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Catalan in Barcelona | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6962 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes  Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 1 of 31 22 July 2006 at 8:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Now I am in Barcellona.
I am italian and I understand and speak Spanish castellano almost fluently. Here in Barcellona there is a big politics to promote Catalan that is the ancient local language that has been forbidden for 40 years by the Fascist regime of Franco. Here now all the signs in the streets , all the advertisings..everything is mostly in Catalan and it is compulsory to know Catalan if you work in any public office or shop. The fact is the nobody speaks Catalan , I was investigating and I hear policemen , barbers, priests , young and old people, everybody speaks spañish . I only heard few old men speak this language that is very similar to northwest italian dialects like occitano and piedmontese. Anyone can explain something about this funny situation in barcellona? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 31 22 July 2006 at 9:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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My impression from what I've read is that Catalan is still in a revival phase.
According to Wikipedia, 75% of residents can speak it, but less than half can write in Catalan. It seems Spanish is still dominant. If you go into a typical bookstore, what language are books and magazines in? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 31 22 July 2006 at 11:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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The last time I was in Barcelona (over 15 years ago) I could get by just fine with Spanish only.
Try these for more information: La Lengua Catalana Generalitat de Catalunya 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6962 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 4 of 31 23 July 2006 at 6:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here in Barcellona
every public sign is in Catalan that often can be understtood by Spanish-speaking people because is a latin language. Books and magazines are almost all in Spanish . Today I've heard some people speaking in Catalan in the market . It sounds that is used as a dialect by a restricted number of people. In the countryside probably the situation is different. In the Regional Parlament Catalan is the official language. [QUOTE=Captain Haddock] My impression from what I've read is that Catalan is still in a revival phase. According to Wikipedia, 75% of residents can speak it, but less than half can write in Catalan. It seems Spanish is still dominant. If you go into a typical bookstore, what language are books and magazines 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Guanche Hexaglot Senior Member Spain danielmarin.blogspot Joined 7048 days ago 168 posts - 178 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanC1, RussianB1, French, Japanese Studies: Greek, Mandarin, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 31 23 July 2006 at 9:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, everytime I go to Barcelona, I can see that most people on the streets speak Spanish (there're a lot immigrants, many of them from Latin America), but when you listen to local TV or radio stations, they use mostly Catalan. And, yes, the situation is completely different in the countryside: Catalan is by far the most important lnguage in most villages and towns I visited.
In addition, I'd say that the situation is very similar in Valencia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 31 23 July 2006 at 10:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I visited Barcelona last year, and my impression was that Catalan is more widespread than the preceding posts have indicated. The problem is that most Catalan speaking persons in Barcelona also speak Castilian, and unless you give them evidence to the contrary they will assume that you as foreigner don't speak Catalan. I personally know just enough Catalan to ask for directions or buy groceries or participate in simple discussions, and my impression last year was that if I said a couple of words in that language at least half the people I spoke to would switch (often to ask where I had learned it).
As for the bookstores there are Catalan books, but the number of books printed in Castilian is so much bigger that they will dominate even in Barcelona. It would be a better indicator to check out the number of newspapers sold, and at least Avui (the oldest and most prestigious Catalan newspaper) is found all over Barcelona. Edited by Iversen on 23 July 2006 at 1:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6896 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 31 23 July 2006 at 10:51am | IP Logged | |||||
This development started around the death of Franco in 1975, or possibly even a few years prior to that. This is by no means a recent state of affairs. Not something that is happening "now" and was different yesterday. It is thirty years ago that it was different. The way you describe the situation one gets the impression that you visited Barcelona in 1976 and wrote those exact words. At that point in time they would have given a rather accurate impression of reality. Today, thirty years on, with Catalan firmly established, it just sounds a little out of step to hear it described like that. No offense, though. I realise it is an honest account of your experience there.
I can only say that your experience, and that of a couple of other posters, is very different from mine. When I visit Barcelona (approx. once or twice a year) I of course hear both languages but I always get the impression that Catalan dominates quite a bit. Everybody knows Spanish as well of course and you have no trouble at all getting by in Spanish. I think people in general are a little wary of whether you are a Catalan-speaker or not though. They may be speaking in Catalan and just go quiet when they see you approaching, or switch to Spanish if they suspect you don't understand. A little like keeping their language as their own private little secret. Perhaps partly politeness and partly a remnant of the old days when the language was repressed. I can recognise these sort of behaviour patterns having grown up as a minority-language speaker myself. Edited by Hencke on 23 July 2006 at 10:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| redtelephone Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6586 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 31 16 November 2006 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I currently live in Barcelona, and although it is possible to live there only speaking Spanish (or hell, only English- most of my friends here don't speak a word of Spanish!), Catalan does help a lot.
When I go out with my Spanish friends (who are all in their early 20s) they try to talk in Spanish when I am around, but after the alcohol sinks in they lapse back to Catalan. I work in a hostel and almost every phone call we get is in Catalan. People often get a bit narky with me when I explain 'ho sento, no parlo el català '. Catalan is also the official language that they teach in in schools and the people in Barcelona are very proud of Catalan (probably due to its repression during Franco's time). The government even offers free Catalan lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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