Jun
24
A common language for Spain
Spain is home to as many as nine languages, three of which (català, euskera, galego) have co-official status with castellano, i.e. Spanish. As a result, these three languages have tremendous political and social clout inside the country.
It’s a messy and complicated issue but in recent years language has been used as a political weapon to elevate and separate different communities in Spain. For example, a Spaniard who aspires to be a public school teacher, a public health doctor, a cop or a city hall bureaucrat in Catalonia, is pretty much out of luck if he/she doesn’t speak fluent catalán. Meanwhile in several communities the primary language of instruction in the public schools is one of the co-official languages, not Spanish. With the way things are going, could there eventually emerge a massive population of Spaniards who will be functionally illiterate in Spanish since they won’t speak nor use Spanish as their main language? It is a frightening thought.
(Earlier this year, the Partido Popular, the conservative Spanish political party, distributed audio of a call of a mother trying to enroll her child in a Spanish-language school without any luck. You can find the audio and more details about the call here.)
Now, finally, a group of Spanish intellectuals are saying enough is enough. They’ve drafted a manifesto calling for the use of Spanish as a common language for all of Spain. It asks the government to guarantee the right of all Spanish citizens to learn and use castellano in both public and private life. Among the signers of the manifesto is famous novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. You can download a copy of the four-page document here.
Spanish for all Spaniards. It seems so simple, but it isn’t.
I think the fact that there are several big languages in Spain is both a blessing and curse. A blessing because it gives a great diversity, a curse… well just read your article.
Here in the Netherlands there is one official language next to Dutch; Frisian. But because most Frisians learn Dutch as the primary language in school, there’s no problem regarding neglecting Dutch (is more like the other way around).
I think that Spanish should be used as the only language in schools in Spain, aswell as for public communication. What the people speak at home is their own business.
I love the idea of multilingualism but it shouldn’t be done half way. I’ve met several people who claim to be bilingual but speak both languages with a noticeably foreign sounding accent and are not very literate in either one. Being a highly functional bilingual, trilingual, polyglot, etc. takes effort, time and a certain lifestyle.
It seems logical to me that if the citizens of a nation can only find enough time for one language, then let it be the same language for the whole country. If they can only find time for one and one half languages (i.e. not enough to reach a high level of master in both languages), then let it be something like what Ramses said: the main language in public schools and whatever other language the family wants at home.
[...] like Catalan, Basque and Galician are resurging. Eleena, over at Voices en Español, has written an interesting article about how if the current trend continues, Spain could end up with a large number of citizens who [...]