Is Catalan under threat? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Is Catalan under threat?
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Saim
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Message 33 of 51

26 May 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

The question is what it means that for instance Austro-Bavarian, Swiss German, Venetian and Neapolitan are safe if they aren't used in writing, in the media or in school.

It means they're spoken natively by most people in their region. I was countering Ari's point that you need a "nation" for your language to survive. Clearly, these language groups have no official status and yet show no sign of endangerment.

Quote:

Maybe Swiss German is in a special position because it has its (more or less) own country (though hardly anyone writes in it even there), but you can travel up and down Bavaria and the two Italian regions without noticing anything but a slight regional accent because people generally speak Hugh German and Standard Italian, and almost everything is written in the standard languages - apart from Asterix in everything possible.

Yes, exactly. My point was precisely that a language can survive even when there is a dominant "standard" that's considered the "national" language. As far as I know, the linguistic varieties native to Bavaria and Swabia are much safer than those of other German regions.

Quote:

Look also at Scotland where the pronunciation clearly is different from that around London, but the vocabulary is English,

Well, yes, most people in Scotland speak Scottish English, not Scots.

Quote:

So far Catalan has a much better position than the others because it actually is used as an independent language, not just as a dialect of something else.

I don't understand what your point is here. Neapolitan, Austro-Bavarian and so on by the same criterion of mutual intelligibility can indeed be considered "languages", and often are considered so. There's nothing inherent about Catalan in terms of its difference to the dominant language that gives it greater survivability than say, Lombard.

mrwarper wrote:

Quote:

Catalan had both Castilian-speaking immigration and anti-Catalan laws.

The former it had, has and will have, the latter I am inclined to believe never happened. Care to back up such a claim with some reference?

Have you not heard of Franco?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language#18th_century_t o_the_present:_Spain

Quote:

In Francoist Spain (1939–1975), the use of Spanish in place of Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was initially repressed and discouraged by official propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned. During later stages of the Francoist regime, certain folkloric or religious celebrations in Catalan were resumed and tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media was initially forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s[8] in the theatre. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship.[9] There was no official prohibition of speaking Catalan in public or in commerce, but all advertising and signage had to be in Spanish alone, as did all written communication in business.[10]

Edited by Saim on 26 May 2012 at 6:50pm
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mrwarper
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Message 34 of 51

26 May 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged

Saim wrote:

mrwarper wrote:

Saim wrote:

Catalan had both Castilian-speaking immigration and anti-Catalan laws.

The former it had, has and will have, the latter I am inclined to believe never happened. Care to back up such a claim with some reference?

Have you not heard of Franco?

Yes, I have. Do you know anything about the whole issue other than what's said in the article you cited? <g>
Actually, the article is better than I expected, so perhaps a bit of trimming can illustrate that 'anti-Catalan laws' bit for those who do bother to read:

WikiPedia wrote:

... use of Spanish in place of Catalan was promoted... Catalan in the mass media was initially forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s... Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship... There was no official prohibition of speaking Catalan in public or in commerce...

Or you could have a look at this excerpt of the Official State Bulletin (real text in the PDF), regulating the incorporation of the native languages (read: in the plural) into the Education System. Guess whose signature is at the bottom? D'oh!

WRT the regional government being elected by... that's a moot point: with one minor exception, ALL political parties in Catalonia play nationalist whenever they can, which in turn ALWAYS involves Catalan.

The language is definitely not in danger, but contrary to all politicians' belief, it is not because of their doing -- they all do the same wrong thing.

Edited by mrwarper on 26 May 2012 at 7:40pm
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COF
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Message 35 of 51

27 May 2012 at 3:50am | IP Logged

Saim wrote:

COF wrote:

That's only because the government forces them to,

And who do you think elects the government?

That doesn't change the fact that Catalan is a declining language in any practical sense and is only kept alive by politically correct gestures like forcing public servants to speak Catalan. It's all BS and does nothing to reverse the fate of Catalan when everyone just wants to speak Spanish.

In my opinion, when a government has to actively intervene to revive a declining language, you know it's probably a lost cause. Languages are natural, not dictated by the government.

Edited by COF on 27 May 2012 at 3:51am
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hrhenry
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Message 36 of 51

27 May 2012 at 4:48am | IP Logged

COF wrote:

It's all BS and does nothing to reverse the fate of Catalan when everyone just wants to speak Spanish.

Do you actually know any Catalonians? Work with any? The ones I know and have as colleagues are some of the most fervent defenders of the Catalan language that I've ever met.

R.
==
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Saim
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Message 37 of 51

27 May 2012 at 5:52am | IP Logged

mrwarper wrote:

Saim wrote:

mrwarper wrote:

Saim wrote:

Catalan had both Castilian-
speaking immigration and anti-Catalan laws.

The former it had, has and will have, the latter I am inclined to believe never
happened. Care to back up such a claim with some reference?

Have you not heard of Franco?

Yes, I have. Do you know anything about the whole issue other than what's said
in o_the_present:_Spain">the article you cited? <g>
Actually, the article is better than I expected, so perhaps a bit of trimming can
illustrate that 'anti-Catalan laws' bit for those who do bother to read:

WikiPedia wrote:

... use of Spanish in place of Catalan was promoted... Catalan in the
mass media was initially forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s...
Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship... There was no official
prohibition of speaking Catalan in public or in commerce...

Or you could have a look at 13948">this excerpt of the Official State Bulletin (real text in the PDF),
regulating the incorporation of the native languages (read: in the plural) into the
Education System. Guess whose signature is at the bottom? D'oh!

"Initially forbidden", so it was forbidden. I can't believe you're actual
disputing the existence of anti-Catalan laws in Spanish history.

Quote:

and public use of Catalan was initially repressed and discouraged by official
propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public
events was banned.

Yes, they became more lax later, but that doesn't mean that the laws didn't exist!
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Chung
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Message 38 of 51

27 May 2012 at 5:54am | IP Logged

aodhanc wrote:

It seems that the Catalan language has been in decline over the last few years. I have
just come across some figures (see link below) from the Catalan Statistics Office
showing that between 2003 and 2008, the percentage of habitual Catalan speakers
declined from 46% to 35% (in just 5 years).

The number of habitual Spanish speakers declined slightly also in the period, from 47%
to just under 46%. Arabic increased from 0% to 2%.

Interestingly, the number of speakers with both official languages as native rose from
4.7% to almost 12%.
If this type of trend continues, is it likely that Catalan will become a marginalised
language in
its own province? Contrary to common perception, it's already in the minority there
i.e. under 50% of the population speak it as their usual language. What does the future
hold?

http://www.idescat.cat/territ/BasicTerr?TC=5&V0=3&V1=3&V3=33
25&V4=3326&ALLINFO=TRUE&PARENT=25&CTX=B

While perusing this list from UNESCO, I wouldn't worry too much about Catalan. There are 2473 languages in danger ranging from "vulnerable" (i.e. effectively used by all generations but use restricted to certain domains (e.g. home)) to "critically endangered" (i.e. youngest speakers are elderly and used infrequently even then. It's implied that there's little sign of the language being passed on to younger generations) but Catalan isn't one of them. I'd be more worried about Belorussian since it's "vulnerable" on UNESCO's list to say nothing about "my boys" in Saamic which at best are "definitely endangered" (i.e. children of the speech community do not learn the language at home - i.e. at best they learn it as a foreign language in school) like Northern Saami to "critically endangered" at worst like Ume Saami.

COF wrote:

Saim wrote:

COF wrote:

That's only because the government forces them to,

And who do you think elects the government?

It ain't over 'til it's over. If done correctly, government sponsorship of language revival or revitalization is feasible as the sponsorship by New Zealand's government (via the Department of Māori Affairs) of Kōhanga reo for reviving Māori.

Of course, if the program is implemented badly and there's reluctance in the speech community to do something about it, that's a different story as seen in the effort by Russia's Komi Republic to preserve Komi apparently backfiring.
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Saim
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Message 39 of 51

27 May 2012 at 6:00am | IP Logged

COF wrote:

Saim wrote:

COF wrote:

That's only because the government forces them
to,

And who do you think elects the government?

That doesn't change the fact that Catalan is a declining language

Yeah, it doesn't change that, because it's simply not true.

Quote:

in any practical sense and is only kept alive by politically correct gestures
like forcing public servants to speak Catalan.

"Politically correct" gestures? What are you talking about? What on Earth does
"politically correct" mean in this context?

Quote:

It's all BS and does nothing to reverse the fate of Catalan when everyone just
wants to speak Spanish.

And yet, nearly half the population does speak Catalan. This is just laughably false.

Quote:

In my opinion, when a government has to actively intervene to revive a declining
language, you know it's probably a lost cause. Languages are natural, not dictated by
the government.

Except for when a dominant language is imposed by the government. That's totally fine.

But how dare those minorities try and reassert their language!
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mrwarper
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Message 40 of 51

27 May 2012 at 9:29am | IP Logged

Saim wrote:

mrwarper wrote:

...

"Initially forbidden", so it was forbidden. I can't believe you're actually disputing the existence of anti-Catalan laws in Spanish history.

I said "inclined to believe" and "reference". Show me some reference and I'll be more or less inclined to believe one thing or the other.

Saim wrote:

WikiPedia wrote:

... initially repressed and discouraged by official propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned.

Yes, they became more lax later, but that doesn't mean that the laws didn't exist!

The problem with real laws is that they tend to be written somewhere. They're usually published (and referenced!) with all kinds of names, article numbers, bullet lists, annotations, etc. so it shouldn't be a problem to find a hard link to them other than "I know for sure", "Wikipedia says" or "I've been told", just like I did for you.

"Propaganda campaigns" is nowhere near "laws" nor a reference to anything resembling one (which you haven't provided so far). Just in case it's still not clear, I'll give a recent, real life example. Local governments in Catalonia have been campaigning to hit hard on Spanish for quite some years now, but TTBOMK they haven't been promulgating laws against it (there are other ways, but that discussion would belong somewhere else) so you don't see me saying they have. ☺

Edit: mind you, I'm not saying that they haven't, either (it is perfectly possible that they have) -- I just don't know, because I never looked back.

Edit: after just a bit of digging, it turns out the GenCaters have promulgated education laws where the treatment of languages is rather peculiar. One would think it should be possible to find something about Catalan being forbidden in the BOE, if only because it was coined (in name at least) by the Francoist government themselves. Oh, but I found an including decree instead of an excluding one, so I am saying such laws never existed. What I'm saying is you need some evidence to claim they did.

Edited by mrwarper on 27 May 2012 at 12:35pm

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