A month ago I published an article where he stated that, although immigration is the most important thing happening to us as a society, the dominant discourse on this phenomenon is characterized by a naive do-gooderism that celebrates multiculturalism but turns a blind eye to the difficulties it poses. Referring to the housing crisis, he noted that we try to avoid linking it to Catalonia's growth from six to eight million inhabitants in record time. The same is true of schools or infrastructure, which is why comments about the sharp decline in academic results or water shortages rarely mention this demographic phenomenon.
On the contrary, today is a day to celebrate that the National Pact for Language, solemnly signed on the 13th, has not fallen into that error.
Let us remember that, a month earlier, the publication of the latest Survey of Language Uses, which Idescat produces every five years, had raised the alarm by detecting that "Catalan is now only the habitual language of a third of Catalans."
Thanks to this survey, we have a precise understanding of the health of the Catalan language since 2003. The previous figures we have are more imprecise, but we do know that between 1975 and 2000, the population was divided very steadily into half regular Catalan speakers and half non-Catalan speakers. This second half, in turn, was divided by age into a dwindling group of increasingly older people who barely understood it and a growing group of younger people—the children of the former—who had no problem understanding either spoken or written, even though they expressed themselves with difficulty. Since 2000, this slightly optimistic trend has been shattered, to the detriment of Catalan, so that the first 50% has progressively decreased to 33% in the last survey.
In this context, it is much to celebrate that the Pact—a 133-page document—does two things unprecedented in Catalonia in an official document. First, it establishes a causal relationship between a social problem—the marginalization of the Catalan language—and immigration; second, it links this demographic fact to the labor market. To some, this may seem like little; to me, it seems like a lot because I attach great importance to ideas and because I perceive that a calm debate on immigration in Catalonia is practically impossible.
The Pact lucidly shows that the decline in the proportion of Catalan speakers—from 50% to 33%—has only been marginally due to a drop in the number of habitual Catalan speakers. Thus, while in 2003 the number of people over 15 years of age who declared that Catalan was their first language was 2.04 million, and those who declared it their habitual language was 3.01 million, today those two figures are 2.0 million and 2.94 million, respectively. This slight decrease is due to the fact that in Catalonia—as in many countries around the world—the number of deaths exceeds the number of births. Disregarding the loss of speakers, the conclusion is that the decline in the proportion of Catalan speakers is due primarily—though not exclusively—to immigration, which has skyrocketed since 2000. In this regard, the Pact highlights that 40% of the Catalan population between the ages of 25 and 45 was born abroad. The Pact puts this figure into context, mentioning that in our region it ranges from 31% in Austria or Sweden to 15% in Finland, with 17% in France.
The second thing the Pact does is accurately link migration flows to the labor market, stating that "the socioeconomic model each society chooses is the basis of its sociolinguistic evolution." Coincidentally, this very week has been in the news The British Prime Minister has stated that for years employers had been told to hire low-paid immigrants, and that this had to stop, among other reasons, for linguistic reasons.
Catalonia is not the United Kingdom, but that doesn't mean we don't have the tools to regulate immigration. Proof of this is that in the Basque Country, only 13% of the population between 25 and 45 years old was born abroad. Following the signing of the Pact, President Illa declared that "we are committed to ensuring that Catalan continues to form part of the backbone of the Catalan nation." Being consistent with this commitment requires the Generalitat (Catalan Government) to become involved in eradicating Catalonia's addiction to cheap labor, which is undoubtedly the most important cause of the minority status of Catalan. And the Generalitat (Catalan Government), beyond the Pact, has the tools to achieve this.
