The Academia Argentina de Letras is the academy in charge of studying and prescribing the use of the Spanish language in Argentina. Since its establishment, on August 13, 1931, it has maintained ties with the Royal Spanish Academy and the other Spanish-language academies that are members of the Association of Spanish Language Academies. Since 1999, it has officially been a correspondent academy of the Royal Spanish Academy. It currently includes two dozen full members, chosen for having distinguished themselves in academic study related to language or literature. They make up the directing body of the academy, and they select honorary and correspondent academic members. History Antecedents The earliest lexicographical projects in the Río de la Plata area included a limited but rigorous work titled Léxico rioplatense, compiled in 1845 by Francisco Javier Muñiz, and another lexicon put together in 1860 by Juan María Gutiérrez for the French naturalist and geographer Martin de Moussy. On July 9, 1873, a group of Argentine intellectuals, mostly porteños (residents of the Buenos Aires area), founded the Argentine Academy of Sciences and Letters. Led by the poet Martín Coronado, this academy did not solely focus on the study of the Spanish language; it was dedicated to the various branches of knowledge, from law and science to visual art, literature, and history, as they pertained to Argentina's national culture. The academy did attempt to compile a Dictionary of the Argentine Language, for which the group's members compiled thousands of words and phrases. However, with the dissolution of the academy in 1879 the project was left unfinished. This work, which included studies completed by experts concerning professional argots and research on localisms in Argentina's interior, was almost completely lost. Only a dozen of the vocabulary words were preserved, having been published in the academy's periodical, El Plata Literario. The same periodical announced in 1876 a Collection of American Voices, the work of Carlos Manuel de Trelles, which included contributions from some 300 people. But this uncompleted work of compiling an Argentine dictionary did at least demonstrate the need for an entity dedicated to studying the local language. When in the 1880s the Royal Spanish Academy began inviting various Argentine intellectuals—including Ángel Justiniano Carranza, Luis Domínguez, Vicente Fidel López, Bartolomé Mitre, Pastor Obligado, Carlos María Ocantos, Ernesto Quesada, Vicente Quesada, and Carlos Guido Spano—to assist in creating a correspondent language academy in Argentina, others—such as Juan Bautista Alberdi,