UFM’s Vice President »emeritus »directs the Language Academy

Rigoberto Juárez-Paz, Vice President  Emeritus at the UFM and director of Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua

Doctor Rigoberto Juárez-Paz, Vice President emeritus of Universidad Francisco Marroquín, was elected director of Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua, corresponsal of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

«Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua is part of Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española.  Consequently, it actively participates with that organization, with the RAE at the top. For example: every five years an academic goes to Madrid to integrate the permanent commission; we also collaborate in the making of Diccionario de Americanismos and  Diccionario Histórico«, Juárez-Paz explained, in his published column of
June 29th of 2007.

«The motto of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española from its beginning, in the 18th Century, has been clean, fixed and giving splendor to the Spanish language that, as we know, is the national language of our country. Even though languages modify and enrich themselves as a result of their contact with others, especially with those of civilizations which advanced trade and industry, they also corrupt unnecessarily», he added.

Juarez-Paz commented that the European academies of language, specially the French one, certainly inspired in the foundation of the Real Academia Española, respond to what Hayek calls constructivist rationalism, originated in Descartes philosophy. But the cleaning of language, from adhesions that disfigure it, is not contemplated in the mentioned rationalism.

The new board of Academy directors, elected last June 15 of 2007, is also integrated by the assistant director Gonzalo de Villa, the secretary Margarita Carrera, the treasurer Dieter Lehnhoff, and the vocal Gustavo Adolfo Wyld.  Other members of Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua are, or have been, other UFM members like Salvador Aguado Andreut (RIP), Francisco Perez de Antón and Amable Sánchez Torres.

In a
brief interview with Ph.D. Juárez-Paz, he talked about the Academy, the Spanish language and constructivist rationalism. 

Doctor Rigoberto Juárez-Paz graduated as a teacher at Escuela Normal para Varones and he taught as a school teacher in Zacapa and other schools of the country. 

He obtained his Superior Baccalaureate, the Masters degree and the Doctorate in Philosophy at the Universities of Indiana and Minnesota. His Master´s thesis was on the thought of Stephen Toulmin, a British philosopher and his doctoral dissertation took him to carry out an analysis of the Spanish philosophy of the 20th Century. He was a philosophy professor in the Universities of Minnesota and Pensylvania, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

He was one of the main founders, in 1970, of Universidad Francisco Marroquín. He is author of the Idearium and the letter of the hymn of this house of superior studies. He was the Academic Vice President of this University from 1972 to 1993. At the moment he is Vice President Emeritus.

Juárez-Paz is author of several collections of essays on philosophical subjects; among them are: Invitación a la filosofía; El carácter social de la vida humana; Estudios filosóficos; Ensayos y polémicas; Las condiciones del diálogo; and El pensamiento de Juan José Arévalo y de Héctor-Neri Castañeda.

Special mention deserves, among his works, the five stories of philosophical-literary character that provide a new interpretation of some of the main subjects of the Popol-Vuh with the title Cinco relatos contra el olvido.

The laureate was a founding member of the group Liga Pro-Patria from where he retired, but keeps the title of honorary president. He is member of the Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua and was its Treasurer until 2003. He has been a journalist for the newspaper El Periódico since it´s foundation in 1996 to the present day.

He is currently the President of the Commité Doctoral of the School of Law at Universidad Francisco Marroquín since the doctoral degrees began in 1994.