Rufino José Cuervo Urisarri (

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

) was a Colombian writer,

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

Biography

He was the youngest son of María Francisca Urisarri Tordecillas and Dr. Rufino Cuervo y Barreto, a politician, lawyer, journalist and vice president of the Republic between 1845 and 1851. He studied

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, but the main part of his work was dedicated to the study of the dialectal variations of Spanish spoken in Colombia. About this topic, he wrote his book ''Apuntaciones críticas sobre lenguaje bogotano'' (''Critical Notes About Bogotan Language'', 1867), which is still an important reference in the study of the American Spanish language. His most important work was ''Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana'' (''Dictionary of Castilian language construction and rection''). This work is updated on a regular basis by the Caro y Cuervo Institute. Cuervo also revised and republished the Spanish American grammar of

Andrés Bello Andrés de Jesús María y José Bello López (; November 29, 1781 – October 15, 1865) was a Venezuelan Humanism, humanist, diplomat, poet, legislator, philosopher, educator and philologist, whose political and literary works constitute a ...

, ''Castilian Grammar for Americans''. Instituto Caro y Cuervo

Cuervo was one of the first linguists who promoted the union of the Spanish language in its different variants. He was worried about the segregationist trend in spoken Spanish and thought that this phenomenon was similar to the events following the fall of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, after which

gradually began splitting into several independent

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 ...

, such as Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. In 1878 he was admitted as the Colombian representative to 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 ...

. In 1882 he moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he lived until his death in 1911.

References

* http://www.universia.net.co/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=5752
Rufino José Cuervo – MSN Encarta

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuervo, Rufino Jose Cuervo family Colombian male writers Linguists from Colombia Philologists Members of the Mexican Academy of Language Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 1844 births 1911 deaths Colombian socialites