All the alarms went off. Even the presenter of TV3’s star morning show, Ariane Oltrasaid the other day: “The situation of our language is alarming.” The same one, moreover, who insisted on calling the Valencian Country Valencian Community the day he interviewed the president Carlos Mazon.
They then offered, on the public channel, some official data. This is the first report on the situation of the Catalan since the arrival of the socialist Salvador Illa at the Generalitat. Although, as is known, the socialist leader created a Language Policy Department. And he appointed at his head an advisor highly appreciated by ERC, Xavier Villa.
This was one of the Republicans’ demands. Easy to respect in this case. Catalan socialists have never questioned the linguistic model created by Pujol in the 1980s, there is also no indication that they will comply with the decisions of the TSJC in this matter, beyond what is necessary. Despite the fact that 25% of Spaniards are progressing little by little.
But as I said, at TV3 they were scandalized because even the teachers switched to Spanish. Although Catalan is officially the “vehicular language”. In the 4th year of ESO, 50% of teachers use the Spanish language. “With students, it’s even more worrying,” they lament. The Catalan language fell from 68% in 2006 to 22% in 2022.
When I leave class, things get even worse. Inside family environmentonly 37% use Catalan. Between friends, 33%. In networks 25%. And 11.5% watch films in this language. The public channel itself seems in danger.
But then what happened? Well, it is obvious that the Generalitat did something wrong. If, more than 40 years after the first legislative elections (1980), the situation seems so bad, successive regional governments must assume some responsibility. After all, the Catalan’s recovery was one of Jordi Pujol’s priority objectives, along with the Linguistic standardization law 1983. The law dates from April of the same year. The first broadcast of Catalunya Ràdio took place in June. And that of TV3 in September. You understand, don’t you? Without forgetting that in 1998 there was a second provision: the Language Policy Act.
Probably, the PP councilor of Sant Cugat, Alfredo Berguaaccidentally stuck his finger in the eye during a plenary session of this Barcelona municipality last week. Junts, who owns the town hall, presented a motion on “linguistic emergency” in the Catalan countries. Needless to say, Esquerra and the CUP also voted in favor. But the aforementioned advisor, who speaks Catalan, told them everything in just five minutes. “There is not a single word of self-criticism regarding the language policies for which you are most responsible,” he said.
“Obviously, with the complicity of the majority of parties, including the Socialist Party,” he added. He then recalled the Program 2000 by Jordi Pujol, who sought to “Catalanize” Catalan society “especially at school”. “We have been suffering from their language policy for more than thirty years and if Catalan is as they say it is, it is only because of their policy, which is a failure.” He even had time to review TV3, which “went from a friendly and useful television for the promotion of Catalan to a television serving the regime and the exclusive dissemination of its ideology.”
Bergua, who is also deputy secretary of participation in the management of Alexandre Fernándezaccused the pro-independence parties of being more concerned with “what teachers do” than with “improving the quality of education”. For thirty years, in fact, we were sold that Catalan education was “a model of success”. And now, in the PISA reports, we get to the bottom of it all. “It is more important to speak Catalan in the playground than to improve the average in mathematics or reading comprehension,” he concluded.
Anyway, I won’t insist anymore because everything was there. However, there is a final aspect which explains the decline in the use of Catalan: immigration. Although it is a taboo subject. Pujolismo encouraged North African immigration because he believed that Latin Americans would become tired of Spanish and would not learn Catalan. But it now turns out that – for cultural and even religious reasons – it presents more integration problems than Hispanic America. Karma seems to exist.
