The purpose of the Catalan language

When things don’t look good for them, the PP turn to the Catalan language to cheer themselves up with. It’s the only purpose they see for it. Apart from that, they just find it a nuisance or otherwise “somefink” (1) endearingly peculiar, a lingo for singing Christmas carols.

Rather, it would appear that it is ERC’s Marta Rovira who has a language problem as her broadly accented Spanish raises its ugly head whenever she has no choice but to speak it (let’s not forget that speaking Catalan in Madrid’s parliament is strictly forbidden). It seems that it is not Valencia’s semi-literate mayoress, Rita Barberá, who has a problem, even though she can barely string a sentence in a language that, according to her party, is not even Catalan, a language that Pablo Iglesias simply cannot identify (2).

As the Catalan language grows weaker and defenseless, Spain’s Education Minister José Ignacio Wert lays his grubby paws on Catalonia’s schooling system (3). Meanwhile, the Catalan government, who is determined to declare independence in 18 months, can’t, won’t or fails to disobey him.

Is the seriousness of the situation clear enough or do we need to spell it out in Spanish, so that everybody can understand it?

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(1) N.T. This is a humorous reference to the PP leader in Catalonia, Alícia Sánchez, whose command of the Catalan language isn’t always what you might expect from an educated native speaker.

(2) N.T. Podemos’ leader, Pablo Iglesias, was recently reluctant to acknowledge in public that the language spoken in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands is one and the same: Catalan. The PP openly claim that they are different languages altogether, even though the entire academic community says otherwise.

(3) N.T. José Ignacio Wert has been trying undermine Catalan-medium teaching in schools ever since he became Spain’s Education minister.