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Spanish in Barcelona | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Pizquita Tetraglot Newbie Spain Joined 6618 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 9 of 57 06 November 2006 at 6:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This is wrong thing, many Spanish ignorant people what they are saying about it. Like Canary Islands where I am from, most Spanish people or also Canarians think that Canary Islands are not considered to be part of Spain. So, Barcelona is a city of Cataloian region and is part of Spain. And so Canaries are Spanish as well. I know some of friends from Barcelona who talk Spanish and CAtalan perfectly as pure bilingual, but my family (cousins) who lived there all the life and never talk Catalan each other although they know it so well. The pronunciation Barcelona acts like the "ceceo" as Patuco said. It is pronounced as in th but not strong. Edited by Pizquita on 06 November 2006 at 6:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| aldo Triglot Groupie Thailand Joined 6597 days ago 50 posts - 52 votes  Speaks: English*, French, SpanishB1 Studies: Italian, German, Dutch, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer, Malay | Message 10 of 57 06 November 2006 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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When one considers that Spain has a unified language and an overall culture (unique to that of France or Itlay, for example), then the differences between Madrid and Andulcia are little; however, the differences between Catalunia and Andulcia are many.
That is why if you ask Spanish people on the Iberian Pen. they will tell you that Barcelona is really not Spain--it resembles more a Euro City than a Spanish one. And the fact, for example, that there are more speakers of Gallego, but Catalan speakers want to install their language as primary. This sort of thinking is not cogent in the Globalization of the World now. There simply are not spaces for languages that number under 10 million speakers. The New World Spanish came from Andulcia, for those that didn't know. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 11 of 57 07 November 2006 at 3:10am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I see no rational reason for this. Even 2-3 million speakers of a language should be more than enough for a flourishing, sustainable culture. That's plenty for media, science, education, literature, arts, etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 57 07 November 2006 at 6:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
In my experience, those that say this are the Catalonians themselves whereas the rest of Spain actually do consider them to be Spanish.
Neither do I. In saying this, you have dismissed lots of the the native American, Australian and African languages.
Definitely! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 13 of 57 07 November 2006 at 10:31am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The problem of Catalan is not that it is only spoken by somewhere between 3 and 7 millions (the estimates diverge wildly), - the Scandinavian languages are very much alive with population numbers in the same range, and even Icelandic is a thriving language community with less than 300.000 speakers.
The problem for Catalan is that it is spoken by a small minority in a country that is generally speaking a closely related language. This makes it all too easy for the Catalan language slowly to glide in the direction of Castilian (= 'ordinary' Spanish). If Franco had been succeeded by another fascist hardliner who had suppressed the Catalan culture and language for 40 years more, then who knows what state the Catalan language would have been in at the end of that period. My guess is that it would have shared the fate of Occitan in France. Now the successor was fortunately king Juan Carlos who introduced democracy and a governmental policy that respected minorities (Franco must have rotated in his grave!). On this basis the Catalans under some determined leaders managed to change the downward direction of their language and culture. On the other hand the same strong Spanish regionalism has also led to strong tensions between Barcelona and Valencia which can only weaken the common Catalan/Valencian cause. My guess right now is that Catalan in Catalunya will survive as a language with all the paraphernalia of schools, newspapers, books, support among politicians and so forth, while I'm less sure of the development for 'Valenciano' in Valencia. Edited by Iversen on 07 November 2006 at 10:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| aldo Triglot Groupie Thailand Joined 6597 days ago 50 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English*, French, SpanishB1 Studies: Italian, German, Dutch, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer, Malay | Message 14 of 57 08 November 2006 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The point is that in the WORLD what point is there in learning a language that is geo locked with a few million speakers? Especially when those speakers can use a much larger language: Spanish in this case.
I am here in Thailand. Thai is Geo Locked. Today someone asked me in a book store if I were looking for Thai language books. I replied that no, it wasn't important enough to me (I have a basic ability that used to be a very advanced level) or to the world and that I was looking for more Mandrian. I have studied over 40 languages and I can tell you that the rule of languages is that of any performance skill: if you don't do it often you can't do it. It doesn't matter ifyou could run a marathon 20 years ago--you can't do it now. Same goes with small geo locked languages--it's torture to try to keep up L6 or L7 when no one around you uses it. Got to grasp the large languages first and the future languages (Chinese and Spanish will continue to grow, for exmaple). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 15 of 57 08 November 2006 at 4:58am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
1. Because you find the language or culture interesting in its own right. 2. Because you want to read literature that only exists in that language. 3. Because it's a place you particularly enjoy visiting. 4. Because by learning it you can fill a niche in your field of work. Obviously, there are many reasons one can give; it depends on what your motivations are. Many people have no need or motivation to learn any language at all, in fact. As for Thai specifically, it may be largely confined to Thailand for now, but that doesn't mean it always will be. It's a growing, developing nation with a larger population than France. As a sidenote, Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds creates a future in which, among other things, the Thais become a major space race. :)
In this regard, "globalization" makes it easier than ever to keep up one's languages, wouldn't you say? Edited by Captain Haddock on 08 November 2006 at 5:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 16 of 57 08 November 2006 at 8:45am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I would add "general interest in linguistics" and "collector's pride (or madness)" to the Captain's list.
But let's take another example: if you really like renaissance opera or early bebob jazz or Chinese court music or Indian Ragas or whatever, would you then really care about how many million people in the world shared your interest? Probably not, if you just could find the music your wanted and maybe even a few people with the same interest as you. For me the important thing is whether I can get enough texts and audio in 'my' languages, and the internet is a blessing sent from heaven in this respect because it doesn't respect country borders. Otherwise it might indeed be difficult to keep a string of minor languages alive. Edited by Iversen on 08 November 2006 at 8:49am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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