Language, Democracy and Devolution in Catalonia (review)

Also published separately as a number of Current issues in language and society, this short volume presents the results of a seminar on Catalan language revival, its successes and difficulties in a young liberal democracy. The volume is centered on the lead paper by Miquel Strubell, director of the Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana and a key player in the whole process of linguistic re-Catalanization of Catalonia. The remaining eight papers—for the most part quite brief—are mostly by British contributors. Sue Wright’s paper provides useful background information while the remainder focus on issues raised by Strubell’s contribution.

The overall sense is that Catalan language revival was at least till the end of the 1980s a great success in expanding the use of Catalan across a whole range of domains. A critical factor in all of this was the Catalan government’s very effective use of public relations to retain non-Catalan speakers’ support. Since that time, some of the wind in the sails of the Catalan revival seems to have been lost although progress continues. Problems and issues remain, such as the attitude of some in far-off Madrid, in the face of what they perceive to be preferential treatment of Catalan and its speakers to the detriment of Spanish (properly Castilian), the national language and to monolingual Spanish speakers. Strubell points out that there is no evidence of Spanish monolinguals losing out in Catalonia. Indeed every effort has been made to include Spanish speakers in the process of Catalanization. His viewpoint is buttressed by the view of the Spanish high court that Catalonia’s approach is in fact reasonable. Other problems arise at the periphery—particularly in Valencia, a separate region, traditionally Catalan-speaking but politically much more fractured—thanks to greater Castilianization, party politics, and the anti-Catalan stance of Valencian nationalists keen on their own language, Valencian.

While general theoretical questions are not ignored, focus is for most part on facts on the ground in Catalonia (and other small nations). Dieter Haselbach points to inconsistencies in Strubell’s views on what it takes to be Catalan, while David Atkinson is perhaps the most sympathetic to Strubell. Catalan in Catalonia remains an unusual case as far as small languages go: The language of the powerful local elite is under immense pressure at both ends through centuries of top-level Castilianization and the massive influx of working class Castilian monolinguals. Despite the evident success of language revival, Strubell concludes by pointing out that Catalan’s future is not secure: Demography may well be its greatest threat—the birth rate of local Catalan speakers is now well below replacement, and population inflow is increasingly from Arabic-speaking North Africa.

This very useful volume suffers only from the inadequate presentation of the important 1998 Language Policy Act (which Strubell himself barely refers to). Its utility would have been further enhanced by the inclusion of a comprehensive bibliography on Catalan language planning and politics and some more detail of how the large influx of Arabic speakers has responded to Catalanization.