"It was a Himalaya": the final point of a colossal work of the Catalan language

BarcelonaArmed with a tape recorder, from 1964 to 1978, summer after summer, philologists from the University of Barcelona combed through 190 towns and villages across the Catalan-speaking world, interviewing elderly people who still spoke the most authentic language of each place. From Salsas to Guardamar and from Fraga to Alghero—passing through places like Àger, Chiva de Morella, Pollensa, Mora la Nova, Arbeca, Barcelona, ​​and Begur—the goal was to discover which words were used in everyday life, what the Catalans called words related to frost or harvest. potato, lamb and washAll the dialectal richness of Catalan is frozen and preserved in one of the great works that our language already possesses, theLinguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain (ADLC), published by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), which the institution considers complete after more than 60 years of work.

The Linguistic Atlas is the scientific tool that allows us to know that kiss It is also called squid, pochón, bas, kiss, kiss, Dear, little kiss, twin, in different places within the domain. That the chimney it is pronounced chimney, chimney either chimneyOr that a simple potato is also known as potato/barge, truffle/truffle/truffle, potato either potatoAlthough not all of them appear in the standard dictionary. The project comprises 21 volumes: the nine of the Linguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain (2,191 maps, with a more descriptive and phonetic focus) and the nine of the Petit Atlas Linguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain (a selection of 1,606 maps and 65,000 words, from a version of, plus, volumes of ethnotexts, which are transcriptions of the free oral tradition of the different dialects). In short, the atlas includes philological, linguistic, etymological, historical, and semantic analysis, as well as graphic examples of the lexical variation of our language. The indexes and keywords, key to consultation in the field of Romance studies, are translated into Spanish, French, and Italian. Currently, there is a small sample of the project on display in the IEC's cloister.

2,400 questions and a 600

The result is the fruit of collective research, but also—above all—of the rigorous and enthusiastic drive of two important figures in Catalan philology, Professors Joan Veny and Lídia Pons. Linguist Antoni Badia Margarit (1920-2014) instigated the atlas in 1952 and received the annual research grants, initially linked to the University of Barcelona, ​​but in practical terms, Dr. Joan Veny soon assumed leadership. They had prepared a questionnaire with 2,400 questions; the geographical deployment was arduous (sometimes they traveled by public transport, other times in a 600-seat bus), and the selection of respondents was complicated: "It was like climbing the Himalayas, an Everest we could hardly reach. I'll always remember a phrase Dr. Badia said to me. 600 people, and when we finished the first day, we got in the car and he said to me: 'Courage, Juan, there are only 199 left.'"

The field research would last almost fifteen years, and Veny brought on board philologists such as Joaquim Rafel, Joan Martí, Montserrat Badia, and Lídia Pons, who would become co-director in 1989 when the IEC took over the project. The Institute's president at the time, Emili Giralt, explained the project's importance to the gas engineer and businessman Pere Duran i Farell, who invested 15 million pesetas. These and other investments guaranteed its stability, continuity, and methodological innovation. From 2000 until 2018, the volumes of the large and small atlases were published periodically—a monumental work that is now also available online.

Pending the completion of the indexes and ethnotexts, the IEC considers the mapping of the Linguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain finished, practically concluding a vast and invaluable project: "A constant reference work for the study of our language and useful for our culture, and it reaffirms culture within the IEC. Today is a major holiday that we should celebrate with the ringing of bells and the launching of rockets." The ADLC can be placed alongside the great works available on Catalan, such as the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic dictionary or the Etymological and supplementary dictionary of the Catalan languagewhich are veritable linguistic feasts. "We possess a linguistic treasure that for years has been preserved in its raw state. Now, its jewels, a collective heritage of great value, are circulating on the internet and are within everyone's reach. May they be a light for future research," wished Núria Jolis, coordinator of the project, who has also dedicated her entire professional life to this internationally renowned scientific work.