Only 13% of Catalan speakers maintain Catalan when they are answered in Spanish.

BarcelonaHalf of the Catalan population (48.7%) says they always or often start conversations in Catalan, but the other half never or almost never do so. However, this glass half-full is emptied by another new finding: when bilingual Catalan speakers start a conversation in Catalan and respond in Spanish, 7 out of 10 switch to Spanish.

These are two of the data that the Statistical Institute of Catalonia has made public (Idescat), which has published an extension of the results of theSurvey of linguistic uses of the populationor (EULP) of 2023 which in February revealed that Catalan is the native language of less than a third of the populationThe new data relate to linguistic behavior and opinions about the language. For example, 70% of the population recognizes the unity of the Catalan language, but 10% believe that what is spoken in the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Andorra, and the Principality of Catalonia is not the same language.

Another habit confirmed by the survey is the interlocutor's adaptation to the language in which they respond. Only 13% of people who know how to speak Catalan maintain this language when they begin a conversation in Catalan and are responded to in Spanish (722,000 people, 100,000 more than five years ago), while 70% of the population switches languages. If we look at regular Catalan speakers, 25% maintain Catalan.

When a bilingual person begins speaking Spanish and is switched to Catalan, they also switch: in 74% of cases, they switch to Catalan. However, this adaptation only occurs when the speaker is bilingual, logically. There are 20% of citizens who do not speak Catalan, 50% of whom were born abroad. The average knowledge of Catalan is still below the average for Spanish.

Are you starting out speaking Catalan?

Although half the population says they usually start conversations in Catalan, there is a slight decline in these uses (between 1 and 3 points), and an increase in the number of people who never or almost never speak it. In absolute figures, there are more than 1.5 million people who always begin speaking in Catalan, 1.8 million who do so often, 1.3 million who rarely begin speaking Catalan, and 1.9 million who never do so; in fact, the survey already made it clear that 1.6 million people never use Catalan. Compared to five years ago, there are about 200,000 more people who never start conversations in Catalan and another 100,000 who almost never do so. Compared to 10 years ago, there are about 150,000 more people who usually start conversations in Catalan.

According to place of birth, 70% of those born in Catalonia usually begin conversations in Catalan, while only 15% of foreigners and 25% of those born in the rest of the country do so. By age, the group where starting conversations in Catalan is most lacking is among people between 30 and 44 years old (only 14% "always" begin in Catalan and 31% "never" do so), which the Language Policy attributes to the fact that this "is the age group that most receives immigration." Among young people aged 15 to 29, more fluent usage is detected ("often" and "rarely" (30%) than among people aged 65 and over, who prefer to "always" (35%) or "never" (33%) to begin conversations in Catalan.

More multilingual

The majority of the population wishes to speak more than one language (62.8%), and 76% of Catalans would like to speak Catalan in the future, either exclusively or with other languages. The most common combination is wanting to speak Catalan and Spanish (27%), and another 27% want to speak more Catalan or only Catalan. Among those born abroad, 67.6% would like to speak Catalan, and half of those born in the rest of Spain also say they want to speak Catalan in the future. Again, young people tend to prefer options shared between Catalan, Spanish, and other languages, while older people prefer exclusively Catalan or Spanish.