it is also part of a vast community, the Spanish-speaking community, to which we contribute (it is always worth remembering) only eight percent of its nearly six hundred million speakers,” he added. He also recalled the protection that the Spanish Constitution offers both to Spanish and to the rest of the official languages in their respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their Statutes. “Spain has been a pioneer, and that inspires pride,” he added. For this reason, he reiterated the importance of this debate for the future of Asturian, as he believes that, without official status, this language "will always be at a disadvantage." "This official status of Asturian may be too late for an Asturias that has always been part of the history of Spain. Perhaps it's time for it to also be part of its own history," he stated. García Montero also highlighted the work of the Cervantes Institute not only in support of the co-official languages of the State, but also of Asturian itself, such as its collaborations with the Regional Ministry of Culture, Language Policy, and Sports of the Principality, the participation of writers in this language at the institution's centers, or the Asturian language courses that began to be offered last year at the center in New York, although "low demand prevented the course from being offered." Before this speech in defense of the Asturian officialdom, García Montero also expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the Cerredo miners who died last Monday due to a firedamp explosion.
