"When the Brothers of the Venerable Third Order took charge of the illustrious dead man, they took him to bury him in the convent of the Trinitarians. They did not put a name or a tombstone, perhaps out of humility, surely because it was no longer necessary. Glory and fame would sustain from that moment on, and forever, as long as the Castilian language exists, the name of Miguel de Cervantes".
Thus concludes El soldado que nos enseñó a hablar (The Soldier Who Taught Us to Speak), the novelized biography written by Spanish writer Maria Teresa León and published in Cuba by Editorial Gente Nueva, as a tribute to the first and greatest Spanish novelist of all times, author of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, on the 400th anniversary of the appearance, in 1605, of the first part of the work
The soldier... recreates the existence of a being to whom much is owed, both for the philanthropic essences addressed in his portentous novel -to which the good man should always aspire- and for honoring our language, an identity possession that is inherent to us. On April 23, 1616, Cervantes, who died the day before, was buried in Madrid. In his honor, and as if to attest that his death was mocked for eternity, the Day of the Spanish Language is celebrated on this date.
Will we be fully aware of the responsibility we have towards the language we speak, in which we think and feel? This hour invites us to value it.
"Each one of us has to be aware of that heritage that belongs to each one of us individually, which is the language we use, but which at the same time is a heritage shared with others. We reside in the language we speak, but thanks to it we can coexist with everyone else and in the case of Spanish with no more and no less than 500 million people," explained Darío Villanueva, 2016 director of the Royal Spanish Academy, in an interview to Granma.
On the occasion, the professor said he felt sad to see people who do not know how to express themselves "because they are deprived of one of the most beautiful, most useful and most effective things that exists, which is language", and insisted that an individual who has no command of his language is disarmed in life situations; even, personally, limited in communicating his feelings.
Humanity is going through times of misfortune. Inanity, which should never win, often asserts itself. It is necessary to constantly rethink in order to alleviate the sad scene that is imposed, so far from the love defended by Don Quixote, an example of honesty and courage. Language is that support that allows us to reason, convince and summon to achieve it.
Lezama summarized that "the most valuable thing in language is the fortunate destiny of its use", and Cervantes recreated, in Castilian codes, one of the highest qualities: that of the sense of justice. May the Quixote we admire also enliven our integrity. To be quixotes today is to preserve our sanity.
