Language nationalism

There is no doubt that Wert (along with Alicia Sánchez Camacho and Alfonso Alonso) has created a hostile environment with some grand statements about the co-official languages and that have proven his inability understand the value of cultural and linguistic diversity not only in our schools, but in society as a whole. However, one of the best assessments that I have heard of why he would push these issues right now is that it is completely by design. While we all argue about language use and cultural identity, he is quietly gutting education funding across the country. Yes, these issues are important, but Wert is using them as a smokescreen.

Both of my kids go to public school and this year their books alone cost me almost 500 Euros more than last year. School lunch went up by almost 20 euros per student, and in addition the school requires us to bring paper towels and soap because the school doesn't have funding to buy it. Class sizes are bigger and teachers aids and lunchroom staff were fired because of budget cuts.

The language issue is an important one, and as a person who finished high school in the Basque Country, I can tell you that the fear that anyone will finish school in a co-official language without being able to speak Spanish is completely fabricated. These schools are pumping out bilingual, sometimes trilingual kids, which is something to be celebrated, not stopped. Unfortunately, none of it will matter if there is not funding to pay the teachers or feed the students.

To those who argue that schoolchildren aren't being used politically: my 6 year old son told me that today he coloured in a letter in the phrase (translated from Catalan)"For a country of all, school in catalan". Apart from the obvious question about why school in catalan would be "of all" rather than the opposite, can anyone defend why this is a good education of a 6 year old? He has no opinion on government education policy any more than he has on defence policy. I pay the teachers (through taxes and direct contribution) to educate him, not to use him to support their personal policital opinions.

Independent seats in the Catalan parliament outnumbered by far the "unionist" ones. So there was no need of the last ofence from Madrid government to fuel the independence forces.

We,Spaniards and Catalans, can't let the central government to drag us into the facist past.

What a biased, simplistic and intellectually lazy opinion about Wert's new education plan... Before writting a blog a like this I would suggest you doing a little bit more of research on the situation to avoid inaccuracies such as "Catalonia's nationalists are now united in fury" or "the independence movement was divided".

Not only nationalists are against this ideological education plan but the whole Catalan society including families, education organizations, vice-chancellors of the universities and main political parties (not all of them are pro-independent).

If just ONE family in Catalonia wants to give an education in Spanish to their children, it must be possible. Families must have the right to decide which one of the both official languages they want to use to educate their children. I don´t see the wrong point of having the right to decide, it is absolutly legal. It is what said the Spanish Constitutional Court.

Primary schools in Catalonia teach in Catalan. Spanish is taught only a few hours a week, as a foreign language.

A clear example of the imperialistic oppression of Catalan culture by the Spanish government.

This is a biased article. Wert's announcement is not just "badly timed" to "bat down annoying regional language nationalists"; it is illegitimate. The main reason for Catalan devolution after Franco's dictatorship was to allow Catalans to decide at least on language issues. Wert's announcement breaks one of the basic assumptions of the social contract that supported the Spanish constitution because it attempts to override a Catalan law on language policy, which is supported by a very wide majority of the Catalan Parliament.

It is prefectly natural and healthy to discuss how Spanish should be taught in a bilingual country like Catalonia. However, the Spanish government should let Catalans decide instead of patronizing them. By the way, the law will probably be deemed unconstitutional at some point of time.

Frankly, I would expect a less contemptuous treatment of Catalan issues in The Economist.

As a catalan it is curious for me to read a text about things well known to me but assembled in way that I can hardly recognize as my everyday landscape.

I would suggest to consider that catalan language is not the main differential aspect of Catalonia but geography: physical, human, economical.

I would suggest to anybody interested in the matter to travel by car for Barcelona (BCN) to Madrid, BCN- Valencia, BCN- Paris, BCN italian border, place yourself at the top of a catalan mountain besides the mediterranian sea, go to the Pyrennes and verify that it is a perfectly achiavable task to cross the catalan Pyrenees north - south and contemplate how landscape changes but still they are at north quite close people to catalans. Even those french who do not consider catalans themselves north of 'Corvieres' What I want to say is that there's no doubt that Madrid has got plenty of inteligent and nice people but simply they have not energy and leadership enough to overturn geography and get most of catalans waiting for directions from Madrid. Those are just enforced but they cannot figure out, not by far, the right way to manage Catalonia and even all the mediterranean coast. So they just covered all with concrete and expected north europeans to come under the sun. No better ideas.

Madrid powerhouse is based on the wrong assumtion that Iberic peninsula is an uniform yard perfectly closed at the north by Ocean and Pyrenees. It is wrong.

As a consequence of geography there is not only a much diminished and hidden catalan language and culture but also a slightly different way of thinking that it is also reflected in the Spanish spoken in Catalonia. It is usually said that 'Castilian' is 'what unite'. Wrong. Castilian is what best shows the differences. Even catalans who are monolingual castilian speakers and not at all suspicious of catalan nationalism do not renounce to jokes like 'do not forget your passport', 'ready for international travel', 'Catalonia is another country' and the like when speaking about traveling to Spain (outside Catalonia) or get aware time after time how same laws produce different results when applied in Catalonia or elsewhere in Spain. Of course, jokes. But jokes tell a lot in a relaxed way.

And I'm afraid geography will not be easily changed. Time to make politics to fit geography?

"Annoying regional language nationalist"??? What a biased statement. So is Mr. Wert no a nationalist (Spanish nationalist) by wanting to impose Spanish on Catalan schools purely becasue of his will to "spanishize Catalan students" as stated by himself? There is only 12 families in Catalonia that have asked for their children to be taugh ONLY in Spanish. The model of Catalan school has been approved and admired by many international istitutions, not just because it is a way to guarantee social cohesion, but also becasue it makes sutdents multilingual. All students coming out of Catalan schools have a perfect knowledge of both Catalan and Spanish (I invite the author to visit Catalonia and check it by himself, if he's too biased by Madrid centralist views). Mr. Wert's law is just a mirror of the lack to acceptance to the diversity within Spain. Is that old mentality that still remains amongst certain sectors that Spain is just one. Well, so then Catalans will have to say Goodbye to that Spain, becasue they can't identify with that concept anymore.

A few errors here, like that "the independence movement was divided and in mild disarray" - in fact the elections changed the right-left balance but the movement is fine, thanks.

But the really shocking one is "it's disheartening to see both sides use schoolchildren to score their political points" - teaching children through the medium of their own territory's language is not "point scoring" just because the language in question is the minority language in a state. Either this writer knows nothing about the benefits of using the weaker language in a bilingual society as vehicular, or he's got some other agenda.

The writer of this bloc seems a little biased about what is this "annoying regional language nationalists" when today the spanish members of the European Parlament voted against the Uniform Patent System because it not uses spanish language forcing the catalan (who provide half of the spanish patents) to pay seven times more for a patent (35.000 € instead of 5.000 €). The spanish Governement is ALSO an annoying regional language nationalist that insist in force spanish language to all spanish people that not have the will to use it.

Firstly, the president's party lost some seats, but because votes shifted to another party even more pro-independence, the referendum petition did not fail at all. Quite the opposite. Catalan parties do not use schoolchildren, they defend them. In Catalonia, the current scholar immersion system is completely accepted as a successful model, which ensures that all Catalans know both Catalan and Spanish.The only ones who are questioning it are Spanish imperialists like Wert that want to weaken Catalan to destroy it. Thanks to immersion in Catalan, Catalan kids do learn respect for pluralism and multilingualism, much more than Spanish monolingual kids.

The article forgets that 100% of catalans have an excellent command in spanish and catalan while spanish-speakers just speak...spanish! So if one wants to enhance the knowledge of languages Catalan is the main target together with english and french-german-italian-russian. By the way: Catalan Presidents (Pujol & Mas) speak 7 and 4 languages while all Spanish Prime Ministers (Zapatero, Aznar, Rajoy, etc) speak...just one language (Spanish). Catalans are open to the world while spaniards think that they're the center of the world and none can be compared with them...

catalan...minority language??? Check the number of speakers, and see where it ranks in a european languages' list.

catalan...minority language??? Check the number of speakers, and see where it ranks in a european languages list.

As a Catalan, I find it surprising to see how any journalist, whether English, Spanish, American or whichever nationality, seems to think they know "what Catalans need"!! Do we Catalans have any say on the matter? Catalans are not using their children for their political means; they just want their children to be educated in Catalan, the language of their country (as I guess English, French, American, German children do) and learn as many other languages as possible, and do so correctly. Like many other Catalans, my children speak 3 languages -and they are 9 and 5 years old respectively. Maybe Catalan education is not as bad after all in that respect and maybe we deserve the chance to have a say with regards to our children's linguistic education. The theory that says that we will only have a chance to decide about our children's education if/when we have our own state and rule ourselves is now proving to be truer than ever.

You completely miss the point. Catalan is a minority language and Spanish a majority language in the world, and Spanish still dominates the media and cultural sources in Catalonia. In the current system of Catalan immersion ALL children finish their studies with good level in both Catalan AND Spanish (with Spanish results as good as in monolingual areas in Spain). This system has protected Catalan and preserved the use of Spanish, and has been an utter success in the last 33 years in terms of SOCIAL COHESION. Although a shallow analysis may make the system currently proposed sound right, the reality is that it would mean half the population mastering both Catalan and Spanish and half only mastering Spanish (as Catalan wouldn´t need to be studied any more, just understood enough to follow some subjects -thus splitting society). Catalonia has never been so cohesive thanks to Catalan immersion in schools and this can only be a good thing. Please find out the REALITY of the situation. Nearly all mother tongue Spanish parents will tell you they prefer the current educational system as it ADDS (culture) and UNITES (the population). This new education law pretends the opposite because of their centralizing intentions. The aim of the right-wing PP is to split the population by mother tongue in an attempt to gradually destroy Catalan just as they have been doing for years in Valencia and the Balearic Islands.

I am a estonian living in Catalonia for the last 8 years. when I came here I was ready to learn catalan, a nice minority language that i got to know in my first trip in Costa Brava when I was amazed by catalan culture.
however, i learned spanish instead!. its nothing wrong, I was planning to learn spanish as well with time. But the thing is that everybody in Barcelona speaks spanish, you try to order in catalan and so practice what you have learned in school and they tell you speack spanish. you try to go to cinema and almost all films are in spanish. etc. also many foreigners come here and learn only spanish. and they think they are in the right position to demand from you to speak spanish.
the fact that you study catalan makes them feel that you are a weird person with poor level of inteligence.

the catalan inmersion is this. kids are taought in catalan, because everywhere else they leran spanish by heart. and so when they are gronw up they are bilingual.

the spanish governement blocked this and now they oblige the schools to teach in spanish which means that catalan language will be again, like in Franco times, a language only spoken within catalan families at home.

thats a shame.

as a estonian, i know very well and i believe that there are some people with the imperialist or colonialist gene in their body. these people will never accept that they are not a superpower anymore (russians, spanish, etc). they have always thought they are superior to other regions, dominated, controlled, robbed all their wealth (what spain is doing with catalan money is incredible).

they also control press and all spanish people are manipulated. spanish press claims catalans feel victimism and so all spain think the same when the truth is that with catalan money they are building infrastructure that nobody use in spain and putting money into fallen banks.

spain is a black hole and will not survive in europe as we always have seen till now.

i cannot vote but i encourage catalans to vote for independence and as soon as possible to get out of this nightmare called spain.

Please let's be honest: Catalan immersion at school does not influence in the quality in the education (as Spanish immersion neither would). The problem is that in Catalonia, language is the first tool in building Catalan identity. Once you speak Catalan in every instance (on the playground, in front of a judge, at work) you develop a sense of Catalanity, of being different (not better, not worse, just plainly different) from a Spaniard, a sense of identity that does not wash away EVER. So the older democracy becomes in Spain, the longer Catalan immersion is present, and the more young citizens in Catalonia receive a strong sense of Catalan identity. This makes an eventual Catalan secession more likely every day. So let's just wait, education in Catalan will lead us to Catalan independency maybe not soon, but one day...Sorry dear fellow Spaniards, I have already been brainwashed with my Catalan education, there is nothing you can do...hahaha!

Sounds like what is going on in the US with mandatory Spanish classes or Ebonics