Valencian and Catalan

The language quarrel is the most absurd issue I have ever seen! Why is it internationally accepted that Serb and Croat are different languages while Valencian and Catalan cannot be accepted as separate languages? The same holds true for Czech and Slovak. They are SEPARATE official languages and are recognized as such by the European Union. This is just another claim by the Catalan nationalists without any historical justification. It gives them the right to claim the "Catalanism" of Valencian writers just because their language is similar to the Catalan!! Can you imagine the Australian government claiming Shakespeare was Australian just because he wrote in English?? There is no person on earth that would ever support such a senseless claim but on the other hand Catalans seem to have a birthright to make unsubstantiated claims.

There is an ongoing political battle between defenders of Valencia and Catalan names for the language. This is often a cause for flame wars. It is important to maintain an strict neutrality to avoid constant changes. See entries for valencian language and Catalan language.

Languages in Spain

There are 4 majority languages in Spain. The Spanish is the official language, but it has a Catalan language spoken in Catalonia, Valencia and Majorca Islands (about 10 million people), Euskera which is spoken in Basque Country, and Galician which is spoken in Galicia.

This is a rather subjective appreciation, showing a linguistic prejudice. While it is true that Asturian and Aragonese are spoken (nowadays) by less people, and that their written tradition is not outstanding or comparable to that of the other languages (but there is a written tradition!, stating there's an absence of it has clearly been said by someone who knows little of those two languages), it is also true that those factors are not the real cause, as Aranese is indeed co-official and it has even fewer speakers than Aragonese (about 4,000).

The truth is that Asturian and Aragonese, due to its historical lack of social prestige in the last five centuries, had come to be wrongly regarded as mere Spanish dialects, and it was still so in the 70's. In fact, many Spaniards are still today unaware of them being languages apart from Spanish. That is the main reason, although things started to change some years ago and the Statutes of Asturias and Aragon kind of protect their languages and quite a few associations demand that they are co-official too in the areas where they are spoken, something that could well happen in five or ten years. If that is not so, Aragonese will probably be the first Romance language in Spain to disappear, as there are very few children who speak the language.

Photo: sxc.hu