Manuel Seco Reymundo (20 September 1928 – 16 December 2021) was a Spanish

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

, linguist and philologist. He worked at the department of lexicography of the

Real Academia Española The Royal Spanish Academy (, ; ) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with national language academies in 22 other Hispanopho ...

between 1962 and 1993. He became a member of the Academia in 1980.

Career

Seco was born on 20 September 1928 in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. His father was Rafael Seco y Sánchez (1895–1933) and his mother Carmen Reymundo Mariño. He obtained a degree in

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

at the Central University of Madrid in 1952. He was awarded a further doctorate with the same specialization in 1969, also from the Central University. In 1960 he started as a professor of Spanish language and literature at various educational facilities. Two years later he took up a position at the lexicography department of the

, to which he was invited by Rafael Lapesa. Seco worked at the department for 31 years. Between 2000 and 2012 he was advisor to the Instituto de Lexicografía. In 2011 Seco was critical of some of the

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

changes the Academia introduced. Seco is best known for his two lexicographic works on the

Spanish language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...

: ''el Diccionario de dudas y dificultades de la lengua española'', a dictionary on doubts and difficulties of the Spanish language, and the ''Diccionario del español actual'', a dictionary of present-day Spanish which he co-authored with Gabino Ramos and Olimpia Andrés.

Awards and honors

Seco was elected to Seat ''A'' of the

on 5 April 1979, he took up his seat on 23 November 1980. He was the longest-serving member of the Academia. In 1999 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise. In 2015 Seco won the Menéndez Pelayo International Prize.

Notes

References

External links

Juan Crespo, ''Ideas de Manuel Seco sobre la enseñanza de la lengua y literatura españolas génesis, arquitectura y evolución''.
Cauce, Revista de Filología y su Didáctica, n° 26, 2003 /págs. 67-139. Centro Virtual Cervantes {{DEFAULTSORT:Seco, Manuel 1928 births 2021 deaths Complutense University of Madrid alumni 20th-century Spanish linguists 21st-century Spanish linguists Members of the Royal Spanish Academy People from Madrid Recipients of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise Spanish lexicographers Spanish philologists