Bla bla bla

[nooj]

I read a paper by a German linguist, Hans-Ingo Radatz, called De la Mallorca preturística a la moderna: La desdialectalització del català de Mallorca. He states dialectology is a field where the very nature of what is being studied is changing before linguists' eyes. And he doesn't mean it in the sense of the observor's paradox, a very important phenomenon that stymies linguist's efforts to record 'natural' data, but in the sense that modernity is changing the dialects that dialectologists used to describe in the 19th and 20th century. In reaction, the dialectologist's task is not to try to find the last 'authentic' speakers (the most isolated, the oldest), but to cope with the changing nature of dialects today.

He gives interesting information about pre-1950s Mallorca, which he calls the pre-touristic Mallorca, versus 'modern' Mallorca.

Encara que no tinguem dades sociolingüístiques concretes sobre els usos lingüístics d’aquells moments, en posseïm d’altres que deixen entreveure clarament l’estatus de la llengua autòctona com a llengua parlada quasi exclusivament durant tot el segle XIX i encara la primera meitat del següent. Fins ben entrat el segle XX, l’escola era l’únic lloc on els illencs podien aprendre el castellà. Per això les dades sobre l’alfabetització es poden llegir com una indicació prou realista dels coneixements del castellà entre la població. Segons una enquesta de l’any 1835,2 en aquell any només el 8,31 % de la població masculina i el 1,36 % de la femenina sabien llegir. Menys encara sabien escriure: el 7,26 % dels homes i només el 0,84 % de les dones (MARTÍNEZ I TABERNER 2000, p. 92). Un quart de segle més tard, l’any 1860, encara es registraven xifres alarmants d’analfabetisme: 78 % dels homes i 92,9 % de les dones (MARTÍNEZ I TABERNER 2000, p. 94). No hi cap dubte que la quasi totalitat d’aquesta població analfabeta era dialectòfona monolingüe.

These figures also reminded me of the talk I went to yesterday, part of the conference cycle on linguistic diversity organised by the Grup de Recerca Sociolinguistica de les Illes Balears:



I've managed to go to all of them so far except the first one by the Corsican linguist Stella Medori, which really pains me as I'm deeply interested in Corsica.

In yesterday's talk, the Catalan linguist F. Xavier Vila mentioned an anecdote. In the first half of the century, Catalan writers and bourgeoisie would complain about how their Spanish was so stiff and formal sounding.

You see, the only place they learned and used Spanish was in school. At the time, Catalonia - even Barcelona - was still a majority Catalan speaking, monolingual society. It took the introduction of radio and television for Catalans to really be exposed to colloquial Spanish and learn to speak a normal register of Spanish. If that was true for Catalonia, then it was triply so for Mallorca, a society that was brutally illiterate (and literacy at that time meant in Spanish) and monolingual.

Pre-1950 Mallorca was not only pretouristic, it was preindustrial. The Mallorca of the 21st century is unrecognisably different. As the author mentions, even the countryside is no longer the countryside anymore. Many inhabitants of the rural parts travel to Palma to work or study, whilst many Palma inhabitants have houses in the country side where they spend their weekend. Gone are the days when for city folk, the countryside was that wild and foreign land where they might go once in a blue moon, and for country folk, the city is no longer than wild and foreign land where they might go once in a blue moon.

There are plenty of grandparents alive today who witnessed this change, and to hear them talk about their childhood is like them describing a different country.

Vestiges of this immobility exist, but it's just not the same. People in the plains still think that going to the mountain range in the north and a mere 45 minutes away in car, as an long journey to a place that is 'molt enfora', very far away, and vice versa for people living in the mountain ranges who travel to the plains. Now imagine 70 year ago, when cars were still a rare sight, and people travelled with carts. That was when 'molt enfora' had a full significance.

molts habitants de la part forana es traslladen a Palma per treballar-hi, mentre que molts palmesans tenen cases de camp on passen els caps de setmana. La part forana s’ha convertit en una mena de hinterland que adopta cada vegada més l’estil de vida de la ciutat.

After this conference, which talked about changing linguistic ecosystems and what Catalan had to do to survive here in the Balearic Islands (where I also had my fill to say), I went to a fancy restaurant that had been recommended to me. Clients were rich Germans, Americans, Swedes in suits and dresses and the staff were Spaniards from the Peninsula and Latin Americans. And there amusingly enough, I was able to see the stakes involved in the cycle of conferences. I had the dubious 'pleasure' of having to use Spanish to get my dinner because I was not understood in Catalan.

Sometimes going to Palma is like going to a foreign world, one with a different logic, one where Spanish is dominant and Catalan is not. It's a bizarro world, I hate it, and by the end of the night I was happy to go back to my town, where I knew everyone could understand me, where no one was offended or turned their nose up at me for using Catalan first, only and always.

[nooj]

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 thoughts

I 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?

[nooj]

Normally I don't post about stupid things people post on Twitter, but this caught my eye because Martín Varsavsky is the founder of Jazztel, one of the biggest telecommunication companies in Spain. He is an Argentinian entrepreneur who 'loves' Menorca, an island that has the same Catalan immersion system as we do in Mallorca.

Barcelona? If no kids Barcelona it's also phenomenal for tech. If with kids, most find kids being forced to learn Catalan a waste of educational years. Instead Spanish is used by 500 million.

Mis amigos de Silicon Valley con hijos eligen Madrid sobre Barcelona porque quieren que sus hijos aprendan español. Consideran aprender catalán una pérdida de tiempo. Yo adoro Menorca y si aprendí catalán. Estoy diciendo lo que ellos me dicen a mi.

My North American friends want their kids to learn Spanish and Mandarin, then maybe German and French. Don't want to offend anyone but sorry, nobody has Catalan on their "my kids must learn" list.

Learning Catalan must be done out of love. I made an effort to learn Catalan because I adore Menorca. But it is hard to say learning Catalan is useful when everyone who speaks it also masters Spanish. They don't teach Catalan in Silicon Valley.

Romanticismo de los que creen que en Silicon Valley hacen cola para aprender catalán. Parecen sorprendidos que los extranjeros prefieran aprender castellano y vean el catalán como una pega a la hora de decidir Barcelona vs Madrid. Hola desde el planeta tierra.

He hits all the classic talking points of Spanish nationalists, except he's not a Spanish nationalist, just another 'open-minded, globe-trotting capitalist' who sees languages like Catalan as troublesome obstacles.

He reminds me of that South African who I met before, the Afrikaaner who purposely put his child into a private school (and much more expensive as well, so he went out of his way to do this) because he didn't want her to learn Catalan in Mallorca.

These people don't give a damn.

And if it is true that his friends in the Silicon Valley choose Madrid over Barcelona because they don't want their children to learn Catalan? Let me remind everyone, there are no Catalans in Spain who don't speak Spanish, so it is not that they don't want their children to not learn Spanish (they would in any case), it is that they don't want their children to learn Catalan. They would trip over themselves to get their children into an immersive Mandarin school.

As he himself says, the only kind of multilingualism they want is 'Spanish, Mandarin, German, French'. Any other language that gets in their way is fit for the rubbish bin.

[Saim]

oh no what will Barcelona do without more smarmy "entrepreneurs" from Silicon Valley

[nooj]

The linguist F. Xavier Vila mentioned the story of how he went to the Netherlands and visited a Frisian TV production office. If I remember correctly, a Frisian person assured him, 'although we speak Frisian, we are perfectly Dutch! And a Frisian who does not speak Frisian is still Frisian'.

I mentioned in the Q and A session after the talk that this idea that you can be Frisian without Frisian, it seems to be an argument that is often used by speakers of the dominating languages, but that they do not accept the argument when it is used against them. The example I gave was: how many Spaniards accept that you can be Spanish without speaking Spanish? How many French people accept that you can be French without speaking French?

I ended my intervention saying that, even if it is not a good idea to associate the language with identity, it can be a damn useful reason to encourage immigrants to learn the language.

I don't want the language to become identitarian and a tool for exclusion. That is to say, I don't want Mallorcan to be a way of saying 'we are Mallorcan, you are not'. I want Mallorcan to be a way of saying 'we are Mallorcan, and so are you if you speak it'.

I understand the fears of using the language as a tool of identity, but I think we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we reject the argument that learning Catalan, Basque, Galician etc makes you a Catalan, Basque, Galician. I would say that in an important sense, those who do not speak it (and especially those who refuse to learn and speak it and work against its greater diffusion and defense) are not good Catalans, Basques or Galicians.

I got the impression that they were tip-toeing around a very important issue, which is that of immigration. You can talk about this issue without falling into xenophobia.

Most Mallorcans continue to transmit the language faithfully from parent to children, I know of plenty of cases of mixed marriages where there is only one parent who speaks it and yet the child learns it at home. And we can justly talk about the psychological hang ups of these Mallorcans using their language till the cows go home, but if these Catalan speakers end up being an isolated community alongside a bunch of other communities that only use Spanish to talk to each other, then it's all kinda irrelevant in the end. Immigration can either work for Catalan or it can work against Catalan. I want it to be the former.

Catalan needs to be the unifying bond for all the Andalucians, Germans, British, Italians, Indians, Chinese, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Senegalese, Romanians, Russians.

I already see it at work when I see kids in my town of Moroccan background play with kids of German background...in Catalan. I want to run and shake their hand. But I live in a inland town, not in Andratx on the coast (coastal towns are the most tourist heavy towns) or in Palma. When it happens in Palma, that will be a great victory.

[nooj]

The poem Corrandes d'exili 'Coplas of Exile' by the Catalan author Pere Quart, who had to flee after the Civil War to France.

Una nit de lluna plena
tramuntàrem la carena,
lentament, sense dir re ...
Si la lluna feia el ple
també el féu la nostra pena.

A night of the full moon
We crossed the mountain crest
Slowly, without saying a word
If the moon touched its full
So did our sadness.

L'estimada m'acompanya
de pell bruna i aire greu
(com una Mare de Déu
que han trobat a la muntanya.)

My beloved comes with me
Brown skin and in a grave mood
(Like a Madonna that they have found on the mountain)

Mare de Déu - a reference to the ultrafamous statue of Virgin of Montserrat, the patron saint of Catalonia.

Perquè ens perdoni la guerra,
que l'ensagna, que l'esguerra,
abans de passar la ratlla,
m'ajec i beso la terra
i l'acarono amb l'espatlla.

So that she may forgive us the war
That bleeds her, that mutilates her,
Before crossing the border
I bend down and I kiss her, the earth
And I caress with her my back.

A Catalunya deixí
el dia de ma partida
mitja vida condormida:
l'altra meitat vingué amb mi
per no deixar-me sens vida.

In Catalonia I left
On the day of my departure
Half a life asleep
The other half came with me
So that I not be left without any life.

Avui en terres de França
i demà més lluny potser,
no em moriré d'anyorança
ans d'enyorança viuré.

Today, in French lands
Tomorrow, maybe even farther
Not of longing will I die
Because of longing will I live.

En ma terra del Vallès
tres turons fan una serra,
quatre pins un bosc espès,
cinc quarteres massa terra.
"Com el Vallès no hi ha res".

In my land of the Vallès,
Three hills make a mountain range
Four pine trees make a thick forest
Five parcels of land, too much land.
"Like the Vallès, there's nothing else".

Que els pins cenyeixin la cala,
l'ermita dalt del pujol;
i a la platja un tenderol
que batega com una ala.

I hope the pine trees hug tight the cove,
The hermitage high up on the mountain
And on the beach, the canopy
That flaps around like a wing

Una esperança desfeta,
una recança infinita.
I una pàtria tan petita
que la somio completa.

An undone hope
An infinite regret
And a home, so small
That I can dream the whole of it.

[nooj]

A Menorcan poet called Ponç Pons who lives in his cabin in Menorca, surrounded by nature. Two of the reoccuring themes in his poetry is his love of nature and of the language. He is a committed defender of the natural and cultural beauty of Menorca. He also exercised as a teacher for many years...I wish I had a teacher like him, I envy his students!



At the end he shares one of his poems (with a quotation from the Japanese poet Ryōkan):

Ara visc en pau a una cabana
escoltant la música dels ocells.
RYOKAN

Now I live in peace, in a cabin, listening to the music of the birds.

Dins la cabana
de Sa Figuera Verda,
obert als llibres
del camp, la mar i el cel,
entre els ullastres
que embosquen els senders,
amb les gallines,
el ca, els moixos i el vent,
veim passar llunes
i dies menorquins…

Viure és fer versos.

In the cabin
Of Sa Figuera Verda,
Open to the books
Of the field, the sea and the sky,
Among the olive trees
That populate the paths
With the chickens,
The dog, the cats and the wind,
We see the moons go by
And the Menorcan days

To live is to make verses.

[nooj]

Today I bring you a glosa (improvised oral poem) by the Mallorcan glosadora Maribel Servera. She also sang at the Basque-Mallorcan glosa and bertsolaritza gathering which I attended. I have not yet talked about that truly magical day.

On the 22nd of May, in the Mallorcan town of Llubí, there was an act to support the electoral campaign of the group Lliures per Europa (Junts), whose head is Carlos Puigdemont. At the moment in exile in Belgium. The theatre where it was held was packed. In fact, with the elections now over and several days after this event, it turns out that the Balearic Islands were the region that most voted for JxCat in all of Spain, outside of Catalonia. By the way, the Catalan independentists have won a crushing electoral victory in Catalonia, it seems that the last few years of judicial turmoil have only further pushed Catalans into the independentist camp.

Anyway, you can read all about that in the news on your own, I'm here to talk about the glosa.



First, the Mallorcan singer and filologist Biel Majoral gives the introductory words to set it off. The 'lady' he is talking about is Mallorca, personified.

Sempre en sereu, de madona,
si vos tenim en el cor.
Aquest és el gran tresor:
servar la memòria bona.

You will always be a lady, if we keep you in our heart.
This is the great treasure: to make use of good memory.

madona - madona does not have here feudal or aristocratic connotations, it is the female head of the house. For this reason from this point onwards I will translate it as mistress, even though in English that word has other meaninggs.

Catalunya: ets madona
de sa teva llibertat;
i una colla de gent bona
avui te vol fer costat.
Vos jur que m’emociona
veure aquest teatre ple,
que de persona a persona
tot lluitant contra es poder
d’aquest Estat opressor
que odia sa diferencia
i que no coneix s’essència
de sa nostra nació.
I com que la desconeix
ha resultat que l’odia,
i cada dia es podreix
de s’odi que congria.
S’altre dia an es Congrés
em vaig sentir trepitjada
de veure aquells barroers,
aquella gent malcriada,
pegant cops damunt ses taules
-PP, Vox i Ciutadans-
per trepijar ses paraules
dels diputats catalans.
Si no els deixen xerrar
és perquè els tenen por
però vos jur que an es meu cor
això ja me fa plorar.
Tots els qui sou avui aquí
és perquè ja heu despertat
i voleu parar s’Estat
i mos voleu fer sentir.
Perquè aquí de dedins,
que mos sentim ben llunyans,
lo que fan an es catalans,
ho fan an es mallorquins.
Per això Espanya tremola,
per això heu esclatat:
Mallorca, ja ets madona
de sa teva llibertat.

Catalonia: you are the mistress of your freedom.
And a bunch of good people today
want to stand by your side.
I swear that I get emotional
seeing this full theatre,
from person to person,
all fighting against the power of this oppressor State
that hates difference
and doesn't recognise the essence of our nation.
And as it is ignorant, it hates it,
and every day, it rots with the hate that it creates.
The other day, in Congress, I felt stepped on,
seeing those brutes, that disgraceful people, pounding on the tables
- PP, Vox and Ciudadanos -
in order to step on the words of the Catalan deputies.
If they don't let them speak,
it's because they are afraid of them,
but I swear to you in my heart,
all this here makes me cry.
All of you who are here today,
it's because you have now woken up
and want to stop the State in its tracks
and you want to make us heard.
Because from within here,
although we feel quite far away,
what they do to the Catalans,
they do to the Mallorcans.
And for this reason Spain trembles,
for this reason you have exploded:
Mallorca, you are now the mistress of your freedom.

The theatre gives her a standing ovation and explodes into cries of 'llibertat!'. Freedom!

[nooj]

The Mallorcan linguist Gabriel Biblioni talks about his family:

Els meus avis van néixer a una vila de Mallorca en els primers anys del segle XX o en els darrers del XIX. Només un d’ells sabia llegir i escriure una mica. En espanyol, és clar, l’única llengua que en aquell temps ensenyaven a llegir i escriure. No va anar a escola. Ell deia que a set anys ja tenia els garrons pelats d’anar pels sementers darrere porcs o indiots. I aquest poc saber llegir i escriure el va aprendre pel seu compte, d’adult, i anant a classe els vespres amb algun mestre o simplement amb qualcú que en sabia una mica. Va poder, doncs, escriure un poc i entendre i parlar un poc d’espanyol, en el nivell suficient per a defensar-se. Els altres tres avis (un avi i dues àvies) ni van anar mai a escola, ni van saber escriure ni tenien gens de competència en la llengua de l’Estat. No eren casos estranys: així era la major part de la seva generació. No van tenir mai la necessitat de parlar en espanyol perquè en el seu temps i en el seu entorn, almenys fins que van ser força grans, no hi havia ningú que hi parlàs.

My grandparents were born in a Mallorcan town in the first years of the 20th century or in the last years of the 19th. Only one of them knew how to read and write. In Spanish, of course, the only language at that time that was taught. The grandfather did not go to school. He said that when he was 7 years old, he already had his calves worn bare from chasing after pigs and turkeys in the fields. And the little that he did know of reading and writing, he learned on his own, as an adult, by going to classes at night with some teacher or simply with someone who knew something about it. He was able to write a little and understand and speak a bit of Spanish, at a sufficient level to muddle by. The other three grandparents, one grandfather and two grandmothers, didn't even go to school, they did not know how to write and they didn't know 'the language of the State' at all. Theirs were not odd cases. It was like this for the majority of their generation. They did not ever need to speak Spanish because in their time and in their environment, at least until they were quite a bit older, there was no one who spoke it.

Mon pare i ma mare, nascuts durant la dècada de 1920, van poder anar a escola uns quants anys, no gaire. Hi aprengueren un espanyol bàsic i a defensar-se llegint i escrivint. La competència activa i passiva en espanyol pogué augmentar a partir de la vinguda massiva d’immigrants espanyols a partir de devers 1950.

My father and my mother, born in the 1920s, were able to go to school for a couple of years, not many. They learned there a basic kind of Spanish and to get by reading and writing. The active and passive ability in Spanish was able to rise when there was a massive immigration of Spaniards from the 1950s onwards.

Avui, 13 de novembre, fa deu anys que se n’anà el meu pare. És un dia que convida a recordar-lo. La seva va ser una vida extraordinàriament dura. De família pobra, fill d’un pagès assalariat, es barallà amb la vida per a sobreviure. Com quasi tots els nins de la seva època i de la seva classe, a una edat tendra conegué la duresa de la feina. A onze anys el llogaren a una possessió. La seva feina era estar tota la nit dins una soll vigilant que la truja no esclafàs cap dels porcellins. L’imagín assegudet a una banqueta, deixant-se vèncer per la son, entre la por infantil, la pudor i la soledat. De fadrí granat anà a unes classes particulars els vespres, amb un parent que sabia un poc de lletra, per a ampliar els migrats coneixements que havia adquirit en els pocs anys que va anar a escola. Forner i picapedrer, segons les conveniències, en els anys difícils de la postguerra mirà de treure el carro fent i venent pa d’estraperlo, anant de part a part de Mallorca amb la bicicleta carregada amb uns quants sacs de blat de cinquanta quilos i de vegades encalçat per la Guàrdia Civil, que també anava amb bicicleta. «No m’agafaven mai —contava—, perquè encara que anàs carregat amb els sacs, jo corria més que ells». En un accident perdé la visió a un ull. Les dificultats el dugueren a haver d’emigrar al Brasil poc temps després de néixer jo. Allà va fer de picapedrer, tot vivint a una petita caseta de fusta destinada a guardar el ciment i les eines. Als dos anys va tornar repatriat. Treballà de picapedrer infatigablement, dies feiners i diumenges, es va fer mestre d’obres i això li permeté d’arribar a fer un petit patrimoni. Quan les coses li anaven bé, al voltant dels cinquanta anys, una malaltia el deixà tetraplègic, assegut a una butaca sense poder moure ni les cames ni els braços. Així fins que es va morir, a 84 anys. Un altre dia parlaré de la mare, que ja podeu imaginar la tasca que li va tocar. Potser una de les poques alegries importants que li donà la vida va ser veure el seu fill amb un títol universitari i professor de la universitat. Ell en té molta part del mèrit. En els anys difícils de l’adolescència sempre m’encoratjà a estudiar. Cosa que no havia pogut fer ningú de la família en totes les generacions conegudes. Martí Bibiloni Serra, en homenatge.

Today, the 13th of November, is the 10th anniversary of the death of my father. It is a day that invites me to remember him. His was an extraordinarily difficult life. From a poor family, the son of a contracted peasant, he fought with life to survive. Like almost all the kids of his time and of his social class, at a tender age he was introduced to the harshness of work. When he was 11, they hired him out to a farm. His work was to be alone during the whole night in a pig-pen, making sure that the sow did not crush the piglets. I imagine him there sitting on a little seat, being won over by sleep, caught betweenthe fear of a child, the stink and the aloneness.

As a young lad he went to a few one on one classes at night, with a relative who knew something of literature, to increase the little knowledge that he had acquired in the few years that he had gone to school.

He worked as a baker and a rock-breaker/builder, depending on what was available. In the difficult years following the Civil War, he tried to get by making and selling black market bread, going from one corner to the other of Mallorca with his bike laden with some bags of 50kg of wheat, and sometimes given chase by the police, who also traveled by bicycle. They never caught me, he said, because even though I had all these bags, I was faster than them.

In an accident, he lost eyesight in one eye. The difficulties made him emigrate to Brazil, shortly after I was born. There, he worked as a builder whilst he lived in a small wooden shack meant for keeping cement and tools. After two years, he came back. He tirelessly worked as a rockbreaker, during the week and on Sundays. He became a foreman and this allowed him to save up a little money. When things were looking up for him when he was around 50 years old, a sickness left him paraplegic, sitting in a chair without being able to move his legs or his arms. He was like this until he died, at 84 years of age. Some other day I will speak of my mother, and you can imagine what she had to put up with. Maybe one of the few happiness of her life was seeing her son as a university professor. She is in grand part responsible for it. In the difficult years of my adolescence, she always encouraged me to study. Something that no one in our family in all of the preceding generations had done. Martí Bibiloni Serra, in hommage.

[nooj]

The linguist Juan Carlos Morena Cabrera, with whom I am once again in complete agreement.

If a Spanish speaker can speak Spanish everywhere in Spain and be understood, there is no reason why a Galician or a Catalan or an Asturian or an Aragonese speaker cannot be either. The idea that Spanish is the only possible and natural unificatory language of Spain is false, it was the only language that was allowed to be one. All the others were purposely excluded from that role.

Even today, Catalan, Galician, Basque, Asturian, Aragonese and other such languages might as well be absent from the public sphere in Madrid. There is more English signage and music and movies in Madrid than any of the other Spanish languages.

El carácter excluyente del nacionalismo lingüístico español se ve perfectamente en la expresión del segundo de los pasajes según la cual el español es la única [lengua] en la que todos pueden comunicarse. Es posible que sea verdad que el español es la única lengua en la que todos los ciudadanos españoles se comunican de hecho, dado que la educación de muchos de estos ciudadanos, desde hace siglos, ha dado la espalda al reconocimiento de cualquier realidad lingüística del Estado español distinta de la castellana. Sin embargo es palmariamente falso que el español sea la única lengua en la que se pueden comunicar todos los ciudadanos del Estado español. Esto es así porque todas las lenguas de este Estado español menos una (el euskera) son lenguas romances y, por consiguiente, están estrechamente emparentadas. Esto significa que, mediante la vía de una educación adecuada, todo castellanohablante está capacitado para que pueda entender con poco esfuerzo el gallego, el asturiano, el catalán o valenciano o el aragonés. Sabemos que, al menos desde la Edad Media, los gallegos, los valencianos o los aragoneses, partiendo de sus lenguas propias, han sido capaces de entender a los castellanohablantes; más aún, han sido capaces de hablar castellano. ¿Por qué, entonces, los castellanohablantes no habrían de ser capaces de al menos entender –voy a dejar de lado el hablar– las demás lenguas romances peninsulares? ¿Es que acaso el castellano es más fácil de entender que otras lenguas romances? ¿Es que acaso los castellanos están menos dotados para entender otras lengua romances que los gallegos, catalanes, valencianos, asturianos y aragoneses? Las únicas respuestas no racistas a estas preguntas sólo pueden ser negativas.

Partiendo, entonces, de esa respuesta negativa a la última pregunta formulada, podemos deducir fácilmente que, por ejemplo, el gallego puede ser perfectamente una lengua de comunicación entre todos los ciudadanos españoles en el siguiente sentido. Un gallego o valenciano podría hablar en gallego o en valenciano en todo el territorio del Estado español y ser entendido sin dificultad por todos los castellanohablantes. Esto es perfectamente posible y factible y hasta socialmente razonable y, desde luego, aconsejable.

The excluding nature of Spanish linguistic nationalism can be seen clearly in the wording of the second of our passages, according to which Spanish is the only language in which everyone can communicate.

It might be true that Spanish is the only language in which all Spanish citizens communicate de facto, given that the education of many of these citizens has ignored the recognition of any other linguistic reality of the Spanish state than that of Castillian, and this has been the case for centuries.

However it is blatently false that Spanish is the only language in which all citizens of the Spanish state can communicate. It’s false because all the languages of this State, save for one (Basque), are Romance languages and consequently are closely related. This means that, by means of an adequate education, every Spanish speaker has it in them to be able to understand with little effort Galician, Asturian, Catalan or Valencian or Aragonese. We know that since the Middle Ages at least, the Galicians, Valencians or Aragonese, on the basis of their own languages have been able to understand Castillian speakers; more than that, they’ve been able to SPEAK Castillian.

Why then, shouldn’t Castillian speakers be able to at least understand - for the moment I leave out the question of speaking - the rest of the Romance languages of the Peninsula? Is it perhaps because Castillian is easier to understand than the other Romance languages? Is it perhaps because the Castillians are less gifted when it comes to understanding other Romance languages than the Galicians, Catalans, Valencians, Asturians and Aragonese? The only non-racist reply to these questions is no.

So then, moving on to the last question, we can easily deduce that Galician, for example, can very well be a language of communication between all Spanish citizens in the following sense: a Galician or Valencian could speak Galician or Valencian in the entire territory of the Spanish state and be understood without difficulty by all Castillian speakers. This is perfectly possible and feasible and even socially reasonable and of course, recommendable.