Bona sort or bona drag - the Catalan conundrum

There comes a time in the life of every foreigner who lives in Catalonia when he or she must decide whether to confront the Catalan language head on or run scared from the curiously “x” filled beast.

It’s probably fair to say that for anyone living in a big town or city you’re unlikely to ever need Catalan, in the strictest sense of the word: people may prefer you to speak it but you’ll still be able to buy your daily bread, order a drink, chat to the locals and even deal with Catalan bureaucracy without speaking a word of Catalan.

What’s more, if you speak Spanish or French you will most likely be able to get the gist of spoken and written Catalan, even if the subtleties escape you.

On the other hand – and without wanting to fan the Catalan independence debate - there should be no doubt to even the most casual visitor to Catalonia that Catalan is the number one language here.

This, I must be honest, surprised me, as there simply isn’t an equivalent in Britain. The UK might have five native languages – English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Cornish – but even the most widespread of these, Welsh, only has around 600,000 native speakers.  Catalan, by contrast, has 11.5m, far more than the population of Catalonia itself.

So while Glasgow’s main train station may well have its Scottish Gaelic name on the welcome signs (Glaschu in case you’re interested), this seems more of a heritage exercise – albeit a very noble one – than a part of every-day life.

In Catalonia, Catalan is a living, breathing language that people speak simply because, well, that’s what they speak, rather than through a desire to preserve a particular culture or through wilful obstinacy.

Nevertheless, for the average monolingual English speaker, the ease with which Catalans flick from Catalan to Spanish can be quite fascinating.

For most British people a second language is something that has to be learned in school through rote and repetition or picked up painfully using text books. Speaking a second language typically requires intense mental effort in a culture that – sadly –doesn’t see the value in multilingualism.

For most Catalans, however, speaking Spanish seems to take no effort at all. So much so, in fact, that many of them couldn’t even tell you when they learned Spanish. It was just sort of there, on the TV or in the playground and somehow seeped in.

Many is the time I’ve seen a conversation among Catalans flip from Spanish to Catalan as I leave the room, then back to Spanish as I return, with little more than the flicker of an eyelid. I’ve seen Catalans talk to other Catalans in Catalan and Catalans talk to other Catalans in Spanish in much the same circumstances and they can’t really tell you why.

Indeed, for many Catalans, the Spanish language seems to operate in a weird shadow zone somewhere in between mother tongue and foreign language but somehow not quite either.

For a Brit, struggling with a table of irregular verbs and baffling tenses, it’s a hugely impressive sight. For anyone with even a passing interest in linguistics, it goes to show what a bafflingly complex thing language is, far beyond the simple use of words and grammar to convey set meanings.

In the end, I’m sure I could go on living in Barcelona for many years without learning a word of Catalan. Catalan people are, in my experience, eminently practical and if they need to speak Spanish or English they will.

But they are also justifiably proud of their language and culture - and not without reason: in an ever-shrinking world, where one language drops out of existence every two weeks and where English is omnipotent, the Catalan language stands as a symbol for thriving linguistic and cultural diversity.

So that’s why I’ll be knuckling down for my first Catalan lesson this very Wednesday. Wish me good luck, buena suerte or even bona sort. Quite frankly I’ll need it.

Photo: Alexandra Sans Masso

Comments

[Publicado por: Flippy Attack]

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[Publicado por: Fitness Boot Camp Marketing]

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[Publicado por: Julie Pybus]

I live in a small village in Catalunya and - as I'm learning Spanish but surrounded by Catalan - I'm absorbing both Spanish and Catalan words (eg obert/abierto, dilluns/lunes, molt be/muy bien). Rather than making me into a linguistic genius it means that I'm usually pretty confused about how to put a sentence together.

Although I'm concentrating on learning Spanish at the moment, it's crucial to have at least some understanding of Catalan as most official communications are in Catalan, as well as conversations in the bar and the hairdresser.

Sadly, many foreigners who live in Catalunya not only run scared from Catalan, but Spanish too, believing that it's going to be impossible to learn Catalan (full of x's as Ben points out) and there's no point in learning Spanish as the locals don't want to speak it anyway.

I'm going to persevere with the Spanish - our neighbours, contrary to popular opinion, are only too happy to chat in whichever language we all find easiest - and perhaps one day move on to Catalan - if I'm feeling brave!

[Publicado por: cuchillero]

Sorry, I can´t find "alarmistic" in the dictionary. Is that catalán?

[Publicado por: Jan Merlin]

Un comentario para cuchillero: I think your vision of the catalan issue -if I have understood it properly- is quite alarmistic. I've lived for years and the most tricky linguistic situations are gone; as the blogger says, most of the catalan-speakers speak it normally without any major problem, or without any need to make it a symbol or anything. They just speak it. An the Catalan you think is a mixed-up or corrupt version of the "pure" or "original" is Catalan too, just the alive version of that nonexistent pure one.

[Publicado por: cuchillero]

Have you been living in Catalonia for long? It seems to me that's not the case, maybe I'm wrong though. As a catalan myself I can tell you another story. Catalan language was preserved and confined in the past to rural areas as Castilian or Spanish was prevailing by force and not persuasion for ages. Once "devolution" happened the task of reviving our language was the obssesive core motto for the catalan administration. The effort has been taken so far and so seriously hard that many second generation natives were truely pushed out of the fringes. And virtually they are accounting for more than half of the population feeling themselves sometimes treated in a quite similar way as for those catalans before democracy. Anyway, Britons and other nationals, letting apart Spaniards, fare better and are well respected. Don´t get fooled, most of these Catalan speakers do actually speak Spanish at home with their children, the higher the class the more frequent. You aren't aware yet as a foreigner but most of the times, what you take as Catalan is actually a poor mix-up shadow of what it should be, never mind the written skills which are generally appalling. Keep me a secret please; recent published but not broadly circulated official research shows that despite the huge investment and effort poured in the system for years, the prevailing language in schoolyard is Castillian. Et desitjo lo millor amb el teu projecte d'aprendre català però ja t'avanço, que no es gens facil.

[Publicado por: Ben]

Bravo. I salute your linguistic bravery.

[Publicado por: Emma]

Hola Ben,
Felicidades por el artículo.
Me encantaróa leer uno sobre tus experiencias gastrónomicas en Barcelona.
abrazo desde NY
Emma

[Publicado por: Ben Cardew]

Hello Marcial,

"Bona drag" is the title of a Morrissey album, which itself is a play on words, referencing Polari, an old gay slang language.

Also drag = bore, so it´s all an elaborate play on words.

Does that make any sense at all?

[Publicado por: Marcial Duarte]

Great post, but I still don't know what's "bona drag"...
Anyhow, as a Catalan, I think this post is an excellent summary of the linguistic issue in Catalonia. Congrats, and good luck with the lessons!