Languages of Catalonia - Political and Social Issues

Political and Social Issues

Under the Franco dictatorship Catalan was, until the 1970s, excluded from the state education system and all other official and governmental use, including the prohibition of baptizing children with certain Catalan names. Rural-urban migration originating in other parts of Spain reduced the social use of the language in urban areas. Lately, a similar sociolinguistic phenomenon has occurred with foreign immigration. In an attempt to reverse this, the re-established self-government institutions of Catalonia embarked on a long term language policy to increase the use of Catalan and has, since 1983, enforced laws which attempt to protect, and extend, the use of Catalan. Some groups consider these efforts a way to discourage the use of Spanish, while some other, including the Catalan government and the European Union consider the policies not only respectful, but also an example which "should be disseminated throughout the Union".

Today, Catalan is the language of the Catalan autonomous government and the other public institutions that fall under its jurisdiction. Businesses are required to display all information (e.g. menus, posters) in Catalan under penalty of legal fines; there is no obligation to display this information in either Aranese or Spanish, although there is no restriction on doing so in these or other languages. The use of fines was introduced in a 1997 linguistic law that aims to increase the use of Catalan. According to the law, both Catalan and Spanish – being official languages – can be used by the citizens without prejudice in all public and private activities even though the Generalitat usually uses only Catalan in its communications and notifications addressed to the general population. The citizens can also receive information from the Generalitat in Spanish if they so request. The various media belonging to Catalan government public broadcasting are monolingual in Catalan. However, except for a few hours in Catalan on La 2 and on some radio station, all the media belonging to the Spanish government are Spanish monolingual in Catalonia, as in the rest of Spain. The language policy favouring Catalan consistently implemented by the successive governments ruling the regional government of Catalonia since the 1980s has become increasingly contentious and controversial during the 2000s, especially in public education.

In this context, Catalan is the only language of instruction. Thus, pupils are immersed in Catalan except for two hours per week of Spanish medium instruction. The most recent Education Law tried to increase the time of instruction of Spanish language by one more hour, but was finally rejected. In all, there are complaints that current policies offend the right to an education in Spanish.

Some political parties and civic organizations denounce this situation in which a co-official language like Spanish is barred from public education, claiming that this is a severe breach of civic rights and against the spirit of free circulation of people within Spain. In September 2008 a demonstration was held in Barcelona to support full coexistence of both languages without linguistic discrimination of either. In June 2012 the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that schools must also use Spanish as a medium of instruction, if parents wish it, and cannot force Catalan-language education on the entire population, the majority of which is Spanish-speaking, citing the disadvantage of the inability to be educated in the national language and the necessity of maintaining the ability for citizens to move from one part of Spain to another without hindrance.