Catalan and Spanish: Unequal Co-equals These days the Catalan language serves a great many important functions

within t he autonomous community of Catalonia. It is the most overt unifying factor in th e Catalan nationalist identity, the medium through which the mass numbers of imm igrants to the region have been able to become integrated, the language in which the Generalitat functions, as well as the public default language. After a long p eriod of repression under Francos regime (not to mention the previous instances t hroughout history), Catalan has recently seen marked growth in both number of sp eakers as well as official usage thanks to Linguistic Policy Acts of 1983 and 19 98. According to the Spanish government, Catalan is official along with Castilia n within the autonomous communitys boundaries, however, many would argue that Cat alan has not yet achieved co-equal status with Spanish in Catalonia, despite cer tain politicians and intellectuals claims to the contrary. (Ferrer, 2000) Regardle ss of what the laws say, there still exists a very real imbalance between the tw o languages which continues to be problematic. To begin with the most benign but a nonetheless relevant issue people have with the present situation of minority languages in Spain, we need look no fart her than in the Constitution of 1978. It states that Spanish is the language of th e state, and that all citizens have the duty to know and the right to use it, going on to state that the other Spanish languages will also be official in their Autono mous Communities. In short, Spanish is the only official language at the state lev el. The problem here is that it no reference either to what the other languages are or to where they should be official can be found within the text of the constitut ion. (Costa, 2003) This could be overlooked by the reader as a mere oversight on the part of the legislators, but again, this is the most benign example. To put the Spanish governments support versus intolerance of minority languages like Ca talan to the test, lets look at the scales. In practice, the central government te nds to respect the measures adopted by Autonomous Communities...while it activel y promotes Spanish. To illustrate, while the Spanish government challenged befor e the Constitutional Court some laws designed to enhance the status and use of t he formerly banned other languages, more than 100 Acts have been passed in support of compulsory use of Spanish. (Costa, 2003) From this assertion, it would seem t hat the scales are tipped more toward intolerance than support of reinforcing th e use of minority languages. While this is unfavorable to Catalan language propo nents, the reason for this is obvious: it just isnt in the interest of a central government to promote several different languages within its borders simultaneou sly because that just makes things more complicated for it to manage (much more so when those languages are closely tied to central government-opposing national ist or separatist movements, as in the Basque, Galician, and Catalan Communities ). In addition to the above mentioned subtle efforts to undermine the usage o f minority languages by the Spanish government, there is the issue of the effect caused by regional migration within Spain. Immigration has played an important r ole in the history of Catalonia. Until the mid-1970s most immigrants arrived from other parts of Spain. Due to its demographic importance, this immigration shaped the...nature of Catalan nationalism. (Gore, 2002) Beginning in the 1920s and reac hing its peak during the 1960s, a massive migration of Spanish-speaking workers in to industrialized Catalonia took place. Finally, a conflict arose: Catalans under stood, spoke, and wrote Castilian while the majority of Spanish-speaking immigra nts residing in Catalonia understood but didnt speak Catalan...Phenomenal industr ial growth prompted the Franco regime to subsidize worker migration from poorer southern areas, which many Catalans perceived as subterfuge to submerge their la nguage...Militant Catalan language advocacy dismayed monolingual Spanish-speaker s, especially those who had struggled for regional autonomy. (Rees, 1996) Here, w e can see the enormous significance the Catalan language has to the regions natio nal identity. However, this is not to say that only native speakers could partak e in this national identity. Anyone could potentially become a Catalan by partici

pating in the Catalan way of life. Learning to speak Catalan played a key role i n this partaking in the Catalan way of life...The Catalan nation takes pride in its ability to integrate people from other parts of Spain. (Gore, 2002) Presently, the Spanish government will not heed the calls from Autonomous Communities who wish to have their own Language Acts passed to make it a duty f or their citizens to know the local language, as in the recent case of Galicia, whose case clearly underlines the difference between the supposedly co-equal langu ages. To be official does not mean the same thing for both Spanish and the various minority languages. Whereas to be official for Spanish means that all citizens hav e a duty to know and a right to use it, the knowledge of the other languages is, i n accordance to the different statutes, only a right. Furthermore, when the Cons titutional Court examined the Language Act passed by Parliament, it found uncons titutional any attempt to establish by law a duty to know any language other tha n Spanish. (Costa, 2003) So, while a minority language may be co-equal with Spanish within an Autonomous Community, it is unlawful to make it requisite knowledge f or the Communitys population. This train of thought might lead to policy comparis ons with other multilingual European states, so lets set Switzerland as a propermul tilingual European nation here. Spain could be considered to be closer to a monol ingual nation-state than to a proper multilingual one. Unlike the Swiss...the Sp anish model is largely asymmetrical. Citizens are not equal as far as language r ights and duties are concerned. There is a lack of reciprocity between individua ls from different parts of the state: a native Catalan has different rights in, say, Madrid than a native from Madrid in Catalonia. All Catalan speakers must le arn Spanish, but there is no such a duty for Spanish speakers as far as other Spa nish languages are concerned, not even in the six Autonomous Communities where th ose languages... are given official status. (Costa, 2003) One of the few places that the Generalitat has succeeded in making compete ncy in the Catalan language requisite is for employment in Catalan public servic e. Another is the education system, from pre-school onwards up to the university level. However small these two regions of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia may be, they stand as a protective barrier of sorts for the language, keeping a ll but fluent Catalan speakers (more likely native than not) at bay. The fact th at all Catalans are bilingual (in their own language and Spanish) from early chi ldhood provides them with an advantage here, because they have open opportunitie s within Catalonia that are closed to the rest of the countrys population, while still enjoying the freedom of being able to move to any Spanish-speaking region they choose without the same discrimination. 4 So, as every nation has its defining characteristic, for the Catalans, it is their language. Place of birth, religion, manner of dress, et cetera have lit tle bearing on Catalan identity compared with speaking the language. On one level , the much repeated concept of voluntat de ser (will to be) is inclusionary. Cat alan nationalists mobilize the idea of voluntat de ser in order to emphasize the way in which Catalonia has become a nation thanks to the daily efforts of its i nhabitants. The Catalan language, as the core symbol of the Catalan nation, is p art of a wider project whereby the Catalan nation is predominantly narrated in c ivic terms. Present-day Catalan nationalism defines a Catalan as a person who liv es and works in Catalonia, and who wants to be Catalan. (Gore, 2002) Given than th e majority of Castilian speakers in Catalonia at the time of autonomy were monol ingual or only passively bilingual, and that the present day population is somewh ere around 75% bilingual, it is evident that great strides have been made in int egrating the immigrant population, indicating that while the language might be o n the defensive, it is most certainly not fighting a losing battle. (Woolard, Ga hng, 1990) For centuries, the Catalans have resisted the attempted repression of their language time and time again, from Phillip of Anjou to Franco and the mas sive, decades-long wave of immigrants he directed to them. Although Catalans bein g co-equal with Spanish in Catalonia is only a half-truth, the language is curre ntly enjoying a level of use that is, to say the least, impressive for a minorit

y language. Based on the evidence, I dont think it would seem unreasonable to say that, as a result of their willingness to accept any immigrant as one of their own on the basis of speaking their language, the Catalans are justified in askin g the Spanish government to allow knowing the Catalan language to be a duty of t heir citizens rather than merely a right, and to at last have made good on their decision to make Catalan and Spanish co-equal in Catalonia, but thats just my op inion.