A must read 2012 paper '
Integració lingüística de la població alemanya resident a Mallorca' by the linguist Bàrbara Sastre, studies the sociolinguistic habits and attitudes of Germans in Mallorca. They are most numerous group of foreigners living in Mallorca.
Only long term residents of Mallorca, the vast majority born in Germany, were recruited for this study. Retired people and students are the least represented in the study. The majority of those Germans studied are between the ages of 25 and 50 and work in the service or commercial industry. Most of them arrived in the 90s and in the 2000s. 61% of them live in Palma. 32.2% says they know nothing of Catalan, 35.4% understands it with a lot of diffiulty. Contrast this to what they know of Spanish. 60.6% say they know Spanish.
Now for some figures I picked out (but
please read the entire study, there's a lot I have left out):
La majoria dels enquestats (95,28%) coneix el règim de cooficialitat del català i el castellà a l’illa. Un 43,3% manifesta estar-hi en desacord. L’estatus diferenciat de les dues llengües és l’argument més significatiu per a justificar la resposta: el castellà gau-deix d’un prestigi molt elevat com a llengua oficial de l’Estat i també en l’àmbit global com una de les llengües més parlades del món. En canvi, segons els enquestats, el ca-talà és una llengua regional amb un àmbit d’ús molt reduït i amb una funció bàsica-ment identitària per a la població autòctona.Un 37% dels enquestats creu que el règim de cooficialitat existent no garanteix l’ús de les dues llengües en igualtat de condicions, sinó que sovint s’afavoreix el català en detriment del castellà. D’acord amb les respostes obtingudes, la cooficialitat garan-teix el dret dels mallorquins a fer ús de la llengua pròpia, però no respecta el dels es-trangers d’usar el castellà.
95.28% know that Catalan and Spanish are co-official languages on the island, but 43.3% say they are in disagreement with this co-officiality! Their argument is that Spanish is more important, and that Catalan is a 'regional' language that serves as basically an identitarian language for the native population. 37% believes that the current co-officiality does NOT guarantee the equal use of the two official languages...and here's the funny part, they think that it favours Catalan in favor of Spanish. Their idea is that co-officiality guarantees the right of Mallorcans to use their language, but that this co-official does not respect the right of
foreigners to use Spanish.
Només prop d’un 20% dels enquestats declara el seu acord amb la cooficialitat de les dues llengües com a eina essencial per protegir i promoure la llengua autòctona i per garantir-ne l’ús.
Gairebé tots els en-questats (98,4%) consideren necessari parlar castellà per viure a Mallorca. En canvi, pel que fa al català, el percentatge està prop del 20%
Only 20% say that they are in agreement with the co-officiality as an essential tool to protect and promote the indigenous language, Catalan, and guarantee its use.
Nearly the entirety of the population (98.4%) think it is necessary to speak Spanish in Mallorca. Only 20% think the same of Catalan.
El respecte a les particularitats culturals de l’illa i als mallorquins són les opinions més freqüents d’aquells que consideren necessari parlar en català, tot subratllant que és l’única manera d’integrar-se plenament a l’illa. Una vegada més, s’ha pogut establir una relació directa entre el lloc de residència i la utilitat de la llengua: tots els enquestats que consideren el català una llengua útil resideixen a pobles de l’interior de Mallorca.
The only ones who said that Catalan is a useful language, live in the interior cities of Mallorca, not the coastal cities nor Palma. Those who do say that it is necessary to speak Catalan, say that it is a matter of respect for Mallorcans, as well as the only way of truly integrating into the island.
Segons els enquestats, la difusió social del català es considera «desmesu-rada», atesa la poca utilitat d’aquesta llengua.
la majoria dels enques-tats creu que el fet d’integrar-se (o no) a la societat receptora depèn de la iniciativa individual de cada persona i no té res a veure amb les actuacions del Govern
Només un 11% decla-ra participar o haver participat en cursos de català per a estrangers a través de l’ajun-tament del poble on resideixen, i, finalment, el 5,5% restant declara que té intenció d’aprendre català en un futur
The social use and widespread diffusion of the Catalan language is considered 'over the top' by the Germans. Given the little usefulness of the language in their eyes, outside of the island and inside, they are frustrated by its importance.
The majority of those who were surveyed don't believe that integration to the society where they immigrated depends on the government (who they think does too much for Catalan), but only it should depend on the individual initiative. However, when we look at their 'individual initiative', we see that only 11% says that they take part in the Catalan courses that are offered by the government, and only 5.5% say they intend to learn Catalan in the future.
Pel que fa a la percepció del grau d’integració del grup propi, un 70% dels enques-tats considera que la població alemanya resident no està integrada a l’illa, ja que no parla cap de les dues llengües oficials.
70% of Germans think that their own German population is not integrated into Mallorca, given that they do not speak in general any of the two official languages.
Cal destacar que, contràriament al que sovint s’ha constatat en estudis semblants, no s’ha pogut establir una correlació entre l’edat i el grau d’integració. Així doncs, tot i que les necessitats d’interrelació dels residents de més edat amb la població autòcto-na es redueixen sovint a la prestació de serveis, els enquestats més joves han esmentat, sovint, un ús quasi exclusiu de la llengua materna en el lloc de treball. Aquest darrer grup subratllala dificultat d’aprendre dues llengües per manca de temps. Així doncs, l’estil de vida moderna (jornades de treball molt extenses, la família, etc.) comporta una falta de temps que afavoreix l’aprenentatge de la llengua castellana en detriment de l’autòctona.
Contrary to previous studies (and stereotypes I might add), age cannot be correlated to the degree of integration. It is the young workers surveyed who only used German in their place of work. These young people mention just not having enough time to learn the two languages.
Pel que fa a la valoració de la llengua catalana, gairebé tots els enquestats (99,5%) consideren que la llengua pròpia de les Illes és una part fonamental de la cultura «per als mallorquins». És a dir, que la llengua catalana esdevé l’element principal d’identi-ficació de la població autòctona.
Nearly all the surveyed think that the indigenous language is a fundamental part of the culture of the Balearic Islands...for the Mallorcans. That is, the Catalan language is considered something appropriate to the indigenous population, but not for them.
My personal thoughtsI could go on as the study is crammed full of interesting information, but just these figures alone are highly troubling. Disastrous even. The majority of Germans coming to Mallorca, if they learn any of the co-official languages, learn Spanish first and often exclusively. Catalan is considered to be a language of the natives, and what's more, the majority of them think that Catalan is given too much importance, given that it is merely a 'local language'.
The native Mallorcans are not innocent and reinforce these negative behaviours and attitudes. Far too often, they switch to Spanish, English, German and accomodate the foreigners. They themselves in general believe that Spanish is more important than their own native language: how can you expect foreigners to appreciate the language if natives themselves do not?
Studies like these helps to destroys the idea that Europeans are more 'multilingual' and 'enlightened'. No, they're
human, profoundly human. Europeans are also happily monolingual and happily buy into the monolingual ideology that one nation - one language. And if they are multilingual, they are also happily multilingual in a way that discriminates against minoritised languages. Germans will happily continue to speak German exclusively in Mallorca so long as they are left to their own devices, and they will happily speak only Spanish if they are allowed to, to the detriment of the native language and to the native population.
Once again, material factors play a role. The Germans who said they learned Catalan and found it valuable and useful and think people should learn it to integrate...live in places where it is the common language, not in tourist towns. And these are not necessarily rural places. Those Germans who live in rural mansions or houses out in the middle of nowhere do not interact with locals, due to the geographical isolation. Those Germans who live in inland towns where they have to talk to their neighbours, yes.
The most elderly are retired and do not work. That means they lose an important social domain for them to be exposed to the language, even if they are so inclined to learn one or two languages in their spare time. The youngest people, who do work, work in the service industry, where their German language skills are the only things that are exercised, even to the exclusion of Spanish.
How do you convince, persuade, seduce these foreigners - alongside the British, Italians, Swedes etc - to learn and use Catalan? How do you convince them that it is not
enough to speak Spanish, when in their tourist towns...it actually
is?
Obviously by
making Spanish, German and English insufficient languages to live in Mallorca. Not by banning them, but by making Catalan as useful as possible. Once Catalan is as impossible to live without as Spanish in Mallorca, then you will see people motivated to learn Catalan. There are only three places where that is true as of today: the medical system, the administration and education. And in all three places, the Catalan language is
constantly attacked. But whydo I have to know Catalan if I want to work in the education system or be a doctor? Isn't that discrimination? Why do my children have to learn Catalan in schools? Isn't that imposition?
We need to widen and increase those number of places until it englobes the entire social and laboral space of Mallorca. The majority of those surveyed who said that 'I don't want to learn this unimportant small language' can be convinced to learn it if the language acquires utility.
Then it won't be an unimportant small language anymore, it will be a small language that is
very important. The bigger problem however are those people who don't
want the unimportant small language to become important. These people have a vested interest in continuing to minoritise the minoritised language, they are already offended that Catalan takes so much public space, they'll fight tooth and nails so that they don't have to learn or use the language. And you can't reason with that lot. These people just have to be bypassed and to them, I would say in Spanish, ajo y agua. Suck it up.
The question is, what political party has the guts to actually formulate and enact a linguistic policy that truly ensures the safety of the Catalan language in Mallorca?