The data from the Survey of Language Uses of the Population are worrying, but not dramatic. We already knew that the x-ray would come out with long shadows. The alarm bells have been ringing for some time. However, it is not so much that the number of speakers is decreasing – there is a drop in absolute terms, but not much –; rather that the strong population growth has not been accompanied by a full and habitual incorporation of Catalan. Demography is crucial in the collective portrait that we have now.
The challenge, then, is the one that the country has had for more than a century with respect to its own language: to add as speakers the people who come to live here. Let us remember that they come because we need them – we have a very low and endemic birth rate – and because they find opportunities here. The objective is for them to link their personal progress with the adoption of the language: for them to feel the need for it. If they want to get ahead, if they aspire to act as full citizens, they should assume that knowing and using Catalan in their daily lives will help them achieve this: they will find better jobs, they will be better received, their children will adapt better. The goal is to make Catalan a must.
How can this be achieved? It has never been easy, and it will not be easy now. But as the Minister for Language Policy of the Government, Francesc Xavier Vila, says, "there is a game to be played." It must be played. We must go out to win. To begin with, then, we must drive away fatalistic defeatism and also accept that our society will be multilingual. Today, more Catalan speakers means more bilingual people –Catalan-Spanish– and multilingual people. We live in a global world and Catalonia is an open, dynamic society. Within this new paradigm, Catalan is our treasure, our unique offering, the linguistic culture that we love and proudly offer to everyone, without complexes. It is a language with history and a future, for young and old, for having fun, thinking and dreaming. For making money and for loving. For everything.
But how? For it to gain centrality, persistent global action is necessary, with public administrations leading, providing resources and setting an example, and with civil society pushing forward. In all fields: of course in education, but also in the media and culture, in the business world, in justice, in sport, in science... First of all, it is necessary to create the conditions for learning for those who arrive: maximising the offer of courses aimed at newcomers. There should be no excuse for not taking part. Linguistic welcome should also include all Catalan speakers, with a proactive attitude towards those who are not: speaking to them in Catalan from the start, inviting them to join without prejudice, in a positive way. It is not about looking for culprits or scapegoats. It is about working to move forward, with determination. A work that also involves achieving official status in Europe and that has already achieved that it can be used in the Congress of Deputies. Everything counts. As do the recent box office achievements for Catalan-language cinema. Language as a common goal, above and below political partisanship, outside of absurd and malicious battles. This is how we will move forward.
