0010 The Catalonian Biscuit - News and infomation in English about the Catalan Countries

THE CATALONIAN BISCUIT

LA GALETA DELS PAÏSOS CATALANS

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News and infomation in English about the Catalan Countries

Per a la llengua, el poble, la terra – i la independència.

In support of the language, the people, the land – and independence

This page is: http://www.estelnet.com/catalunyacymru/catala/galeta_noticies_2003_09_25.htm

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One of the supposed ‘problems’ is the influx of students from outside the Catalan Countries, who defy the university statutes and insist on being taught in Castilian. The Catalan staff are not firm enough with such arrogant demands. There is still a great inferiority complex after the thirty-six years of brutal dictatorship after 1939, and the after 1975 ‘Transition’ which has gone full circle and seen the heirs of the Francoist régime back in power in Castile, with their implacable hostility to the Catalan language (and also Basque).

Even if English is not promoted nore within the Cataln universities, the use of Catalan as the sole language of higher education need not be a disadvantage in attracting good students. If the quality of teaching is good, students will come to Catalan universities and learn Catalan, just as they learn Dutch in Holland, German in Germany, Polish in Poland, etc. But because the university system is part of the Castilian system, which is not especially known for its high standard of teaching, the wrong kinds of students are attracted.

One big problem is the number of Erasmus students who have come to learn Castilian and spend a year doing very little work – which the lax university programmes in the Castilian state allow.

The Catalonian universties lack funding. The present solution to fill the university coffers seems peculiarly short-sighted – that of attracting students from South America. Firstly, it accelerates the Castilianisation of the universities; secondly it prevents the universities from becoming more European by altering the focus of the universities. By creating academic links with South America, they are perceived as universities in a provincial backwater on the periphery of the Castilian-speaking world rather than an integrated part of a European network.

The answer of course is to raise standards by breaking out of the Castilian straitjacket, and to look towards Europe, insisting on the preeminent status of Catalan, and making English the second official language.

One consequence would be that thus would put a stop to the abuse of the university as a cheap language school for Erasmus students wanting to learn a language which is not that of the Catalan Countries, instead of going to the universities in Castile.

The letter in EL Triangle:

Professors d'universitat

Cada cop més hi ha professors universitaris que es passen al castellà per no agreujar els estudiants estrangers i, si hom vol conèixer la terminologia tècnica en català, que cerqui algun diccionari subvencionat. Mentre els estudiants nouvinguts no es disposin a aprendre el català, on haurem d'anar els catalans per rebre ensenyament superior en el nostre idioma? Gaires estudiants de fora aprendran una llengua "que no cal"?

Quan els professors eren joves es reclamava la sobirania de la llengua catalana des de les universitats fins als comerços, no la supervivència de l'idioma i encara gràcies. Però ara ho relativitzem tot per ser simpàtics amb tothom. Els més valents hem de ser els alumnes: cal fer entendre als professors que vocalitzant, parlant a poc a poc, i triant les paraules, el català es fàcil d'entendre per a qui ja entengui l’espanyol, especialment el llenguatge tècnic de base llatina. No es tracta d'eliminar el castellà de les facultats, sinó d'evitar un retrocès del català a causa d'abuses, prejudicis i mandres.

Fátima Gimeno

SABADELL

University lecturers

It’s more and more the case that there are university lecturers who switch to Castilian so as not to put foreign students at a disadvantage. If people want to know technical terminology in Catalan, they should get hold of one of the grant-aided dictionaries (i.e. to make them available at affordable prices). Seeing that the newly arrived students can’t be bothered to learn Catalan, where are we Catalans supposed to go to get further education in our own language? Will many students from outside our country learn a language which is “no use”?

When the lecturers were young there were demands for the Catalan language to hold sway from the universities to shops and businesses, and not just the survival of the language and “you should be thankful for that much”. But now we play down the importance of it all to try and be nice to everybody. It’s the students who have to be the ones to bold enough to act. We have to make the lecturers realise that by speaking clearly and slowly, and by choosing their words carefully, Catalan is easy to understand for people who already speak Spanish (= Castilian), especially technical language based on Latin. It’s not a question of eliminating Castilian from the universities, but rather one of preventing the decline in use of Catalan as a result of an abuse of one’s responsibilities, of prejudices, and sheer laziness.

Fátima Gimeno

SABADELL

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2/ Castilian bureaucrats and officials who continue the Francoist practice of writing Catalan forenames in Castilian

One problem in the Catalan Countries is that many – if not the majority - clerks in the state administrations are of Castilian origin, and are opposed to the use of Catalan, maintaining the attitudes of the Franco dictatorship when the Catalan language was banned and even forenames had to be translated into the language of Castile. Thus Josep became José; every Maria was obliged to place an accent on the letter i (María). Pau (= Paul) was not permitted; the law only allowed Pablo (a good example is the prominent Catalan violinist whose in his performances abroad was Pablo Casals, according to his passport; after the demise of the dictatorship, when the prohibition on the Catalan language was removed, streets were dedicated with his real name “Pau Casals”. In the same way, Antonio Gaudí was once more Antoni Gaudí.

Place names with the combination ny (equivalent to nh in Portuguese and Occitan) had to be written with the peculiar Castilian symbol ñ, and Catalan surnames such as Sunyer became illegal – only Suñer was permitted.

But citizens of the Catalan Countries are at the mercy of Castilian officials both in their own country and in Castile who translate Catalan names into Castilian names on all types of documents: identity papers, application forms, etc etc. Charitably it could be put down to ‘old habits die hard’ but this is scarcely credible twenty-eight years after the death of the dictator. It seems to be a deliberate policy of niggling Catalans, a practice which the Castilian authorites and their officials, and Castilian businesses and their representatives, seem to have institutionalised.

Ésser o no ésser?

Ja en començo a estar fart! Ni que fóssim als temps del Kunta (aquell esclau negre que fuetejaven perque digués que el seu nom era Tobi). I el més fort de tot es que no només organismes estatals, sinó que institucions del meu propi país, no sé si per recança, sentit d'inferioritat o simplement per força del costum, quan es tracta d'escriure el meu nom, en comptes de posar Xavier, la X es transformada en J. Doncs aquests organismes, que canvien el nom, encara que no fuetegin els cossos, si que ho fan amb l'esperit i l'anima, d'aixo en saben prou, creieu-me.

Vull deixar clar que tot aquest escrit no és més que una denúncia al Govern d'un Estat que se m'ha donat sense demanar-ho i que difícilment em pot representar per absolutista, imperialista i especialista en la solució de la garrotada amb total impunitat, i d'aixo no hi participaré mai.

La reflexió que crec convenient fer-ne, si em permeteu l'atreviment, és que "quan creus que ja s'acaba, torna a començar i torna el temps dels monstres que no són morts, i el silenci fa niu en la vida, fa niu en les coses" (Raimon).

Per procurar que mentre puguem no callem i portem la nostra lluita al màxim, sense deixar avancar el silenci que acabaria per matar-nos.

Xavier Llagostera Parra

TARRAGONA

To be or not to be?

I’m beginning to get fed up with it all. It’s not as if we are living in the time of Kunta (the black slave that was whipped to make him say that his name was Tobi). To add insult to injury it’s not just state organisations, but also institutions in my own country, I don’t know if it is out of regret (for the passing of the old régime), from a sense of inferiority (feeling that Castilian is superior) , or simply through force of habit, when it comes to writing my name, instead of writing Xavier, the X is changed into J. (Note: The Catalan name Xavier corresponds to Castilian Javier) So these entities, who change my name, although they are not whipping people’s bodies, are however doing so to their spirit and soul, and they know that very well, believe me.

I want to say that my motive in sending this letter is to denounce the government of a state of which has been allotted to me without my asking, and which is hardly able to represent me since it is it absolutist, imperialist, and a specialist in using the solution of the garrot with total impunity ([Collins’ Dictionary: garrotte, garrote, or garotte. From Spanish garrote. A Spanish method of executuin by strangulation or by breaking the neck; the device intself, usually an iron collar.] The garrote was in use by the dictatorship, and political prisoners were executed by this method until the last year of the régime), and I do not want be a part of it.

The quote I think is applicable here, if I may say so, is "when you think it’s finished, it starts all over again , and the time of the monsters, who are not dead, returns, and silence finds its way into the life (of the people), and finds its way into things" (Raimon). (A Catalan protest singer of the sixties, the end of the dictatorship)

We have to try so that while we can we don’t lapse into silence, and struggle as hard as we can, so that the silence which would end up killing us all does not come about.

Xavier Llagostera Parra

TARRAGONA

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3/ Sloppy editorial standards and the use of substandard Catalan

One factor seldom mentioned in the process of substituting a language with another is the distortion which the language at the receiving end of the operation undergoes. As enforced universal bilingualism takes a holds, the lexis is perhaps the first to see great changes; morphologically, the disfavoured language begins to model its sentence patterns on those of the enforced language; and eventually even in the phonology differences begin to be noted as autochthonous sounds begin to be modified by or replaced with those of the enforced language.

A letter writer to El Triangle wonders if he / she has missed something – has somebody sanctioned alterations in the language so that faulty forms appear even in standard texts?

Hi ha hagut canvis?

M'agradaria saber si han estat modificades les normes d'utilització de certs aspectes sintàctics i dialectològics de la llengua catalana. M'ho fa sospitar que l’editorial 62 (El balancí), que tinc per prestigiosa, resolgui d'una forma innovadora combinacions pronominals com l’hi (quan hi correspondria li ho), l’hi (per li), li (sobrer, abusiu), l’hi (per la hi), prome-te'm (per promet-me), i no esmeni "quarto" (per cambra o habitació), i tot això, i més, repetidament. Acaba fent-se'm de mal llegir L’home duplicat, de l'admirat José Saramago.

S. Ogima

BARCELONA

Have there been some changes?

I’d like to know if the rules for the use of certain syntactic and dialect characteristics of the Catalan language have been changed. I’m led to this conclusion by the publishers of “El balancí”, Editorial 62, which I’m led to believe is prestigious, by innovating certain pronominals combinations – for example l’hi (when it should eb li ho), l’hi (for li), li (when it is not needed and is superfluous), l’hi (for la hi), prome-te'm (for promet-me), not to mention "quarto" (NOTE: room; a Castilianism) (instead of “cambra” or “habitació”), and all this, what is more, over and over again. It spoilt my enjoyment when reading “L’home duplicat” (= the duplicated man), by the admirable José Saramago.

S. Ogima

BARCELONA

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Last Updated: 2003-09-25