Defending Catalan (Among Others)

I was reading a document I’d found that was published by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) on philological information on the language (spelling, grammar, pronunciation, etc.), and at the end I saw a section called “Defending Catalan in the European Union”.  This section was particularly fascinating because it presented, in list form, various reasons why those at the IEC wished Catalan to become an official language within the European Union.  At the moment, it is recognized (it has some status, but is not considered official by any means), but as it is not the primary language in any one member state, it is not given the status that many within Catalunya feel it deserves.

Here are some of the most notable reasons I found:

 

1. D’antuvi, és deplorable que la llengua catalana no tingui caràcter oficial sense restriccions a la UE, tot i que és parlada a tres dels estats membres: l’espanyol, el francès i l’italià. [To begin, it is deplorable that the Catalan language does not have official status without restrictions in the EU, even though it is spoken in three member states: Spain, France and Italy.]
2. Entre les noves llengües que tindran carta d’oficialitat a la UE, solament el polonès, el romanès i l’hongarès superen el català en nombre de parlants; l’eslovac, el lituà, el letó, l’eslovè, l’estonià i el maltès són idiomes propis de països que tenen menys de sis milions d’habitants. [Among the new languages which will be given official status (as of 2002) in the EU, only Polish, Romanian and Hungarian surpass Catalan in number of speakers: Slovakian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovenian, Estonian and Maltese are languages from countries with less than six million inhabitants.]
3. Pel que fa al nombre d’usuaris, la llengua catalana és equiparable al suec, al grec i al portuguès, i supera el danès i el finès. Entre totes les llengües denominades «regionals», el català és l’única llengua parlada per més de set milions de persones. [Regarding number of users, the Catalan language is spoken by the same amount of people as Swedish, Greek and Portuguese, and surpasses Danish and Finnish.  Among all the languages termed “regional”, Catalan is the only language spoken by more than seven million people.]
4. Fora de l’àmbit estricte dels territoris on és la llengua pròpia, el català s’ensenya a setanta-sis universitats d’Europa i d’Amèrica. [Outside of the limits of the territories where it is a spoken language, Catalan is taught in 66 universities in Europe and the Americas.]
5. Catalunya, a l’època medieval, fou una nació independent, que tenia com a llengua oficial el català; solament la coerció i, fins i tot, la repressió politicoculturals de determinats règims de govern als segles XVIII-XX li negaren aquesta condició. [Catalunya, during the medieval period, was an independent nation, which has as an official language Catalan; only by coercion and, even, politicocultural repression by certain governmental regimes in the 18th through the 20th centuries has this condition been denied it.]

And after this section on Catalan in the EU, there was a small section on Catalan in Spain:

1. Dels tres estats membres de la UE on és parlada la llengua catalana, només a l’Estat espanyol té el reconeixement de llengua oficial en algunes de les seves comunitats autònomes. Aquesta situació li atribueix una responsabilitat més gran pel que fa a la promoció externa d’aquesta llengua. [Of the three EU member states where the Catalan language is spoken, only Spain grants it recognition as an official language in some of its autonomous communities.  This situation attributes to it a greater responsibility regarding the external promotion of this language.]
2. No obstant això, el Govern de l’Estat espanyol no fa res per promoure el reconeixement de l’oficialitat a la UE de cap llengua que no sigui la castellana i cerca permanentment els mitjans per tal de frenar qualsevol iniciativa que s’oposi a la seva voluntat. Aquesta actitud és contrària, no solament als principis democràtics d’igualtat, sinó també a la lletra de la Constitució espanyola. [Despite this (the Spanish Constitution defending the linguistic plurality within its borders), the Spanish Government does nothing to promote official recognition within the EU of any language that is not Spanish and permanently seeks out the media in order to stop any initiative that opposes its will.  This behavior is contrary, not only to democratic principles of equality, but also to the letter of the Spanish Constitution.]

Neither list contains all the points, just the ones I thought most important.

It’s interesting because now that I’m living in Canada (albeit “illegally”), I feel like I’ve become so much more aware of lingua-political (is this a word?) issues.  In Canada, there are two official languages, English and French, even though France is really only spoken in one province, and English is the dominant language in all the others.  But according to the Canadian charter, both languages are given equal protection and equal status under the law.  This does not happen in Spain, where there are four official languages (and at least four other non-official languages spoken within the Spanish borders, including Astur-Leonese, Aragonese, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan) but Spanish is the primary, dominant language.  Everything in the Spanish state must be in Spanish, though the Autonomous Communities where another language, having official status, is spoken are allowed to use their regional languages as well.  Thus, in Galicia, for example, Galician (galego) is permitted to be used in legal and other judicial situations; the Galician government is allowed to conduct meetings in the language.   Children are allowed to be educated in the language.  The same holds true for Basque in the Basque Country (and Navarra, where applicable), and Catalan in Catalunya, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands (though to a lesser extent in the latter two).  The idea is, no language is discriminated against in Spain.

I just keep going back to Canada (or even the US, where there is no official language at all, much to the chagrin of many, many people).  In provinces like Ontario, most people speak English.  French is taught in schools from a young age, but not everyone is able to converse in it.  Some children are put into immersion programs, where all of their education is done in French, and there they are more likely to retain the language.  But even in Quebec, despite being a “minority” population (as a majority of Canadians are English-speaking), many Québecois do not, in fact, speak English.  If they do speak it, it is with (somewhat) thick French accents.  English is not imposed (i.e. forced) in Quebec, though government announcements and documents are all bilingual, just as French is not imposed in the other provinces.  Both languages have completely equal status under the law.

In Spain, however, Spanish is the only language that appears on most government documents, save those published exclusively in the Autonomous Community in question, where they will usually be bilingual (trilingual now in Catalunya, where Aranese/Occitan has been recognized as an official language).  Spanish is the only language printed on most labels in grocery stores (though most of the time they’ll also include Portuguese, as most products sold in Spain are also sold in Portugal), with the exception of Basque Country-based grocery giant Eroski, which prints its labels in all four official languages in Spain.  And just about every single person carrying a Spanish ID card speaks Spanish.

I don’t know whether I can say which system is “right” or “wrong”, though I think it’s pretty obvious to see which system I like better.  However, in Spain’s case, where there is far more history behind the imposition of Spanish and the status of regions like Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalunya, the fact that they recognize three other languages at all is a feat.  Canada was settled by both the French and the English, and therefore there was never any “conquering” done by either group.  In Spain however, history states otherwise, and the current linguistic policies reflect this.  I really like the Canadian method of an all-inclusive linguistic policy, though I completely understand why, very unfortunately, this will never be feasible in Spain.

Whether or not Catalan should be granted official status in the EU I’m not sure.  While it may be an official language in one member state and is spoken in two others is very little matter; the truth is, no country speaks it as a sole official language (unless Andorra should become a member of the EU).  France and Italy do not recognize the language as being spoken at all, making it difficult to recognize on an international level.  Even Spain, while recognizing it, does not promote it.  No one in Madrid speaks Catalan save for those who have moved to the capital on business, or those engaging in tourism.  No one in Seville would even contemplate learning the language (“Why bother?  They all speak Spanish there anyway.”).

But at least, after decades of oppression and centuries of the Spanish government ignoring the other language being spoken within its self-declared borders, these major languages are being given at least some of the recognition they deserve.  Which is, quite frankly, not a bad thing at all.