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Is Catalan under threat? | ||
Tags: Catalan | Endangered Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4893 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 51 13 March 2012 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since "nations" as we understand them didn't even exist in Europe until the 17th and 18th Century, I'm not sure how much weight I would put behind arguments such as "Ethnic Group X never was a nation," or that a language needs to be part of a nation to survive.
I do think it's harder for small languages to survive in a highly mobile world, or in a global economy. I picture the small town I grew up in. What if we had had our own language? Half of us have left, and the town has tripled in size from new people moving in. Our "native language" would die quickly. But I don't know that Catalan is considered a small language. Edited by kanewai on 14 March 2012 at 2:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4672 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 10 of 51 14 March 2012 at 1:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Catalan is not under threat. You can't get a decent job position in Catalonia if you don't speak Catalan, for example if you're a medical doctor working in a public hospital.
From the January 1st of this year, doctors and nurses in public hospitals are required to use Catalan 1. talking to the patients; 2. talking to each other. Furthermore, all public schools and high-schools in Catalonia are Catalan medium schools, and Spanish is taught just 3 hours a week, like English, as (if it were) a foreign language. History, geography, mathematics, arts...it's all in Catalan, even for children & teenagers born to Spanish-speaking parents. (This is different than the situation in Montreal or Malaysia...Anglophones in Montreal can get free education in English; Tamils and Chinese in Malaysia can get free education in Tamil/Chinese). Edited by Medulin on 14 March 2012 at 2:00am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 11 of 51 14 March 2012 at 7:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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^ That's the sort of heavy regulation I believe it will take to keep Catalan vibrant, and I'm glad to hear it's being implemented.
With regards to nationhood and history, I'm indeed mostly talking about large migration patterns. In this time of history, a lot of people move into and out of different regions. If you can get by with Spanish in Catalonia and can't get by with Catalan in other parts of Spain, that means people who move there from other regions of Spain might not learn it, and people who move out of Catalonia might not keep it up. I think what's needed is that Catalan is necessary to get by in Catalonia. Regulations such as the ones mentioned above can create this sort of environment, and a nation state certainly can. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aodhanc Diglot Groupie Iceland Joined 6264 days ago 92 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 51 14 March 2012 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree that in order to work in the public sector in Catalonia, proficiency in Catalan
is required. However, in the private sector, it's rarely asked for. Unlike in Quebec, where the law necessitates all companies (unless they have a specific exemption) to operate in French. The legislation in Catalonia doesn't touch the private sector. In Catalonia, despite the Catalan language being widely used in the regional government and education, the census figures don't lie. A drop from 45% to 35% of habitual speakers in 5 years is significant. It seems that more and more native Catalan speakers are using Spanish as their habitual language. If you go deeper into the figures from the Statistics Institute, it seems that this shift is most pronounced in the 30-55 age group i.e. working people. Edited by aodhanc on 14 March 2012 at 3:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 13 of 51 16 March 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hi, this is my first contribution to this Forum, which is really great for a language nerd like myself. With regard to Valencia, I know the region very well. As a matter of fact, for any public job in Valencia you need to demonstrate an intermediate level knowledge of "valencià". However, it is true that in the streets, especially in the capital, you do not hear it spoken much. Another important factor is that there is a strong rivalry between Valencia and Catalonia, and politically Valencia has never had a strong separatist movement, unlike its neighbour in the north. That explains why you don't find easily Catalan newspapers in Valencia, and why even the regional PP government has tried to block Catalan TV from being viewed in Valencia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manish Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5550 days ago 88 posts - 136 votes Speaks: Romanian*, English, German Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 51 16 March 2012 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think this sort of thing is more of a threat to Catalan than Spanish is. This sort of political bickering and "Valencian is a separate language" and "we don't want anything to do with you" will just keep splitting Catalan up until Spanish comes in and does away with what's left. BTW, does anyone know what the situation is like on the Balearic Islands? Edited by manish on 16 March 2012 at 2:50pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4672 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 15 of 51 17 March 2012 at 9:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, Valencian is not a dialect of Catalan, just like Croatian and Bosnian are not dialects of Serbian. If we want to consider them parts of the same macro language, we should say:
Balear/Catalan/Valencian just like we say Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian. As I speaker of Croatian, I don't consider it a dialect of Serbian. But If you call it Serbocroatian, I won't object to it that much. It's just a name. So, Valencian is not a dialect of Catalan, but they both have the same origin (just like men are not one type of gorilla, both men and gorillas primates). Edited by Medulin on 17 March 2012 at 9:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4672 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 16 of 51 17 March 2012 at 9:50am | IP Logged | |||||
It has nothing to do with politics. Both Valencian community and Catalonia are administered by right wing parties, and I don't see any differences between the Catalan CIU, Catalan PP (governing in Badalona) and the Valencian PP. So, we can rule out politics. If you want to download the official grammar and dictionary of Valencian, feel free. I already have. Valencian is a beautiful-sounding language, much softer than Catalan: http://www.avl.gva.es/inici.html I am more likely to study a language which is not obligatory for me (Galician, Valencian, Basque). Forcing a language on people who don't like it makes things even worse. Learning a language should be a matter of choice. Here in Istria, there are only 20% native speakers of Italian, but 90% of population speaks Italian. The county is officially bilingual, but people learn Italian not because they are obliged to study it, but because we find it beautiful, soft, elegant, chic. So, Italian has prestige in Istria. (The local Croatian dialect has prestige too). Catalan has lost prestige in Catalonia, so they have to restore it forcefully. Which is weird, awkward and sad at the same time. Catalan movie makers make movies in Spanish. Most book publishing companies prefer publishing in Spanish. Catalan movie theaters are few, people prefer watching Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish. But this just reflex the Barcelona-paradox, Barcelona wants to be 1. the number one city in Spain and at the same time 2. it wants to separate from Spain ;) So, at the same time 1. Spanish is prestigious in Barcelona; 2. Spanish is virtually banned on public displays, signs... Galician and Basque are alive and kicking even without forbidding the use of Spanish. In Balears, the Balear language is more spoken than Catalan in Catalonia, and they consider themselves just as Spanish as someone from Madrid. There is no hate towards Spain, or separatist tendencies. Rafael Nadal replied ''Please ask a question in Spanish'' when a journalist from Catalonia asked him a question in Catalan. Edited by Medulin on 17 March 2012 at 10:09am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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