Three Languages or One?

An article was just brought to my attention today via Facebook.  In it, the writer (subtly) complains about a proposal by major Spanish conservative party PP (Partido Popular, or Popular Party) that schools in Catalunya will, under their direction should they be elected in the coming months, switch to a trilingual system in which Catalan, Spanish and English will be in the curriculum until the bachillerato, the optional two years after the mandatory eight years of schooling and before university in the Spanish public school system.

What gets me is that people are complaining about this.  Now, I understand that linguistic freedom is a huge issue in Catalunya right now.  Catalan as a language has been under fire by the Spanish government since 1716 (with a brief revival during the Renaixença period of the late 19th century and early 20th century) and even since the Caudillo's death in 1975 Catalan still does not have the respect it once had.  Whereas other multilingual countries such as Canada and Belgium allow people living in certain areas to speak whichever language they will and not speak others, Spain makes sure that Spanish is still the dominant language throughout the state.  Many Catalans believe their language is still being oppressed because of this.  I don't take issue with this.


What I am taking issue with is that it seems to me that many Catalans seem to believe that in order to defend Catalan, all traces of any language other than Catalan needs to be eliminated.  An ideal world to these Catalans (I don't try to lump every Catalan in here as I am absolutely positive that not all of them feel this way) would be one in which 1. Catalunya is a free and sovereign state and Spain no longer holds any political power over it and 2. Catalan is the only official language and the only one required by law (with a possible exception of the Aranese dialect of Occitan).  The first point is something I'm not going to take issue with either, and focus on the second.  I have no problem with Catalunya making Catalan its official language per se.  And I don't think the Aranese should have any fear that their language is not going to enjoy official status should Catalunya ever declare its independence and secede from Spain, as Catalunya already recognizes it.

It is, however, my own personal fear in the overt rejection (as discovered in the comments on the page where the link was posted) of the PP's plan to give Catalunya a trilingual school program.  Now, I'm not a PP sympathizer and I hesitate to align myself with any Spanish political party as I am not Spanish and will probably never be able to vote in a Spanish election.  But I just cannot see what is so wrong about instating a multilingual program.  I cannot and will not.  I do understand, as previously mentioned, that many Catalans still see their language as being threatened, and I won't argue with that --I only disagree in the sense that they are allowed to speak it instead of being imprisoned, but that's as far as that goes; Catalan still has an air of inferiority surrounding it within Spain--.  To be brutally honest, however, I find the rejection of this plan to be disheartening.  Not because, as an English speaker, I feel that English must be taught in other countries and should be given special treatment.  That's not it at all.  After all, out of all the regions in Spain, I've noticed that Catalunya has more "actual" English-speakers (or at least people who can relatively comfortably communicate in the language) than any other part.  So clearly whatever system they have going on there, even if it's a psychological one (English is not Spanish and is therefore not "oppressive"), is working.

My problem with the rejection of this system is that a monolingual system, i.e. Catalan only, is the only system that would be supported by many Catalan voters.  As someone who speaks multiple languages and has studied many others, I can vouch for the fact that monolinguism is far, far worse than any multilingual system set up in any country.  My main fear for the future of Catalunya is that should it become its own sovereign state, it will obliderate --or at least try to obliderate-- all memory of Spanish within its borders.  Given that all Catalans right now are completely bilingual, this is a huge issue to me.  I feel that as a knee-jerk response to all the oppression carried out by the Spanish government, both linguistically and politically, over the centuries, Catalunya could in fact carry out its own form of oppression, primarily linguistically.

The part of me that loves languages and places a value on being able to converse in many of them extremely high fears for that day.  One of the advantages I see in Catalunya is the fact that most of its citizens are at the very least bilingual.  It makes no difference to me which is the "first language" of the people, whether it's Spanish or Catalan, but that they can easily go back and forth between the two of them.  Every Catalan child grows up speaking two languages.  I refuse to ignore this and see it as a bad thing.  Sure, one of those languages may be representative of an oppressive culture, but it is another language nonetheless.

Am I saying that in the case of Catalunya gaining full sovereignty from Spain that they make Spanish a co-official language based solely on the fact that most of its citizens already speak it?  Hardly.  The stigma on Spanish in the region is not something that can or will be easily forgotten.  A free Catalunya can make its own decisions on the topic and will most likely be right in making the linguistic decisions they do.  But, like it or not, Catalunya is a part of Spain.  And there is an inherent bilingualism that exists within the system, yes, at the behest of the Spanish government.  Currently, children attending public schools in Catalunya receive a vast majority of their education in Catalan.  But my question is, why complain about instituting a multilingual system in a region that is already multilingual, if not just in the fact that the natives speak two languages, but also because of the increasing number of immigrants arriving to the region who speak another language.

Another thing is that there is an argument of "eliminating linguistic immersion" by instating a trilingual system.  I highly disagree.  Linguistic immersion will still exist, only instead of being solely in Catalan, children will be immersed into Spanish and English as well.  But because Catalan is not the only language anymore, heaven forbid anyone actually makes this come to pass!  It reminds me of when I was visiting my best friend and her family in Getxo last year.  My best friend's mother is the director at an elementary school in Las Arenas, the school where my siblings attended when we were younger, and at the end of the year the board was making decisions for the next school year.  One of the issues presented was to institute a trilingual system involving Basque, Spanish and English.  The idea was that four classes would be taught in Basque, two in Spanish, and one in English.  The proposal was voted down, because heaven forbid anyone take away a Basque class to replace one with another language, even if it was English --which every student still has to be taught anyway--, and even if the significant majority of classes would still be taught in Basque.  It had my best friend's mother reeling for hours, and I could not disagree with her anger and thought the denial to institute this program was preposterous.

The thing is, once Catalunya (and the Basque Country) become sovereign nations (because I do believe it will happen...eventually) they can make whatever decisions they want about language politics.  But at the moment, when the citizens of these regions who speak the "native" language --Catalan in Catalunya and Basque in the Basque Country-- are all bilingual, this is something that should be promoted and not rejected.  Education in a language other than these is not hindering to the mother tongue or however it's seen.  The more languages you know does not mean that you forget more and more of your mother tongue.  In fact, the opposite tends to occur: your mother tongue is strengthened by the richness of vocabulary which you are now aware of.  Especially if there is actually education in all the languages.

Please, let's not stop teaching children other languages because we're afraid of destroying our mother tongue.  As long as there is some education in it, it will never die out, it will never lose its power.  Language learning is not a zero-sum game in which something must be lost in order for something to be gained.