“WE, all the under signers of this Manifest, exercising our rights of opinion and freedom of expression, deny the representation of the AVL for the 13 Reasons which are exposed below and in this very document we make an 8 Point Declaration against its existence.”

OUR 13 REASONS:

  1. Because it is an organization that purely and simply does not believe in the Valencian Language, except as a variation of the Catalan Language, and in this respect says that we share it with other territories such as Cataluña, Baleares, and Andorra.

  2. Because as it says, using its catalanized language in its website, it accepts for it to be called “Valenciá” and not “Llengua Catalana” but only for Legal imperatives (our Valencian Statute or Constitution, says that Valenciano is our Language). As the AVL says in its website referring to the “Ensenyament universitari” (“University Teaching): A més de la declaració com a llengües oficials d'aquelles que ho són a la Comunitat Valenciana per part de les Universitats erigides al País Valencià, evitant així la denominació acadèmica de la llengua catalana per imperatiu de l'Administració que va aprovar els respectius Estatuts, l'ús del valencià com a llengua vehicular….” (Which means in English that the AVL accepts to call Valencian Language the Valencian Language, but only because of Legal constraints)

  3. Because it is simply ridiculous that the AVL could have (as it has in fact) as one of its prerogatives (Title II, art.8 of its “Ley de Creació” or “Law of Creation”) the following: “To inform about the conformity with the rules of the AVL of the texts written by the public institutions or those texts which require official approval, as well as the audiovisual production in the Comunidad Valenciana”. Can you imagine the situation where the Spanish Government or the audiovisual producers would be required to submit their work to the “Real Academia Española” for approval of their linguistic adequacy of its texts or of the audiovisual productions?. It is simply ridiculous.

  4. Because the AVL outstandingly tries to diminish, by imposing their criteria on citizens, companies, teachers, and to the World in general (including the Valencian people), attributing to themselves all the rights over one of our more precious signs of identity: the Valencian Language, which forms part of a Collective Intellectual Heritage whose first only owner is the Valencian People, the People who has made, makes and will make the Valencian Language evolve throughout History from its origins from the Latin Language and which has enriched it with many cultures along the centuries.

  5. Because the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL), still does not know if the Valencian Language is called Valencian Language “fora del’àmbit territorial de l’actual Comunitat Valenciana” ( i.e.:“outside the territorial context of the current Communitat Valenciana”) and because of this, the AVL does not move one finger when the Valencian Language is ignored -rather it is passed off by calling it Catalan- or it is eliminated from the list of European languages; and because of this I consider that the AVL is an artificial product, steaming from a shamefully deceitful pact done by politicians that have superimposed their personal interests over our Cultural Heritage and our signs of identity. Therefore, we do not need nor want to finance these linguistic talibans that aim to incarcerate and corrupt the Valencian Language in the interest of third parties.

  6. Because the AVL carefully avoids in all of its communications, articles, publications, and also in its website, the use of the complete name of our glorious Valencian Language, and as an example of the aforementioned, in its recent publication “Gramática Normativa Valenciana”, ( “Valencian Grammatical Rules”) consisting of 410 pages and 129,200 words, the AVL does not mention even once the expression “Valencian Language”.

  7. Because the AVL is, by all means, trying to catalanize the education of our young generation, making them slowly abandon the traditional Valencian vocabulary and recommending that through the educational system “other variations of the linguistic system” should be introduced to our children (March 26th 2004 “Accord” taken in a plenary meeting of the AVL).

  8. Because they base all of their theories on the so-called “Normas de Castelló”, praising a document whose importance should be reduced to the category of an “anecdote”. This document consists of five half A-4 typewritten pages, which include underlining and hand-written corrections, and which are followed by three pages with signatures, preceded by comments to these signatures, such as “..les acepta a titol com son de provisionals….” Or “accepted as provisionals” (antes de la firma/before the signature of/de Lo Rat Penat) ; or ”Ates lo carácter provisional que tenen les Bases, no tenim inconvenient….” Or “considering that they have a provisional character, we do not have any inconvenience in signing”, (antes de la firma/before of the signature of/del Padre Luis Fullana).

  9. Because, with respect to Father Luis Fullana, the AVL deliberately ignores that he was an Academic of the Real Academia Española, representing the Valencian Language in that Institution and that his speech when he entered the Academia on the 11th of November of 1928 dealt on the Valencian Language.

  10. Because the AVL hides that the Valencian Language was the first Romance Language with a golden age along the XVth century, with an extense and glorious array of authors such as Martorell, March, Esteve, Isabel de Villena, etc., all of them stating clearly and literally in their works that they wrote in Valencian Language. Despite of this documented evidence, the AVL still does not know if the Valencian Language exists.

  11. Because the AVL is favouring the disappearance of the Valencian Language as an initial step to the belittling of the Valencian Culture and to its posterior integration within the Catalan Culture. This is already having absurd consequences, such as when it is published that Sorolla, the Borja family, or the paella all belong to the Catalan context; or also when the true History is changed without the least bit of respect, trying to make their own the fourteen Kings of the Kingdom of Valencia, describing them as chimeric “Catalan kings”, when in fact neither the catalan lands were never a Kingdom, nor did Cataluña formally existed until the Corbeil Treaty of 1258.

  12. Because according to the Budgets of the Generalitat for the year of 2008 (Section 17, Service 01, Program 541.10) the AVL costs us: (a) the AVL herself and directly, 5,981,000 Euros annually (with an increment of 9.29% in the 2008 budgets compared with 2007); and (b) indirectly, to finance programs (having among them beneficiaries as the Catalanist Editorial Bromera, which is a member of the “Consell Catalá del Llibre per Infants y Joves” (or “Catalonian Books for children and youth Institute”), or another beneficiary as the “Consell Asesor de la Institució de les Lletres Catalanes” (“Counselling Institute for the Catalan Literacy”), costs us another 566,000 Euros.

  13. And because if we go back to the year of its creation (1998), since then, we Valencians have paid (with our taxes from our pockets) to the AVL the following quantities via Budgets of the Generalitat:

1999 = 100,000,000 Pesetas
2000 = 102,000,000 Pesetas
2001 = 100,000,000 Pesetas
2002 = 3,303,500 Euros
2003 = 3,415,490 Euros
2004 = 3,486,810 Euros
2005 = 3,517,040 Euros
2006 = 3,683,540 Euros
2007 = 3,865,850 Euros
2008 = 4,225,150 Euros
2009 = 4,338,940 Euros

and budgeted for this year 2010 = 4,338,940 Euros.

This makes a total of 5,988,620,984.1 Pesetas, or 35,992,337 Euros, which is a tremendous amount of money paid by the Valencian People to a completely unnecessary entity, which does not even know how the Valencian Language is called.

FOR ALL OF THE EXPOSED REASONS,

  1. That, by means of my adhesion to this Manifest, I declare that the Valencian Language does not need the regulatory entity that the Academia Valenciana de la Lengua claims to be, and I consider it an unacceptable organization in its essence, name and content, built by some politicians who ignored the Valencian People and acted against its Cultural Heritage.

  2. That the glorious Valencian Language, which has given a great array of writers, literary masterpieces, and has transmitted feelings and culture from when, as a romanic tongue and as many others, derived from its Latin origins, belongs to and only to the People of Valencia, and by no means is owned by an institution called AVL, which is artificial, costly and unnecessary. Thus, by adhering to this manifest, I declare that the AVL cannot represent me or by any means can impose me its rules, and that is the reason why I demand its termination, and I declare it to be my intention to strive until the AVL’s disappears and moreover, why I grant the promoters of this manifest the right to represent me.

  3. That I demand that the Corts Valencianes and the Generalitat do comply with and promote the compliance of the current Estatut de Autonomia, whose article 6.2 recognizes, without doubt, that the Valencian Language, and no other, is the sole language of the Valencians. If these Institutions do not do so, they would incur in corruption and would be accomplices of the AVL, which has documented, written and published in its Gramática, that the Valencian Language should “converge” to the Catalanist language system, which indirectly means that they consider it to be a language belonging to the Catalan language. The AVL (composed of a great percentage of Academics, Philologists in Catalan Language), by modifying the meaning of the cited article of our Statute, “exercises”, a legislative faculty which does not in any way belong to them.

  4. That once the dissolution of the AVL occurs, the Real Academia de Cultura Valenciana, which has since 1915 been defending the Culture and Valencian Language, and has its corresponding Valencian Language section, should be given the support to even better carry out its functions.

  5. That the very considerable amount of funds which, through my taxes, are transferred to the AVL, must be destined to finance all types of Institutions genuinely Valencian that defend with rigor, but also with pride, our cultural Heritage and Valencian Language.

  6. That the Consellería de Educación must support the use of books written in genuine Valencian Language (RACV), and encourage that public media use the Valencian Language, which is the only one recognized in our Constitution (“Estatuto”).

  7. That, as long as the above conditions are not met, there must be no negotiation of a treaty of reciprocity (supported by the AVL) between C9 and the TV3 Group, to broadcast in the Valencian Community their thesis and territorial concepts (as for example is shown in their weather broadcast, changing the name of Comunidad Valenciana without the minimum respect to our Laws).

  8. That whereas this is not a political manifest, we intend, nonetheless, to raise awareness about the farce that the AVL represents, and to take advantage of the opportunity that this platform represent, to tell to our Government representatives and to our Political parties, that what we need are strong Civil Institutions, born within and with the sole intent of helping the Valencian people. These said Institutions should receive the proper backing from our Government, whatsoever its political affiliation; from this Government to whom we trust our taxes in the confidence that they will be administrated defending the truth, the essence and the millenary history of the people of the Comunidad Valenciana, and not, as it happens now with the AVL, used to ignore and to go against the Valencian People. The historic and rich Valencian Language and the glorious people from the Comunidad Valenciana together, conform a rich Heritage, more important and long lasting that any political party. It is the people from the Comunidad Valenciana who shall have to decide which political party is betraying or helping them in defending its Heritage.