The Little Hospital of Llobregado

Vox has a certain obsession with Catalan place names. We read in ARA that they would be in favor of translating them all in Spanish, but some of them "the language doesn't accept or they sound very bad," such as San Cucufate for Sant Cugat or Ciudad Vieja for Ciutat Vella. The comedian Ramon noted this some time ago.

If we weren't talking about Catalan, and were talking about any language, like Spanish, we would say that place names are a matter of "tradition," period. You just have to observe the customs of this or that language to talk about this or that place name. Sometimes they are translated, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are adapted, sometimes they aren't. There is no "norm," in any language, that says all place names will be translated. Nor is there a "norm" that says otherwise. Yes, there are languages that are more prone to adaptation and languages that are more prone to acceptance. It's translated or not for a thousand reasons: commercial, colonial, physical or linguistic proximity or distance. We say Francia, not France. We say Murcia pronounced in Catalan, but we don't usually call it Jerez de la Frontera. The Castilians call it Argelia, and we call it Argelia, which is closer to the original. We called it Istanbul for a long time (Serrat, for example), and now we call it Estambul.

I understand that Vox must "force," for political reasons, what cannot be forced. I don't advise them. They would never get Sants station to become Santos station, nor L'Hospitalet to become L'Hospitalito, or Guardiola de Berga to become Hucha de No Me lo Hacen Decir.