A dissenting view to the idea that all Spaniards should learn Catalan
By B.G.
A RECENT Johnson column on the treatment of Catalan sparked hundreds of comments. My colleague argued in favour of multilingualism in Spain on the grounds that speakers of Castilian Spanish should be “proud to learn their country’s other languages”. This post will offer a different proposition: though this form of multilingualism is clearly useful, it may be more valuable for Spaniards to concentrate on learning languages spoken outside their own country.
Given that there are roughly as many speakers of Catalan as there are of Swedish, Castilian speakers considering how best to use their language-learning time might prefer to focus on a tongue that yields broader opportunities. Spain is still re-orienting its economy towards export competitiveness and away from over-investment in housing: France and Germany are its largest export markets and English remains the default language for international business. Yet the number of Spaniards able to speak English, German or French fluently is not high. They are moderately proficient in English, according to Education First’s (EF) index, which puts them at the lower end of the spectrum compared with other Europeans.
With unemployment stuck above 20%, many Spaniards are making the effort to gain additional skills or to take advantage of the EU’s free movement of labour. Castilian speakers may well feel that learning Catalan does not provide the benefits of studying English, French or German—or indeed Portuguese, Arabic or Chinese.
Disentangling language and separatism
But if Castilian speakers are loth to learn Catalan, the national government still has to find ways to address the linguistic elements of the Catalan separatist movement. The push for Catalan independence has cultural and linguistic roots, even as its rise coincides with a particularly dreadful time for Spain’s economy.
Catalan pleas for relief from the central government’s austerity policies have tended to fall on deaf ears, sparking further resentment. Catalans often portray the government in Madrid as stealing their region’s taxes for objectionable purposes. Indeed the depiction of other regions as more corrupt, lazy or otherwise undesirable is a trademark of separatist movements. (The Northern League employs similar rhetoric when calling for the independence of northern Italy.)
If separatism can flourish on the back of an accent and a grievance, then the prospect of improving one’s economic conditions is more than enough incentive. Half of all Scots would apparently vote in their country's forthcoming independence referendum for whichever side would make them £500 a year better off. Living in one of Spain’s richest regions—which pays billions more euros in taxes than it receives from the central government—many Catalans have simply tired of subsidising the country’s poorer communities.
A sense of nationhood and shared identity is vital if richer regions are to accept this subsidising role. Germany’s wealthier states shell out billions of euros annually to support former East German states, but it has fervently opposed the prospect of fiscal transfers to Greece or Spain. Without a greater sense of belonging to—and greater recognition within—a multilingual country, many Catalans will continue to chafe under Spanish rule.
There is a middle ground that would soften these economic blows while furnishing a sense of national community. Federal Switzerland, often recognised for its multilingualism and respect for regional linguistic variation, gives considerable fiscal autonomy to its cantons. Allowing Spain’s regions to keep more of their own taxes is part of the answer, but cultural factors should not be discounted.
Treating the Catalan language with more dignity is a necessary first step towards calming resentment in Catalonia. The central government should permit the speaking of Catalan in the national parliament and support its public use. Linguistic nationalists say they want to defend and promote Catalan, not export it to other regions. But the national government has tried to marginalise the language. In contravention of a decades-long policy of Catalan immersion—whereby teaching in Catalonia was done in Catalan, and Castilian was taught as a separate language—Spain's ruling People’s Party recently passed a law requiring Castilian to be offered as a language of instruction in Catalonian schools. If parents want this for their children, and the school cannot offer it, the regional government must reimburse them for the cost of private tuition in Castilian.
The issue for many of those from Catalonia is not so much that fellow Spaniards outside their region rarely speak Catalan, but that many migrants to Catalonia from elsewhere in Spain and from other countries do not bother to learn it. The national government could work with the regional authorities to provide additional support for these people to learn or improve their Catalan. This would mean emphasising the closeness of Catalan to Castilian, without deriding the former as a dialect.
The goal of greater multilingualism in Spain clashes directly with demands from Catalonia for Catalan immersion, and there are no easy solutions. Some Catalans will advocate independence regardless, but for most a greater emphasis on federalism and a stronger acknowledgment of their linguistic identity would do a lot to assuage separatist yearnings.
