Catalan is already the habitual language of less than a third of the population
Catalan speakers are increasing, because there are more people who know and speak it, but the effect is diluted by the wave of newcomers
BarcelonaOnly a third of Catalans have Catalan as their habitual language. This is one of the new developments that emerge from the Survey of Language Uses of the Population (EULP) that the Government publishes every five years. If in 2018 36.1% of the population had Catalan as their habitual language, now it is 32.6%, four points lower and fourteen points lower than twenty years ago. The Spanish language also fell by two points (46.5%), but bilingualism grew (from 7.4% to 9.4%) and so did the use of other languages (from 3% to 5.6%). However, there are more Catalan speakers (117,000 more, who use it with other languages) and more people who know it (267,600 more). The explanation for the percentage drop is the high volume of migration, which dilutes the effect of those who join the language: the growth of speakers is lower than the population growth.
The Minister for Language Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, and the Director of the Statistical Institute of Catalonia, Xavier Cuadras, presented the EULP more than half a year late, because the bulk of the data was collected from September 2023 to April 2024. 9,000 people were surveyed, and they surveyed 9,000 people.
These are the keys to understanding the situation of the language:
The impact of demographics
According to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), of the 8 million inhabitants reached by Catalonia, More than 2 million are foreign-born. The growth of the foreign-born population is concentrated in the 25-45 age group and reaches up to 40% of the population, which makes linguistic integration more complex and slower among working adults. Catalan is falling in all age groups, but especially between 30 and 44 years, where only one in four people speak it. The group that has fallen the most is that of young people (15-29 years), which loses six points, to 29%.
In the last twenty years, the foreign-born population has increased by 184.4% (1,150,000 inhabitants, almost tripling). This is added to a low birth rate: as in the European Union, the natural growth rate has been negative since 2018, with a rate of 1.11 children per woman. All this means that the population born in Catalonia has lost weight, although it has grown by 12.4%. In 2023, the population born in Catalonia represented 63%; those born abroad, 22.5%, and those born in the rest of the State, 14.6%. On the other hand, since 2002 the arrival of foreign population has not stopped and the rotation has been constant, so there is a great mobility of population.
Increasingly multilingual uses
If we look at absolute figures, 32.6% of habitual speakers represent 2.2 million people (94,000 fewer than five years ago and 374,000 fewer than twenty years ago). That is 2.9 million if we add those who also use other languages. In Spanish, there are 3.15 million people who primarily speak this language (46.5%), of whom 2.2 million say they also use Catalan as a second language.
There are only about 336,000 people who always speak Catalan and, on the other hand, there are 1.6 million people who never use Catalan. "You cannot go from not speaking to being an absolute speaker if we do not go through the secondary speakers," says Vila, to emphasize that it is positive that there are bilingual uses, because it is the path to transform speakers towards Catalan. A key fact is that the number of people who identify with Catalan and Castilian has risen to 14.6%, eight points more than five years ago.
Catalan, less spoken at home
Demographic dynamics affect the rest of the linguistic markers. Almost half of the population has a parent born outside Catalonia and two out of three people were born outside or have parents from outside. Those who have Catalan as their first language, the language of the home, have gone from 31% to 29% (a sustained fall of 7 points in twenty years), while the Spanish language has also fallen, from 52% to 49%. What has risen are the people who have Catalan and Spanish (5.6%) and those who have other mother tongues (11.7%).
What remains unbroken – and is a key element of linguistic continuity – is the transmission from parents to children. The difference between the population that speaks Catalan with the mother and the one that speaks Catalan with their child is in favour of Catalan, and grows by 7 points. "This is not a process of linguistic substitution, which would be parents passing on another language to their children. We have not broken the transmission of Catalan, we are attracted to the language," says Vila.
More knowledge of Catalan
Knowledge of Catalan among the population born in Catalonia remains very high. 93.4% of the population understands Catalan, 80.4% can speak it and 84% can read it, but only 65.5% can write it. However, the average knowledge of Catalan is still below the average for Spanish, which makes it very easy to switch to Spanish in bilingual conversations. For Francesc Xavier Vila, "it is key to look at the absolute figures, at a time of change", because in absolute terms the number of Catalan learners has increased by 267,600 people.
Linguistic integration among adults
Only 50.5% of people born abroad can speak Catalan, only 61.2% can read it and nearly 80% say they can understand it. The context means that, in terms of usage, only 4.1% of those born abroad habitually speak Catalan. Among those born in Spain, 63% can speak Catalan and 91% can understand it, but only 10% use it primarily. Among those born in Catalonia, almost all can speak, read and write it, but only 50% identify exclusively with it and habitually speak it.
In fact, identification with Catalan has been falling (14 points in twenty years to 30%), but also with Spanish (40%). On the contrary, identification with other languages and combinations is growing (28%). A key fact is that more than two million people are willing to improve their language.
Catalan in society
"The areas where there is more Catalan are those of personal relationships," says Vila. Where there is more Catalan is in relationships with classmates and sports, and less with neighbours, but in any case it is always less than 40% who speak "Catalan" or "more Catalan".
In the areas of consumption or services, Catalan is always below 50% (sometimes mixed with Spanish). As a priority language it still falls by more than 40%. In small businesses only 36.6% speak "Catalan" and "more Catalan", and in the medical field only 21.6% of people find "more Catalan". Where it is weakest is in the State administration and in the judicial bodies.
In such a complicated context, the minister Francesc Xavier Vila commented informally at the end of the press conference: "There is a game." "We must manage to extend the learning of the language, we must facilitate the use of the language, because there are environments in which it is not easy to learn. We must generate social agreements and change dynamics," said the minister Vila, who invites us to change stereotyped habits and to consider that anyone who lives here should be able to speak Catalan. "We must mentally integrate diversity within the uses of the language," Vila reaffirms. "We need a common strategy, not only for the parties, but for the whole of society," he said, although he could not set a date for presenting the long-awaited National Pact for Language. They will also present how the shock plan to improve adult learning is being implemented. As a sociolinguist, Vila affirms that language must have "instrumental value and symbolic value": language must be used to do practical things and must be used to form part of a community. And he insists on concrete measures: "More teaching, reinforcing learning at school and informal learning and making civil society aware that the reason for learning Catalan is so that you have someone who uses it when they speak to you," says Vila.