Mr Grumpy

Subscribe to my blog

By Mr Grumpy - Tue 15th Dec 2009

 

Having just spent the last weekend in Barcelona made me realise exactly how much regional languages play an important part of everyday life in Spain. In my neck of the woods, Valencian is obviously spoken and understood, but seem to be a language that sits comfortably alongside Spanish. The road signs and most official publications are printed in both languages which makes things easier for those of us that struggle with Castilian, let alone the regional language.

Not so in Barcelona! – Being the Regional and Provincial Capital – and Spain’s second city and a major tourist destination I would have expected that the National Language would have been more prominent, but this was certainly not the case. I was surprised to see almost all of the Shops, the road signs and the menus in restaurants in Catalan as opposed to Castilian, and it was only my Familiarity with Valencian that allowed me to hazard a guess at what they meant most of the time.

I have heard it said on more than one occasion that Valenican and Catalan are almost the same language, and so I decided that I would make this Blog about the Regional Language of Cataluña and find out some more...

In Addition to being the National language of Catalonia and "Considered as being spoken" in Valenica, it is also the language of choice in the Balearics, the Roussillon are of Southern France, Andorra and the city of Alghero on Sardinia. Latest data suggests that worldwide there are almost 8 Million Catalan speakers with almost 11 Million who Understand Catalan.

Having recently written a blog about Valencian being considered a regional language in it’s own right I was naturally confused to find that many Catalan’s consider Valencian to be a dialect of Catalan as opposed to a totally separate language. Even the Spanish Authorities it seem are reticent on rocking the boat too much and instead claim that the difference between a language and a dialect is "a matter of cultural and political beliefs". In other words it could be that the Valencians naturally wish to keep "their" language for themselves and as part of their regional identity ( Maybe also to distance themselves from the call for Catalan Independence, which they see as being centred around Barcelona ). Or maybe it could be that the Authorities don’t want to get involved and risk offending anybody in either camp by declaring Valencian to be a separate language, or not.

If we include Valencian under the Catalan umbrella, specialists note 24 separate and distinguishable dialects throughout the Region(s) which all have stress on different accents and syllables, so it is truly a diverse and complicated language !

As with all regions it is certainly useful to know and use some of the vocab to help and integrate with the local community, so here are a few key words and phrases that it may be useful to be aware of ...