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Is Catalan under threat? | ||
Tags: Catalan | Endangered Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5822 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 49 of 51 02 June 2012 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why are some people reluctant to speak Catalan? Is it because Catalan is regarded as old fashioned and rustic, while Spanish is seen as modern and sophisticated?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5444 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 50 of 51 02 June 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are many reasons, and they differ from person to person: – most people prefer to speak in their native language, and for a lot of people that is not Catalan – some people find Spanish more useful (it is a world language after all) – some people object to what they see as an expression of Catalan nationalism and separatism – some people are ardent Spanish nationalists and reject everything not seen as purely Spanish
While some people may regard Catalan as old fashioned and rustic, I think most people don't. Catalan is spoken by many people in Barcelona, Spain's second largest city. It is spoken by all layers of society and used throughout the educational system, in the media, in public speeches etc. Edited by tractor on 02 June 2012 at 11:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5217 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 51 of 51 03 June 2012 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly my point. For sure before the Francoist era, but also probably earlier within it, books were published in Catalan with little fuss -if anything- made over it. Last time I lived in Barcelona I regularly attended a bar where some guys tried to socialize with me and would only be happy if you agreed with them on everything, which I found frankly irritating. The day after they brought up exactly this topic I borrowed a book from my customer and handed it to them and dared them to explain how it could exist at all. They were truly speechless, because the sad truth is even most natives, let alone foreign dilettantes, are completely unaware of the real, hard facts in their history.
From comments in other threads I have the feel that most English speakers in the relevant areas feel they're being force-fed Walsh or Irish classes and see no use for them in real life. There's obviously much more 'choking' of this kind (i.e. per official policy) in Catalonia and I see comparatively quite less complaining. That would indicate to me that such stimuli are largely irrelevant for a language that is alive and well, and that it is alive and well because it is used in real life, so linguistically-wise only complaints from non-Catalan speakers come out of its being force-fed at schools (and with good reason). Edited by mrwarper on 03 June 2012 at 5:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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