Bla bla bla

[IronMike]

That stinks. Too bad you didn't have time to get a recording of their language. Would love to hear it.

[iguanamon]

Living outside of the mainstream of immigration and world connection, on a small Caribbean island, I doubt I'll ever just happen upon a Mauritian Kreol speaker. I have, however, looked at the language and find that I would have a huge discount in learning it thanks to the other French-lexified Creole languages I know. There is a textbook available for beginners called "Korek!: A Beginner's Guide to Mauritian Creole" by Paul Choy. There's also a free grammar here from the Akademi Kreol Morisien; an online Bible and a book for 6th grade students by the Mauritian Ministry of Education, Kreol Morisien Grade 6 Vol 2 - Liv Zelev. There should definitely be enough available to learn the language. Here is a video with background on the language.

Mauritian Creole, Seychelles Creole, Lesser Antilles French Creole, Haitian Creole and Louisiana Creole all stem from the same French colonial era. They are all similar and different enough that mutual intelligibility takes effort and familiarity.

Nooj's experience in Australia really shows how those with an open mind, an attraction to less commonly studied and minority languages, and a fearless attitude can take advantage of a multicultural society to learn languages around them. That's something I'm sure he will continue to do in Europe. I'm looking forward to seeing his adventure unfold.

[Maiwenn]

If it makes you feel any better, I had a colleague in Switzerland who was a native Mauritian Creole speaker. One of my closest friends from my time in France is a native Malagasy and heritage Chinese speaker (funnily enough she moved to Mauritius last year so perhaps she too will become a Mauritian Creole speaker). I'm not sure where you'll be settling in Europe, but I know that wherever you go, you will find native speakers of a wide variety of interesting languages. Even sparsely populated areas can surprise you.

Best of luck with the move and happy new year!

[nooj]

Languages I have used in the last four days: English, Korean, Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, Basque.

Basque and Catalan. Saying goodbye to Basque and Catalan conversation partners.

Korean. At airport, on plane, in hotel, on plane again. I don't look very Korean so I take a small pleasure when Korean hotel staff talk to me in English, then I reply in Korean, then they smile and immediately treat me like a Korean.

Arabic. At Barcelona. One hour wait for ferry to leave. Cross the street to get a water. Don't know where a 'chino' is (store run by Chinese, Pakistanis etc), so I ask passerby. Turns out he is Moroccan. He doesn't blink, we chat in Arabic as he walks me to where the chino is.

Catalan and Spanish.

I am in Mallorca. Big city of Palma. Touristic and full of immigration from Spain and elsewhere. The first words out of my lips are always in Catalan. Some people ask me to switch to Spanish, like the lady at a small cafe that was the only thing open in the early hours of the morning. At the bank, talking to a bank agent. I start off in Catalan. Seeing her expression, I ask her if I should switch to Spanish. She says yes, although both women comment to me that speaking Catalan has a definite merit. Later, I go to another bank and make a bank account there. This bank agent is from Barcelona. Catalan all the way.

In the street from passerbys. Very rarely I hear Catalan. Mostly Spanish.

I am in a square. I see a young man standing around, waiting for someone. I ask this person for directions in Catalan. He is not like most other people I have asked directions for today, who respond to me usually in Spanish (although they understand my Catalan). He responds in Catalan without a problem. While I am trying to pay attention to his explanations, I see someone approaching and I recognise her, to my growing surprise. She is the main actor (Esther Lopez) from a Balearic series I like to watch, Mai Neva a Ciutat. I interrupt the man to point her out. Well obviously. He has been waiting for her. She approaches. I tell her I learned Mallorcan Catalan from watching her TV show (all this in Catalan). Now they smile and laugh. I exclaim that it is a small world. They say that in Mallorca, it sure is. A third person approaches, a third friend. They seem to be as surprised of me, a foreigner who learned Catalan from a show of a friend of theirs, as I am of having literally stumbled upon an actress that I was literally watching a couple of days ago. Surreal.

Anyway, they give me directions to a restaurant that they like for typical Mallorcan breakfast. And also tell me how there will be an event close by in a couple of days, an interview with the main actors. The show has been renewed for a third season. Also there will be a city-festa for Palma soon. I am invited.

Now I have to go. Dinner at a bar that a Mallorcan friend recommended me. He also recommended me a second hand bookshop where they sell old Mallorcan books. I want to read Mallorcan literature (rondalles and such).

The dynamics of Catalan-Spanish in this city confuse me. I hope that the smaller towns will be predominantly Catalan. I am making it a point of using Catalan as much as possible. Maybe if foreigners use Catalan more, more people living in Mallorca, both foreigners and locals, will use Catalan too. The Balearic government does some campaigns to conscientise foreigners who come to the islands about the languages here. Not just Spanish. But could do more to attract cultural tourists, they would be interested in the existence of another language and culture.

The linguistic impact of tourism is something worthy of interest. Is the constant flux of tourists to Mallorca threatening the status and use of the language? Almost all the natives of the island are bilingual. But ability to speak Catalan does not translate to always speaking it.

How will foreigners learn the language if you switch to Spanish with them?

[nooj]

I never got to the restaurant last night.

Got sidetracked on the way there by an association of theatre. I walked in because the front of the building was open and lit up. It is a theatre made up on non professional actors. The security guard told me I could come in and watch. They're not rehearsing, they're just starting out with the roles and reading the script around the table. They invite me up on the stage with them. They are adapting a Spanish theatrical version of Grease. They will translate it into Catalan for the performance. I take a seat and just listen. It is only an hour in when someone asks if I understand Catalan, and so whether I have been following what they are saying. I love this. Just use your language. If a foreigner doesn't know it, don't apologise for using your language.

The head woman (animadora, I don't know the word for it in English) speaks in Mallorcan Catalan. She told the group about how her family is from Valencia, and so she went to visit them for a festa. They were building a massive castell, a full of thing. She met there a British actress she admires a lot, Natascha McElhone, with her children. So I am not the only meeting with famous actors randomly...

Mallorcan Catalan, as with all Balearic varieties, are truly beautiful varieties of Catalan. Probably the thing that most strikes other speakers of Catalan, other than the articles salats, is the omnipresence of the schwa. Only in Eastern varieties of Catalan it exists, you will not find it in Valencian.

But in most varieties of Mallorcan Catalan, the use of schwa goes far beyond that of say, what you will find in Barcelona (another Eastern variety), and /ə/ is found even in stressed positions. So perquè is pronounced in most Mallorcan varieties, /pər'kə/. What is /ɛ/ in other Eastern varieties or /e/ in Western, is /ə/ in Mallorcan.

Someone from Palma expressing shock and surprise does not say Quèèèèè????? /kɛ:ˈ/ (Eastern) or /ke:/ (Western) but Queeeeeeeeeuh???? /kə:/.

I bought some books today to read.

I was talking to a Mallorcan today and she mentioned that even she doesn't understand some of the words and expressions used. Aside from the dialects varying from town to town, these stories were collected at least a hundred years ago, sometimes more, and that is a lot of time for change to happen.

Speaking with her, it was another time that I was reminded that yes, there are people who prefer to speak in other languages other than Spanish in Spain, not out of some great political activism or because they hate Spanish, but because it was the language they were raised in and their native language. It is easy to forget that it is not a 'choice', and that making them speak Spanish, can be unusual, maybe even uncomfortable. Tomorrow I go to her town, where everyone speaks in Catalan and everyone prefers to speak it.



I will also say that it is very annoying knowing Spanish, because when my Catalan fails, or whenever I hesitate, I have the urge to put in a Spanish word. But this is not exactly the code switching of native speakers. It is a constant temptation. If I came into it as a monolingual English speaker, I would not use Spanish as a crutch.

[Bex]

I have just stumbled across your posts about Mallorca. I have been living here for 4 years now (I'm from the UK) and the strange balance between Spanish and Catalan usage here is indeed disconcerting at times.

I was at a restaurant the other evening and my son was chatting to waiter in Spanish when the waiter said in English "sorry but I don't speak Spanish I'm Italian". Turns out he could speak Italian, English and German but not Spanish!

Seems that if you want to be able to speak to everyone on the tiny island you need to be able to speak German, English, Spanish and Catalan!

When I first came to Mallorca I was really confused as to how people even decided which language to use!

It's a shame Catalan isn't used more widely in Palma and the tourist areas. I love listening to Catalan, it sounds so beautiful and I would love to learn it but for now I am concentrating on learning Spanish because it is, as you have found out yourself, the most common language used here.

How long are you staying in Mallorca?

[nooj]

Thank you for you responding. Your experience and insight will be invaluable given you have lived here. Feel free to post how you see things.

I've been here for...2 days. I will be here for a couple of months. Hoping to go to the Basque country afterwards.

For those wondering, I'm not rolling in cash. I'm blowing through a lot of money doing this that i saved up as a student but there comes a time when studying at home is not enough. I will never learn Mallorcan Catalan as well at home watching a series than living in Mallorca. Same for Basque.

[nooj]

Two contrastive stories that just happened to me.

Don't worry I'm not going
to post every single little thing that happens to me in my life. But I thought it was interesting.

I decided to go to the town one day early. I stop a passerby walking a dog. I ask him where the bus stop is in Catalan. He is stone faced. I ask him whether he understands Catalan and he says no. We start a convo in Spanish. He is a middle aged man. He asks me why I learn Catalan, given that Spanish is spoken by 600 million people (his figures, not mine). I tell him it is respect and also because I find it nice sounding. I like them both. He demurs but keeps pressing. Spanish is spoken not just in Spain but in Latin America and North America whereas Catalan is only spoken here. I agree, but i say that if I went to Norway, I would learn Norwegian. I guess I should have expected the tone of the discussion which was not at all aggressive or combative, when he asked me where I was from and I told him I was Australian but born in Korea. "Pues eso, eres coreano". I don't feel like challenging him on that because well he's right too and I don't have time to explain the complexities of immigrant identity. It does occur to me that he might have been living in Mallorca for decades without learning Catalan but I don't ask him this question because that might be too on the nose.

He was a nice guy, I enjoyed our chat, but his attitude was the first time I really met someone who actively challenged the position of Catalan. Other Spanish monolinguals up to now were indifferent or said it was not a problem (the language is a 'Problem' to many, not a richness and opportunity) but none ever challenged the reasons why I was learning it. Before him no one else told me to learn Spanish instead (keep in mind we were talking in Spanish!). We shook hands and went our separate ways.

Next person I talk to, a teenager. I ask him in Catalan, he smiles at me, tells me where it is in Catalan, thinks better of it and walks me to the bus stop.

Two teenagers at the bus stop. I ask them if the bus goea to the town and if I can buy the ticket on the bus. They say they're going to the same town and yes. All in Catalan. They are a couple. The girl is from Mallorca, the boy from 'Espanya'. His words not mine. That is to say the islanders see the mainland as different.

Neither of the three teenagers asked me why I spoke Catalan, least of all the Mallorcan variety. none of them seem to care. Compare that to the Spanish man.

I ask him how he learned Catalan if he was born on the mainland. He came as a kid. I ask them both why it was so hard to speak Catalan in Palma. Same response from them as I get always. Lot of different people, lots of tourists who don't want to learn Catalan, etc. But I am talking with you in Catalan. They say that the youth can speak Catalan but often don't. The elderly people speak it more than anything (according to them). They are 15 and 17 years old. I ask them why people their age prefer Spanish. More comfortable they say. He does mention that even though his native language is Spanish, and he feels more comfortable speaking it, he has no hang ups speaking it with people like me who talk to him in Catalan and insist on doing it.

He referred to me as vostè at the start. I wryly asked him why. I'm not that old (29 now). He laughs sheepishly and switches to tu.

Now I'm on the bus heading to a town an hour from Palma. My pressing questions are: do young people have a better or worse relationship with the languages spoken here than the older people? I will make every opportunity to find out. It's also a good topic to talk to Mallorcans about!

At home in Australia I am not very social. Here I chat up everybody that doesn't seem too busy. Luckily for me people here like talking.

[Maiwenn]

Two contrastive stories that just happened to me.

Don't worry I'm not going to post every single little thing that happens to me in my life. But I thought it was interesting.

Even if you did, I think a lot of us would enjoy reading it. :) You invite interesting encounters to happen through your own curiosity for the world. How many people travel to the region of their target language without having half the interactions you've had in two days! Keep being you. I can't wait to read about your next opportunities to learn more about Mallorcan Catalan/Basque/whatever else.

[Bex]

Keep writing every little story...please! They are wonderful.

The contrasting views you've come across in 2 days are not at all unusual. The schools here all teach everything in Catalan, even the Spanish lessons are taught in Catalan but there are many, many Mallorcan parents who send their kids to private Spanish or English schools here because they think learning Spanish or English is more important.

I do not necessarily agree either way but that is the way it is here, many Mallorcans think Catalan is taught at the expense of Spanish but many are proud of their language and really want their kids to be taught in Catalan.

Don't you just love the politics of languages

Mallorca is so diverse for such a tiny island, but that can have it's problems. You won't be here to see the change the summer brings if you're only here for 2 months...28 million people passed through Mallorca airport in 2017 - it gets a bit [understatement] crazy here in the summer!!!

Whereabouts are you staying...you mentioned it was an hour from Palma? I live near Santa Maria del Cami.