Ángel
Martín Municio: the metaphor of knowledge
Jesús
Castañón Rodríguez
Ángel
Martín Municio, professor and member of the Real Academia
de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales and the Real
Academia Española, passed away on November 23rd, 2002.
Born in 1923 in the little town of Haro (La Rioja, Spain),
Municio obtained a PhD in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences
and accomplished an outstanding academic career in Germany,
Spain, The Netherlands and the UK, both in the scientific
and the research fields.
He
held the positions of Director at the Real Academia de Ciencias
Exactas, Físicas y Naturales and Vice Director at the
Real Academia Española.
Among
his contributions to the study of the language, it is important
to mention the technological updating accomplished by the
Real Academia Española under his guidance, as well
as his efforts to establish a correlation among computational
linguistics applied to lexical projects, scientific terminology
and technical-scientific vocabulary. He was a defender of
the principle that Science and Language are not mutually exclusive
but rather complement each other, as both need creativity
and metaphors to define knowledge with accuracy and clarity.
Sports
vocabulary champion
His
linguistic collaboration within the sports circles was active
and consistent, and mainly accomplished through the incorporation
of new terms which took place during the 90s. The soccer
related term vaselina was by far the most popular of his creations,
proposed for and included in the 21st edition of the Dictionary
of Spanish Language.
The
passing of Martin Municio represents the loss of a scientist,
a communicator and a soccer fan who loved to follow this sport
through the radio.
Bibliographic
references
FERNÁNDEZ
DEL MORAL, Javier: "Ángel Martín Municio,
divulgador", ABC, Madrid, November 30th, 2002.
LEÓN-SOTELO, Trinidad de: "Muere a los 78 años
Ángel Martín Municio, la voz de la ciencia en
la Academia Española", ABC, Madrid, 24 de noviembre
de 2002.
ROSELL, María del Mar: "La lengua gana por goleada",
Diario 16, Madrid, March 16th, 1995.
Traducción:
Cristina Márquez Arroyo