I Say High, You Say Low

At the risk of further suggestions that I have a personal agenda, which I do not, more on the Castilian-Catalan language debate. Yesterday's "Diario" reported on the support by a group called "La Mesa del Turismo" (tourism table if you like) for a so-called manifesto for a common language, issued by a group of intellectuals who seek to defend the use of Castilian. This table includes none other than Air Berlin, who were at the centre of the apparent row regarding the "invitation" by the Balearic Government to use Catalan (14 June: Where The Air Is Rarefied).

On 2 July, the Mallorca Council announced that it would use 400,000 euros to promote the use of Catalan in the restaurant sector. The president of the "table" talks of "a linguistic police" imposing Catalan on the restaurants. The group is also concerned about language for things such as road signs and, in general, for Spanish tourists, Castilian speakers and foreigners.

So, here we have a clique of intellectuals making common cause with business in pursuing a common language - Castilian - and a local council that is prepared to spend public money in order to get menus printed in Catalan. One is almost inclined to wish a plague on both their asylums. In today's "Diario", the Catalan actor Jordi Dauder is reported as saying that "Castilian is not in danger, for God's sake", pointing out that the manifesto is a "political maneouvre". He speaks sense, though the Mallorca Council's restaurant language initiative is hardly anything else.

There is something vaguely absurd about a manifesto that seeks to defend what is the national language in the sense that it is spoken by more Spaniards as a first language than it is not. By the same token, interference in how businesses (restaurants) operate, as was the case with Air Berlin, should be a matter for businesses not for politicians. It isn't as if Catalan (or Mallorquín) is not already the language that is used. A restaurant owner chooses his language or languages based on his market; therefore, he will usually display a menu in Catalan (or Mallorquín), which is as it should be if that is his main market. Road signs are the same. Come from Palma Airport, and you do not see Puerto de Alcúdia, you see Port d'Alcúdia, the Catalan version.

Both sides of this debate seem to be lapsing into posturing. As I have said before, the overriding factor should be one of pragmatism, which would generally mean the use of Castilian. But not at the expense of what is, after all, a far from insignificant language - Catalan. It is though a debate that will not go away, as it runs far, far deeper than the mere use of road signs. History and cultures are intrinsically bound up in the debate, and recent history (that of the Franco era) saw the outlawing (in official circles at any rate) of a language spoken by millions. Post-Franco, the Spanish constitution has as one its precepts the defence of the different languages. Consequently, the debate is institutionally sanctioned. Go back further, and the creation of the Spanish nation at the time of the Catholic Kings was a defining moment in the linguistic debate. As most who know about business affairs will acknowledge, there is no such thing as a merger, there is only acquisition or at least one dominant partner. So it was with the union through marriage of Aragon and Castile. Isabel wore the trousers in that marriage, and Castile and its language came to dominate through the greater strength of Castile's trade and through the creation of empire. But go back further, to the time of King Jaime I, the liberator of Mallorca, and there is the firm hand of Catalan written onto the manuscript, or manifesto if you prefer. Jaime was, along with Ramón Llull, one of the great Catalan-ists, even if Llull was more eclectic in his linguistics.

In the Mallorcan context, therefore, there is the force of one of the island's most important figures (arguably the most important figure) to sustain and support the debate. But that, of course, ignores the fact that Catalan and Mallorquín are not the same thing. The latter may be a derivative of the former, but it differs in many respects. I bow to the insights in "Beloved Majorcans" which make it clear that Mallorquín is not just a less direct language than Catalan it is also a language that reflects a specific society and character. When the language debate is positioned on the polarities of Castilian and Catalan, it fails to recognise, in Mallorca at any rate, that neither is the local language.

The posturing is not one that arises in everyday life here. Most Mallorcan people are well aware that incomers do not speak their language. As a consequence, in addition to the Mallorcans who choose to use Castilian in any event, the languages co-exist in relative harmony. I, for example, can understand much written Mallorquín but I can't speak it, so I use Castilian, and so do those to whom I speak. I have never once, bar some ribbing, encountered any opposition to this. The politicans and the intellectuals are, it would seem, talking over the heads of the common people. But then, 'twas ever thus.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Dionne Warwick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gsUuZMpXHk). Today's title - one says one thing, the other another - who was this?.

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