Òscar Andreu: "I believe that language is the most powerful thing we will give our children"

BarcelonaAfter walking through Catalonia, the monologue Crida als ocells de colors llampants —still on tour—, the communicator and humorist Òscar Andreu (Terrassa, 1975) turns that linguistic manifesto into Manual de defensa del català (Univers), a little book about practicing, understanding, and extending good linguistic habits. The co-director of La competència on RAC 1 and presenter of l'Està passant on TV3 explains his linguistic autobiography, a striptease that will make more than one blush.

The subtitle says you've found the formula to save the language. Spoiler?

— It's so simple it's scary: speak it. Speak it. This doesn't guarantee it will be spoken 100%, but it's a first step: not to give up the language and to keep it. It's extremely important. I used to give talks with the linguist Carme Junyent, and one day I asked her: "Imagine I have a megaphone and I want to address all Catalans to tell them what the first step is on the path to the survival of the language, what would you tell them?" I thought she would give me a very complicated speech, and she took the megaphone and said: "Speak it." Other things must also be done. We as speakers have a responsibility, but our political representatives, the administrations, etc., have a responsibility that is not small.

Junyent said that "Catalan depends on you" but it also depends on those above, if we consider the current sociolinguistic and political conditions. I'm thinking about the 25% of foreign inhabitants in Barcelona or last week's ruling by the TSJC against Catalan schools. Are these conditions that make speaking Catalan not enough?

— Sure, because you can already speak it, but if in the end you are a minority in a minoritized country, you will end up being an Indian reservation. And that's not the plan. When it comes to shooting, it would be foolish to shoot to the sides because you'll be left without a base. You have to shoot as high as possible, at economic power and its political tentacles, because they are the ones who hold the key to many things, they have a lot of work ahead of them and they must be reminded.

There may be speeches that blame immigrants for this situation, but they are also precisely the ones we want to join Catalan...

— You have to take two reins [makes the gesture of riding a horse]: with one you have to be solid, you have to speak the language, you have to not take a step back, and with the other you have to have a soft touch and you have to know which buttons to press. I don't think it would be very intelligent to shoot at someone who has no weapons. In a situation of marginalization, creativity must be sharpened.

It has sometimes been sold as the opposite, but I would say that being a solid Catalan speaker does not close the doors of Catalan, but rather opens them for everyone to participate.

— What doesn't add up is going backwards. Who would want to speak the language of those who go backwards? Nobody. You want to speak English because they are a people who have dominated the world. If you arrive in this country and the first thing you detect is that the speakers renounce their own language, you tell yourself: why should I speak a language that they themselves cannot defend? It's obvious. That's why we must show ourselves to be solid and forceful, because, besides, it's a matter of justice. On the other hand, if you learn and speak Catalan, integration is practically automatic. People who have to work outside their country do it: they learn the language of the other country, overwhelmingly, if they want to move up and have a decent life. Why shouldn't that happen here?

What is the latest gag that the fact of keeping Catalan in Barcelona has given you?

— It's just that, today, coming here, the taxi driver didn't even understand the street of the Angels... I'm going to eat at a bar where the waiter always makes the same joke: What, the menu in Spanish, right?

And does it also give you positive surprises?

— Yes. For example, talking to a guy who I think knew more or less who I was, and what I was about, and he says to me: "Forgive me for not speaking Catalan very well, I come from the north of Morocco, but my daughter speaks it perfectly." And she spoke it perfectly, but with an accent, like everyone else. And me: "Man, if we're going to be like that, my phonetics and my way of constructing sentences are terrible." And suddenly we were both struggling to see who spoke Catalan worse. And it was absurd, because they understood each other perfectly and he really wanted someone to address him in Catalan and chat for a while. Because the only way to make the language expand is to speak it.

Now that, as you say, you're "into this kind of thing", do people ask your forgiveness for not speaking well enough or for using Castilianisms?

— But it makes no sense, because I do it. I am no example of anything. I do not pretend to be a beacon of good Spanish because it would not come out of me.

Do you consider yourself an activist for the language? Or I don't know if it's simply another condition of being Catalan.

— Yes, I am. There's the part I like, which is being active, because it means you're not dead, and the part I don't, because activism means something isn't working for you to have to be an activist for your country's own language. But it comes with the pack. It shouldn't be like this, but it's what we've been dealt. Because when a language disappears, a worldview disappears, an entire country disappears, a way of thinking disappears, and it's not that it disappears, it's that they make it disappear. Languages don't die, languages are killed.

In the book you categorize speakers. Which one is the worst?

— The one who doesn't speak it. Those I call the gore-tex, because they are impermeable to Catalan; they are people who came 40 or 50 years ago and who do not participate in Catalan because they do not participate in Catalan identity, either. They are people who can say good morning, kalispera, in various languages but, for whatever reason, they don't know how to say good morning. They are absolutely impermeable. They row in favor of the minority language, which is Spanish. It's a joke, it's not a minority, just so you know.

There is a pathology that in the manual you define as "fragile supremacism".

— Castilian Spanish is a beautiful language, with 500 million speakers, it is the majority language in this country, in schools, in leisure, in the media, everywhere. They have an army that defends them, they have judges, they have kings, they have the Ibex 35, but suddenly, I don't know what happens to them, when they go somewhere in the Catalan Countries... We went to Barcelona, we entered a bakery and they spoke to us in Catalan. Suddenly, this supremacism breaks and it's an absolute drama, they make it a casus belli, they could start a war. They have signs in Catalan, 'cediu el pax'». They have a strong language, they are winning 5-0 and they start crying over this little piece of crap. It's incredible. This is what for me is fragile supremacism. If you see them on the internet, they are people absolutely broken inside. You don't know what you have, you are not enjoying it; I am enjoying it a little bit seeing how foolish you are.

On Saturday, June 29, at 7:00 PM, the conference "The city and its voices" will take place in the auditorium of the Antoni Tàpies Foundation.

By architect and urban planner Manuel Delgado, the talk will explore the diverse layers of meaning that make up urban space, from its history to the daily experiences of its inhabitants.

Topics such as collective memory, neighborhood identity, the relationship between public space and social life, and contemporary urban transformations will be discussed.

The conference is part of the "Glimpses of the city" cycle, organized by the Foundation in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council.

Participation is free, but prior registration is required through the Foundation's website.

For more information, you can consult the Antoni Tàpies Foundation website or contact them by phone.

— I also come from this language. What at one point tasted bad to me is that the language in which I spoke with my father or with my brother or with my best friend, that is to say, Spanish, was used to impose itself on my mother's language and the country's own language. And when this type of distortion occurs, I feel called to participate in this activism because, among other things, language and keeping it sharp, that is, having reflected on the tool, is having reflected on the country, on ourselves.

As a descendant of Andalusians, what percentage would you say you are of xarnego?

— ", which is another. You have to have a certain intention to want to root yourself and a way to root yourself very clearly is language, which allows you to graft yourself to the country.

It is that Pujolian precept of "a Catalan is one who lives and works in Catalonia..."

— "...And wants to be Catalan". This part of the phrase is not said very often, but, of course, there has to be an intention. You don't arrive here and say: "I live and work and that's it, I already have the nationality", which is another thing. You have to have a certain intention of wanting to put down roots and a very clear way of putting down roots is language, which allows you to graft yourself onto the country.

It's funny because you make a living by making humor, therefore, by being funny in Catalan. This contradicts one of the stereotypes that Catalan is unfriendly.

— This is a stigmatization that occurs in processes of linguistic substitution where you have to dehumanize the other. To dehumanize them you have to tell them they are peasants, as if it were something bad; or they are descendants of slave owners; or they are bourgeois; or they are rats; or they are aloof; or they are not solidaristic. And of course, this, whether you believe it or not —because they repeat it so much that you often act against all of this— is part of a stigmatization process. One should not participate. Because being Catalan does not make you particularly aloof, or funny, or one thing or the other.

It is attributing characteristics of individuals to languages, such as being fascist.

— Absolutely. The problem lies with speakers and certain groups of speakers, those who hold power and want to impose their language in a place where it is not the native tongue. The language itself is not the problem; it's like a knife: you can use it to cut meat or you can use it to stab someone.

Doing the monologue you feel a bit like a preacher, like Fray Junípero Serra through California?

— No, not an evangelist. I feel that we need to feel ourselves saying certain things, to fix certain ideas, and that is appreciated. It is a topic that to a certain extent was and is taboo because with the language goes everything, goes the nation, politics. Self-awareness is very good because you discover that you are not alone and discovering a community makes the gas of humor make you smile, or laugh, depending on the moment. And it is a safe place, which is something that often happens to me when I arrive at a place, like yesterday in a restaurant in Raval, and I discover that three tables are speaking Catalan, the waiters are speaking Catalan, the cook is shouting in Catalan and I relax. I had that feeling of security that, in situations of minoritization or in situations of pressure, I know that you women live, for example, when you don't have to be watching all the time, or racialized people when they are in an environment where they don't have to be alert. Without intending to trivialize, I felt safe: the tranquility of being able to express myself, of not having to ask for the menu in Catalan, is part of a quiet dinner. Creating these kinds of safe environments in language I think is interesting and explains many things.

Now you have to tell us which bar in the Raval it was.

— It is called Arraval, it is very new and the food is very good.

Are you worried about only talking to your own people?

— I worry about not going beyond the bubble, but I think not everyone is in the same place. There are people who have one leg here, one leg there. I've been right there. And the tools I've found are what I express in the book, often in the form of a joke, and that it would have been very good for me if someone had explained it to me like that.

Now that you have small children, has your perspective changed after having them and seeing them socialize?

— One of the fundamental reasons for writing this book is that I want to leave my children something truly relevant, dignified, and that will serve them for the future, and these are some reflections on language, on what it means to be a minority language and what to do to stop being one. I believe that language is the most powerful thing that their mother and I will give them, it is no small thing. A language is a place to return to, it is home, it is how you configure your entire brain, all your experiences, all your history, it is your roots. My son has become a preserver of the language and I am surprised, because at his age I did not have this awareness. It has taken me 40 years to reach this conclusion that my son has reached in 6 years. In this sense, I am proud, I am optimistic, and I am hopeful.