The Association of Latin American Linguistics and Philology (ALFAL) is an organization whose objective is to foster progress of theoretical and applied linguistics and philology in Latin America – especially Hispanic and Portuguese linguistics and philology – as well as literary theory and criticism. Its aim is to guarantee scientific activity that brings together scholars of Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages from around the world.
The idea of creating ALFAL was proposed in August of 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the IX International Linguistics Conference, organized by CIPL (Permanent International Committee of Linguists). ALFAL was formally founded in Viña del Mar, Chile, in January 1964 under the auspices of the Philological Institute of the University of Chile.
ALFAL promotes the exchange of professors and researchers, sponsors publications, distributes informational material, and organizes research groups and periodic international meetings. The research projects – currently 30 – constitute the nucleus of the Association. They are composed by specialists who develop a research agenda and who present their results at the international conferences held by ALFAL. The Association also publishes two official journals biannually: Lingüística and Cuadernos de la ALFAL. The official languages of ALFAL are Spanish and Portuguese. There are approximately 900 members of ALFAL worldwide.
ALFAL will celebrate its 60th anniversary at the XX International Conference in January 2024, which will be hosted at the University of Concepción in Chile.
At this moment, Dermeval da Hora is the President, Angelita Martinez is the Secretary and Ángela Helmer is the treasurer.
