Languages in Catalonia
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There are four languages with official status in Catalonia (an autonomous community of Spain):
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
; Spanish, which is official throughout Spain; Aranese, a dialect of
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language Occitan (; o ...
spoken in the Aran Valley; and
Catalan Sign Language Catalan Sign Language ( ca, Llengua de signes catalana, LSC; ) is a sign language used by around 18,000 people in different areas of Spain including Barcelona and Catalonia. As of 2012, the Catalan Federation for the Deaf estimates 25,000 LSC sig ...
.Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (2006)
, Article 50, paragraph 6. Retrieved 2012-08-24. "The public authorities shall guarantee the use of Catalan sign language and conditions of equality for deaf people who chooses to use this language, which shall be the subject of education, protection and respect."
Many other languages are spoken in Catalonia as a result of recent immigration from all over the world. Catalan has enjoyed special status since the approval of the
Statute of Autonomy of 1979 The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia ( ca, Estatut d'Autonomia de Catalunya; also Statute of Sau, ''Estatut de Sau'', after the location where the statute was first made) is a constitutional law defining the region of Catalonia as an autonomous co ...
which declares it to be the language "proper to Catalonia". Spanish had been the only official language for most of the period between the 18th century and 1975.


Social use

According to a 2008 survey, in everyday use, 45.9% of the population usually spoke Spanish, while 35.6% usually employed Catalan, and 12% of the population used either language habitually. Over 45% of respondents used Spanish to address their parents (versus 36% who choose Catalan). This is attributed to extensive migration from other areas in Spain during the second half of the 20th century, as a consequence of which many Catalans have one or both parents born outside Catalonia. However, a majority (52.6%) used Catalan with their children (compared to 42.3% for Spanish). This can be attributed to some Spanish-speaking citizens shifting from their native language to Catalan at home. Outside the family, 48.6% of the population indicated that they addressed strangers exclusively or preferentially in Catalan, while the proportion of those who used Spanish was 41.7%, and 8.6% claimed to use both equally.


Social origin of the language diversity

The main cause of Spanish and Catalan social
bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
in modern Catalonia was large-scale migration from the rest of Spain during the 20th century, as Catalonia started a significant
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
which demanded an increased workforce from elsewhere. Spanish has historically been spoken among a minority of civil servants born in other regions in Spain and among segments of the wealthiest bourgeoisie. Spanish has also been spoken as a second language by most Catalans, as it has been the only official language over long periods since the eighteenth century. It has been calculated that the total population of Catalonia with no migration would have grown from 2 million people in 1900 to just 2.4 million in 1980, 39% of the real population of 6.1 million for that date, which was over 7.5 million in 2016. As a consequence, there exists a somewhat different identity for those whose native language is Catalan and those whose native language is Spanish, "...una societat que, en encetar-se el procés, es trobava escindida entre la població d’origen autòcton, de primera llengua catalana quasi sense excepcions, i la d’origen immigrant, molt majoritàriament monolingüe hispanòfona." (translation: ''a society that, when the process
f schooling in Catalan language F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hi ...
began, was divided between a native population, with Catalan as first language almost without exceptions, and one of immigrant origin, with a large majority of Spanish-only speakers''). https://web.archive.org/web/20091027054000/http://www.geocities.com/m_strubell/060908_frankfurt4.doc De llengua oprimida a centre de gravetat. L’"admirable inversió" del català a les escoles de Catalunya (in Catalan)]
though it has been increasingly difficult to delineate the two groups; furthermore, there is a small but growing number of Catalans who consider both to be their mother tongue. According to anthropologist
Kathryn Woolard Kathryn Ann Woolard (born in Wellsville, New York, 1950) is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She specializes in linguistic anthropology and received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California a ...
, who has studied these identities, Catalans tend to classify anyone as either ''castellà'' (that is, having Spanish as their native language) or ''català'' (that is, having Catalan as their native language). The claim that the population would have only increased 20% from 1900 to 1980 is disputable since the population of Spain as a whole doubled from 18 to 37 million even allowing for high levels of emigration from the province to the Western Hemisphere and Europe.


Statistics

According to the linguistic census elaborated by the Government of Catalonia corresponding to 2008, 45.92% of citizens over 15 years old declared Spanish as their nlyhabitual language of use, versus 35.64% for Catalan, with 11.95% of complete bilinguals; a larger number claims Catalan as "their own language" (37.25% Catalan compared to 46.53% Spanish and 8.81% bilinguals). Lastly, since the
Statute of Autonomy of 1979 The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia ( ca, Estatut d'Autonomia de Catalunya; also Statute of Sau, ''Estatut de Sau'', after the location where the statute was first made) is a constitutional law defining the region of Catalonia as an autonomous co ...
, Aranese—a Gascon
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language Occitan (; o ...
dialect—has been official and subject to special protection in the Aran Valley. This small area of 7,000 inhabitants was the only place where Occitan (spoken mainly in France and some Italian valleys) received full official status. However, on 9 August 2006, when the new Statute came into force, Aranese became official throughout Catalonia.


Spanish

According to the government of Catalonia, Spanish, locally known as Castilian, is currently the most spoken language in Catalonia (45.9% daily users of Spanish vs. 35.6% daily users of Catalan vs. 11% daily users of both Spanish and Catalan) and especially in the Barcelona metropolitan area, as well as native language and usual language of many Catalan citizens. This language is widely prevalent in the press, cinema and in daily life. Spanish is the language that Catalan citizens can read and write the most, due to the fact that until the 1980s it was the only language used in school and in all official communications. The Spanish language developed from
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
in the North of the Iberian Peninsula, expanding quickly to the South. It has lexical influences from Arabic and possible
substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism lo ...
influences from Basque and (to a lesser extent) Celtiberian. It has been the only official language in Spain for most periods since the eighteenth century.


Catalan

According to the official government of Catalonia, Catalan is the second most spoken language of the region, after Spanish (over 35% of Catalans use exclusively Catalan as their first language, while 11% of Catalans use equally both Catalan and Spanish). It is the most spoken language in many comarques of Catalonia, with the exception of the Barcelona metropolitan area ( Barcelonès plus surrounding comarques) and
Camp de Tarragona Camp de Tarragona () is a natural and historical region of Catalonia, Spain. It includes a central plain, surrounded by the Serralada Prelitoral mountain chain on the west and in the north, with the Mediterranean sand beaches of the Costa Daur ...
. Catalan is a compulsory subject in schools and enjoys equals rights with Spanish throughout Catalonia. Since the death of
Franco Franco may refer to: Name * Franco (name) * Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 * Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître" Prefix * Franco, a prefix used when ...
(1975) and the approval of a new democratic Constitution in Spain, Catalan has experienced a new revival in its usage, first, due to the liberalisation and devolution of the Catalan linguistic and cultural institutions, and second, to their promotion. However, some political activists claim that Catalan-speaking people continue suffering some types of discrimination, as explained in the European Parliament on January 29, 2014. Catalan, a
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...
, is regarded by some Iberian
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
as belonging to the
Iberian Romance The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are ...
sub-family (which also includes Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, and Aragonese), while others (especially Occitanists) classify it within the
Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Romanc ...
sub-family (which includes
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language Occitan (; o ...
and
Gallo-Italian The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications def ...
) languages. It shares attributes with both linguistic groups.


Literacy

According to the 2001 Linguistic Census, about 5,900,000 people in Catalonia (nearly 95% of the population) understand the Catalan language. The percentage of people aged two and older who can speak, read and write Catalan is as follows: As a result of the ongoing linguistic policies favouring Catalan, implemented in various degrees by the autonomous government during the last 20 years, knowledge of Catalan has advanced significantly in all these areas, with the ability to write it having experienced the most pronounced increase, from 31.6% of the population in 1986 to 49.8% in 2001. By age groups, those between 10 and 29 have the highest level of Catalan-language literacy (e.g., 98.2% aged 10–14 understand it, and 85.2% can write it); this is attributed to these individuals having received their education in Catalan. Geographically, Catalan is understood in northwest Catalonia ( High Pyrenees, Aran Valley) by 97.4% of residents, followed by south and western Catalonia, whereas Barcelona's metropolitan area had the lowest knowledge, at 93.8%. The situation is analogous for written-language skills, with central Catalonia scoring the highest percentages (61.4%), and Barcelona the lowest (46.4%). Barcelona is one of the main centres of the Spanish publishing industry for both Spanish-language and Catalan-language publishing.


Aranese

According to the 2001 Aranese Linguistic Census, knowledge of Aranese in the Occitan-speaking territory of Aran is as follows: Compared to previous data from 1996, the number of those able to understand Aranese has declined slightly (90.5% in 1996), while at the same time there has been a marginal increase in the number of those able to write it (24.97% in 1996). By age groups, the largest percentage of those with knowledge of Aranese is in the 15-19 and 65-69 groups (both above 96%), while those aged 30–34 score lowest (just over 80%). Literacy is higher in the 10-19 group with over 88% declaring themselves able to read, and 76% able to write Aranese. Those over 80 are the least literate, with only about 1.5% of them being able to write the language. In everyday use, according to 2008 data, Spanish is the main language in the Aran valley, habitually spoken by 38% of the population, then followed by Aranese, spoken by 23.4% of the population. In Aran, Catalan is the third language, habitually spoken by 16% of the population.


Catalan Sign Language

According t
Ethnologue
about 18,000 deaf Catalans use Catalan Sign Language (LSC, ''Llengua de signes catalana''). Since, like other
deaf sign languages There are perhaps three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and '' de novo'' (and occasionally through language planning). In s ...
, LSC has no generally used written form, there is no literacy data.


Immigrant languages in Catalonia

As a part of the intense immigration process which Spain in general and Catalonia in particular have experienced over the last decade, there is a large number of immigrant languages spoken in various cultural communities in Catalonia, of which ( Maghrebi) Arabic and Urdu are the most common if Spanish-speaking migrants are not taken into account. From all four Provinces of Catalonia, the largest number of habitual foreign language speakers are located in Girona.


Political and social issues

In Francoist Spain Catalan was, until the 1970s, excluded from the state education system and all other official and governmental use, including the prohibition of baptizing children with certain Catalan names.
Rural-urban migration Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly the ...
originating in other parts of Spain reduced the social use of the language in urban areas. Lately, a similar sociolinguistic phenomenon has occurred with foreign immigration. In an attempt to reverse this, the re-established self-government institutions of Catalonia embarked on a long term
language policy Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco ...
to increase the use of Catalan and has, since 1983, enforced laws which attempt to protect, and extend, the use of Catalan. Some groups consider these efforts a way to discourage the use of Spanish, while some other, including the Catalan government and the European Union consider the policies not only respectful, but also an example which "should be disseminated throughout the Union". Today, Catalan is the language of the Catalan autonomous government and the other public institutions that fall under its jurisdiction. Following Catalan Government rules, businesses are required to display all information (e.g. menus, posters) in Catalan under penalty of legal fines; following Spanish Government rules,"500 lleis que imposen el castellà", Plataforma per la Llengua, 2009
(In Catalan) Plataforma-llengua.cat (PDF)
there's the same obligation to display this information in Spanish; there is no obligation to display this information in Aranese, although there is no restriction on doing so in these or other languages. The use of fines was introduced in a 1997 linguistic law that aims to increase the use of Catalan. According to the law, both Catalan and Spanish – being official languages – can be used by the citizens without prejudice in all public and private activities even though the Generalitat usually uses only Catalan in its communications and notifications addressed to the general population. The citizens can also receive information from the Generalitat in Spanish if they so request. The various media belonging to Catalan government public broadcasting are monolingual in Catalan. However, except for a few hours in
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
on La 2 and on some radio station, all the media belonging to the Spanish government are Spanish monolingual in Catalonia, as in the rest of Spain. The
language policy Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco ...
favouring Catalan consistently implemented by the successive governments ruling the regional government of Catalonia since the 1980s has become increasingly contentious and controversial during the 2000s, especially in
public education State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
. In this context, Catalan was the only language of instruction between 1979 and 2012. Thus, pupils were immersed in Catalan except for three hours per week of Spanish medium instruction. However, the most recent Spanish Education Law and some judicial sentences aim at increasing the time of instruction in Spanish for other subjects, if only one child per class asks it, even if the other families don't agree, because of complaints that current policies hinder the right to an education in Spanish. Some political parties and civic organizations denounce this situation in which a co-official language like Spanish is barred from public education, claiming that this is a severe breach of civic rights and against the spirit of free circulation of people within Spain. In September 2008 a demonstration was held in Barcelona to support full coexistence of both languages without linguistic discrimination of either. In June 2012 the
Supreme Court of Spain The Supreme Court ('', TS'') is the highest court in the Kingdom of Spain. Originally established pursuant to Title V of the Constitution of 1812 to replace —in all matters that affected justice— the System of Councils, and currently regulat ...
ruled that schools must also use Spanish as a medium of instruction, if parents wish it, and cannot force Catalan-language education on the entire population, citing the disadvantage of the inability to be educated in the national language and the necessity of maintaining the ability for citizens to move from one part of Spain to another without learning the local language. Pro-Catalan language activists claimed that, by 2009, some activities could not be carried out in Catalan because of the existence of 500 different regulations ensuring the preeminence of the Spanish language.


References


External links


Language Use of the Population of Catalonia. Key results of the Survey on Language Use of the Population 2013Language Policy Reports (2010-2015)
{{Languages of Europe Catalan language Linguistic rights