"The irreducible Gaul of Catalan no longer exists": how municipalities are trying to promote the language

Barcelona"The irreducible Gaul of Catalan no longer exists," says the Councillor for Catalan Language of Girona City Council, Núria Riquelme, referring to a city in which it seemed that Catalan was safe. "A Girona rai!", they told us. Faced with concern about the drift of the language throughout the country, and in view of the delay in the roadmap that should be the National Pact for Language, some Catalan municipalities have decided to deploy measures to reverse the decline of Catalan. The Minister for Language Policy, in fact, encouraged them to do so a few days ago in the First municipal meeting on language. He asked them for leadership to "relaunch the language policy at the local level" in the same way as the first democratic councils, which organised courses and events to promote Catalan. That was the embryo of the Consortium for Linguistic Normalisation, "the main architect of municipal language policy for many years", warned Francisco Xavier Vila. For the councillor, the problem is that municipal policy has been reduced for years to just these basic courses, perhaps "due to the speed of the changes that have occurred", he justified.

The realisation that in the current context this is no longer enough has motivated the councils to create language councils, language offices and new policies, such as the following.

First, the officials

The first measure taken by the town councils that wanted to improve the language was to start with their employees, by giving language awareness courses to civil servants. The aim is to improve the attention given to citizens and, in particular, to those who make their first contact with newcomers – a place where it is easy to fall into prejudice and convergence with Castilian. The institutions must be exemplary, also in language. Sant Cugat reminded civil servants that Catalan should be a priority, by distributing posters in all municipal offices, counters, buildings and meeting rooms that said: "Let's speak Catalan."

Let Catalan sound in the attractions

Listening to any fair with attractions and raffles is painful: there is no trace of Catalan. Girona City Council has been working in this sector for almost twenty years, which affects young people's leisure time, and offers fairgoers free linguistic advice and translation of posters and commercials. They also offer a Catalan music channel to which all the attractions can be connected. Councillor Núria Riquelme hopes that the request to Catalanise street vendors will be extended to all the fairs in the country to gain greater support.

Include clauses for contracting

Beyond raising awareness, municipalities have regulatory leeway and fiscal policies to encourage the use of Catalan. One of the few actions in favour of the language that Barcelona has announced, after the agreement with ERC, is that it will reward the promotion of Catalan when granting aid and subsidies. This is a language clause that counts towards any service contract, aid, competition or activity license. It is, in fact, a formula that the Generalitat already uses and that some town councils are now deploying. In Sant Cugat, all sports entities that want to use municipal spaces must incorporate a protocol for the incorporation of Catalan as a requirement.

Inspect the shops

One of the obsessions of the Vic City Council is that the linguistic landscape, the signage and the service, which have always been in Catalan, do not change. The council has decided to complement the inspections of the Catalan Consumer Agency on its own, and along the way has discovered that it has the authority to do so and then initiate proceedings against Consumer in the event of non-compliance, explains councillor Elisabet Piella. Civic agents, municipal representatives and even translators (from Chinese, Punjabi, Amazigh, Arabic and Twi) have visited the shops of the capital of Osona to inform about the consumer law, the linguistic rights of citizens and to even offer materials and translation. in situ. Sixty shops were not complying with the law and, of these, only four have not acted after the municipal request. The City Council will now initiate disciplinary proceedings against those who have not corrected this. The City Council of Salt has done the same: it has reported eleven shops to Consum for failing to comply with the language policy law.

Open mailbox: ideas from below

Linguistic awareness can also be practiced outside the administration. To invite citizens to give their opinion, in Reus they have an Ideas Prize to Promote the Use of Catalan, endowed with 2,000 euros (last year the project won Cooking without borders). In Sant Cugat they have created a mailbox for Catalan, a channel for entities to raise incidents, doubts and suggestions about Catalan.

Famous people who speak Catalan

One of the Consortium's campaigns that they have extended in the regions with the help of the town councils is the campaign 21 days, which encourages the habit of maintaining Catalan and not switching languages at the first opportunity. In Terrassa they have deployed it throughout the city, but also by making videos that have gone viral of well-known people in the city, such as the actor Pere Arquillué.

'Stickers': in Catalan on mobile phones

In order to dissociate the language policy from Catalan courses, in Reus they have started a cultural programme in which the focus is on the language, with a poetry cycle. In Girona, for Sant Narcís, in recent years they have invented children's games with traditional vocabulary typical of fairs, which they distribute in schools, civic centres, libraries and restaurants. And, with the idea of spreading the language, they have even created stickers (stickers) Christmas cards with traditional Catalan images and DO Girona phrases, such as "How cold it is!"