Today is the first day of the teachers' strikes with which the school year will end badly. There are conversations between the Government and the teachers' unions, but publicly we are still in the phase of a tug-of-war between the two positions and, therefore, the end of the conflict is not in sight. The counselor went to TV3 this morning, she put on a brave face (as President Illa did in the last control session) and, apparently, we are in a “let's see who lasts longer”. And, despite everything, the Government is seeing firsthand the bitter reality of all the governments that have preceded it: Catalonia is very poorly financed and has no more room for maneuver.The future hangs from the school, which is almost like saying that everything hangs from it, including that of the Catalan language. In recent times, worried voices are heard about the ease with which Catalan-speaking children from Catalan-speaking families play, sing, and communicate in Spanish, or switch languages very easily, and there are people who suggest whether it would be better to separate students by language, so that teaching in Catalan is as little interfered with as possible. On this, I recommend the article signed today by political scientist Jordi Muñoz, which, under the title “Linguistic segregation?”, provides some data: Catalan is not losing speakers, it continues to gain new ones, but it lives in contact with a language, Spanish, which is gaining even more, and all the new Catalan speakers, of which there are some, do not compensate for the growth of the Spanish-speaking population. But Muñoz also says that “reducing contact between linguistic communities would further limit the incorporation of new speakers”. And he concludes by adding a surprising piece of data: “If only a third of Catalan speakers stopped switching languages when interacting with Spanish speakers, this would have the same impact on the social use of the language as a 10 percentage point increase in the demographic weight of Catalan speakers”. So, if only one third of Catalans kept speaking Catalan, this would have the effect of 10% more Catalan speakers. It would be good for Professor Muñoz to develop the idea, but it has to do with an empirical evidence that Carme Junyent already spoke about, who in an interview with Vilaweb four years ago said the following: “The best thing Catalan has now, and which is the great hope, is that more than half of those who speak it do not have it as their first language. This is a gift that is difficult to achieve.” And she added: “Therefore, we should know how to value the fact that so many people have made the effort to learn Catalan, with all the dimension it has. But this means that we need a little patience, that we must be open to the possibility that they do not speak well while they speak. If people speak and we give them the opportunity to do so because we don't change languages, they will end up speaking well.”  We have said here many times that if Catalan is not legally essential to earn a living, it has a harder time being hegemonic. And that it is unfair to have to demand individual attitudes to make efforts that Spanish speakers do not have to make. But no one said that life was fair, much less perfect. It's no use demanding everything without doing anything. Or not doing much. And this, as Carme Junyent said: “Basically, it means always speaking in Catalan. Speaking in Catalan by default and if there are problems, we will solve them.”Good morning.

I telephone – and it’s a rarity to do so – the organizer of a literary festival where I am to "participate" with other colleagues. I had lost the tickets she sent to my mobile and wanted to ask for them again. From the other side of the telephone, and of the sea, she tells me: “Don’t worry, you’ll have them right away.”

3Cat celebrated Language Week to promote the use of Catalan, this year focusing mainly on new speakers. On television, this work of awareness and promotion of the language has been noticeable, for example, in the pieces from Telenotícies that delved into testimonies and circumstances related to the use and normalization of Catalan. The sports section has conducted interviews with relevant personalities who have learned Catalan as another tool to integrate into the dynamics of their respective clubs. Míchel at Girona, Diego Ocampo at Baxi Manresa, Moncho Fernández at Bàsquet Girona or Fermín López, Kika Nazareth and Ludovic Fàbregas at Barça. Some regular programs on the grid have tried to incorporate content related to the normalization of Catalan, and Català fàcil has premiered, a space with pedagogical intent for beginners. But it has remained a superficial program with more good intentions than television appeal.

When we think about the third most spoken language in Catalonia after Catalan and Spanish, our minds often go to English, Chinese, or Arabic. If we hear about Amazigh, on the other hand, we are likely to frown. Amazigh, originating from North Africa –especially present in Morocco and Algeria–, is estimated to be one of the most spoken languages within Catalan territory, as it is calculated to be the mother tongue of the majority of the immigrant population from Morocco.

Our national blue monday is on September 12, 1714. According to chronicles, Barcelona opened its gates to the Franco-Spanish troops and the Duke of Berwick was surprised to see that the Barcelonians were working in the shops and workshops as if it were any other day: a moving example of tenacity. For me, the saddest day of the year is usually the day after Sant Jordi, when the aroma of roses and the bustle of writers and readers fade away, when the banners are folded and put away, and language and culture retreat again after a brilliant day of prominence. On April 24th, we realize that Sant Jordi is a mirage while the dragon continues to wag its tail. This year, despite everything, I have the feeling that something is stirring. Perhaps because of the success of Correllengua, perhaps because Òscar Andreu has conquered the podium with his Manual for the Defense of Catalan, or perhaps because believing is wanting to believe, but I detect a progressive linguistic awareness around me. It is a feeling that exudes anxiety, but also conviction. The emergency situation that Catalan is experiencing has contributed to visualizing the risks of an economic, political, and cultural model that, gradually but constantly, uproots us, dilutes us, and impoverishes us as a community. And it is not only Catalan speakers who notice this, but also many newcomers who, regardless of their linguistic choice, love the country and want it to continue being what it is. We must be smart enough to discern, among the enemies, these possible allies. And be inflexible with the rest. Òscar Andreu says: “Social bilingualism is a trap by those who demand that you be bilingual so that they can continue to be monolingual.”Language must be the battle of our lives. My parents' generation had the challenge of recovering democracy and autonomy, and they succeeded. My generation doubled down with the independence process, and did not have the same success. And the fight for language will be the great challenge for new batches of citizens. A titanic challenge steeped in history, because Catalan has been spoken in this country for a millennium, and it has been language that has forged us as a territory and as a country. The conservation –and expansion– of Catalan is a challenge as difficult as, or more difficult than, the preceding political struggles, because it implies a personal, daily, tenacious commitment. Not only from those who maintain Catalan, but from those who, sooner or later, will have to join it. Everything depends on the firmness of some, the empathy of others, and on policies as demanding with the native language as they are in all the countries of our environment.

An Arab-origin boy approaches a protester and, worried, asks him: "Are you against Saint George?". The protester does not hesitate for a second and responds with a resounding no. The boy, relieved, approves of the answer. This scene took place just as the demonstration in defense of Catalan, organized by Sant Jordi per la Llengua, was leaving Plaça de la Universitat in Barcelona. A protest that shouted that "without language there is no country", but which defended with tooth and nail, even with insults, a Saint George as a Catalan tradition in the face of voices that wanted to turn it into Book Day. "These imbeciles who want to take away even the saint's day of Saint George can go to hell", shouted Lluís Llach, president of the ANC, during the closing of the protest.

The ad appears from time to time for those who don't have Spotify Premium and the editorial's kind press officer makes me aware of it. These days on a book tour, we've heard it in various cars, many times. It's a paradoxical ad. It tells you that if you had Spotify Premium you wouldn't hear this ad.

Today we will have meatballs with potatoes, which with the basics I have in the freezer are quick to make and ideal for days, like today, when we have a lot to do before lunch.Will the girls give you a hand?

We always make literature: when we order a coffee, we recount our ailments to a doctor, we write an email, we insult (by the way: the low quality of insults nowadays is striking), we make the shopping list, we offer condolences, we declare our eternal or circumstantial love, we scold our child or argue with our partner.Those who wrote electoral messages on the walls in Pompeii ("Vote X") were making literature; those who hastily and eagerly wrote crude poems ("We have peed in bed; truly / we are a disaster. / Do you want the reasons, innkeeper? There was no / chamber pot!"); the romantics ("How I would like to hold your dear arms around my neck and kiss your lips") and the pragmatic merchants of their own bodies ("Hope, yes to everything, nine aces"). Those who confessed their existential concerns ("Once dead, we are nothing") and the composers of meta-graffiti ("It surprises me, oh wall, that you have not yet collapsed under the weight of the foolishness of so many writers").We find literature on the walls of Bilbao ("Violent gays seek revenge. Gay Intifada") or Cordoba ("Hating is for weaklings") or on the Roman wall of Lugo ("Romani ite domum", that is to say, "Romans go home").These graffiti or, if you prefer, these murals are a literary exercise (although not very civic), because they aim to shape an idea to give it the form of an aphorism.It seems that the first graphic representation of Jesus Christ was a graffiti from 200 AD found in the Pedagogium of the Palatine Hill in Rome. With the intention of ridiculing Christianity, it shows Jesus with a huge donkey's head and nailed to the cross. One inscription says: “Alexamenos worships God”. Not far away, in the same building, another inscription says: "Alexamenos is faithful". Perhaps this person is literarily claiming their faith in front of those who have mocked them?When we meet a friend and they ask us how we are doing, we immediately set about artistically modeling our memory to give it the shape of a narrative. In speaking – forgive the expression – we literary. Don't we perhaps spend the day explaining (supposedly) interesting things about ourselves? And isn't a biography the result of our insistence on imposing narratives on the chaos of our existence?Then, and here is where I wanted to get, the understanding we have of ourselves cannot be more accurate than the rigor of the words we use to understand ourselves. Beyond words, there is only darkness and, perhaps, sentimental jam. In the case – highly improbable – that there were a genuine self, a true self, without words it would be mute.

Kris Charlier, 76, born in Belgium and living in Catalonia since 2015, has taken two Civil Guard officers to court, accusing them of harassing him at El Prat airport, allegedly for speaking to them in Catalan: "If I had spoken in Spanish, I suppose the Barcelona Provincial Court would have said everything." Charlier, represented by Plataforma per la Llengua (Platform for the Language), is seeking a six-year and two-month prison sentence for hate crimes, coercion, and falsification of official documents. He has also asked the court to disqualify the two officers from public office for almost seven years, fine them €4,800, and award him €3,122 in damages. The prosecution, however, sees no crime in the officers' actions, who are represented by the State Attorney's Office. Charlier stated during the trial that the officers' actions made him feel "humiliated, offended, and wounded" in his dignity as a citizen.

In the real Catalonia, repetitive, recidivist, bounced back… Rrrrrr. The van arrived and said we didn't exist. I reread: "Oops! Your shipment could not be delivered due to an incorrect address.". All my life living in a wrong place. A: we check. We reiterate: correct address. The same as always. Nothing to say? Neither reread the paper. Nor trace the streets. Nor look with your eyes. No scratching. Rationality 0 - Irrationality 10. If the GPS says that it is not here: it is not here: it is not here. The important thing is the trip. Rrrrrr.

I read in the ARA the news about the birth of the actors' son Úrsula Corberó and Chino DarínThese are the kinds of news we always love. The baby's father explained why the birth took place in Barcelona: "The child is born where the mother wants, and I think it's good that it's that way. That she feels comfortable, that she feels she's in her homeland, and that her mother tongue is spoken, which I think is important."

It is well known and evident that the Catalan's health is not at its best. However, among so many discouraging surveys on language useEspecially among younger generations, positive initiatives that inspire optimism and hope are also making a name for themselves. One such project is that of Irene Carreras, a 27-year-old from Girona who, through her social media accounts—where she has amassed over 75,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram—charmingly teaches simple expressions and words to capture the attention of new speakers. Carreras, who was a singer in the second-to-last generation of the family band Macedonia, often appears in her videos with her grandmother Dolors, who revives obsolete vocabulary, expressions, and idioms. And, thanks to her online presence, she has already begun offering online courses. More than 500 students at the basic and intermediate levels.

Joana Pares, of French origin, was expelled from Terrassa because she was convicted of witchAt the trial, which took place in 1602, he declared an inventory of his possessions. He was "destitute." He owned only a used box with several pieces of linen and wool cloth, a pepper-colored garment (a dark green garment), a used bodysuit, and several small pots of concoctions and sauces. In 1562, Guillem Parllebí was sentenced to the galleys (there is a rather explicit drawing) for sodomy with a cow. The accused, according to the sentence, had his underpants soaked. He defended himself by saying that he was embracing the cow to masturbate her. In 1618, there was a trial against Guillem Pujol, of French origin, Joana Casteta, a widow and exile, and Joana Teixidora. The two women were accused of conspiring and paying Pujol to kill Teixidora's husband. As in most trials, the women came out looking bad. Casteta was accused of being a widow, a woman of ill repute, and of living dishonestly. The truth is that Teixidora's husband abused her.

Menorca is the Balearic island where Catalan is most widely spoken in the streets and where the most families choose it as the primary language of instruction in schools, but it is also where it is now most threatened by the administration. The PP's strategic alliance with representatives expelled from Vox and the appointment of the former director of Sa Fundació, the organization that denies the unity of the language, as Minister of Culture have provoked a gradual struggle against standard Catalan. This is a decision that no one in Menorca had ever questioned, not even the PP.

The government filed an appeal on Friday to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn the annulment of the linguistic regime decree to protect Catalan as the language of instruction in schools and prevent the implementation of language quotas, according to information obtained by ARA. Last July, prompted by an appeal from the Assembly for a Bilingual School (AEB), the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) struck down more than a dozen articles of this regulation, including those establishing Catalan and Aranese as the languages of instruction in schools and also requiring that the language of instruction be Catalan.

At this point, the debate about language and immigration is outdated, because anyone who denies the evidence is deceiving themselves and others: That Catalonia had 4 million inhabitants in 1960 and now has 8 million is an irrefutable fact. That this doubling is due to immigration is a certainty. What is debatable is whether the predominance of Spanish is due to the linguistic zeal of the newcomers, or whether what we are experiencing is a logical consequence of the sociopolitical context.

A new edition of SAGA, an event promoted by Plataforma per la Llengua and supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya, has begun. After exceeding 8,000 attendees... last yearThe event returns to La Farga in L'Hospitalet, but expands its reach to occupy the entire 8,000 square meters of the exhibition space, aiming to offer a wider variety of activities and accommodate a larger audience. During the three days of SAGA, there will be nearly seventy exhibitors, including studios, training centers, associations, and clubs. New activities have been added, and some exhibitors have increased their space compared to previous editions. SAGA 2025 returned today, Friday, with tickets sold out. It is geared towards a more professional audience and, above all, students, as the event also expands its educational offerings and features informative talks about video games. Over the weekend, the fair kicks off with official competitions and also opens its doors to a more family-oriented audience, with a diverse program full of recreational and educational activities. In short, the event aims to establish itself "as a benchmark for Catalan-speaking communities connected to video games," according to the organizers.

We have an important figure regarding financing, which hasn't been published anywhere, that we'll discuss shortly. But first, President Pujol continues to recover well from the pneumonia for which he was hospitalized and could be discharged relatively soon. This would allow him to appear remotely before the judge of the National Court next Monday, with Pujol in Barcelona and the judge in Madrid. This appearance is clearly designed to target Pujol, because it will allow the judge to decide whether the former president is fit to testify at his trial or not, when it turns out that forensic doctors have prepared a report for the judge confirming what we already told you yesterday in our analysis: that Pujol is not fit to testify or defend himself. And so, the question is: if the doctors appointed by the court to evaluate Pujol's condition... You've already been told that he's not in a condition to testify.Why are you summoning him to appear? Should a judge medically evaluate a person? It's just wishful thinking.

What do we do? That's the question on the minds of parents who still have brain cells when they feel their child doesn't speak Catalan, even when their child from other families who also speak Catalan speak it. children They repeat like a machine gun (we're at war and they've been given weapons): "Catalan isn't fashionable." Catalan must be the only language on this planet and in the galaxy that isn't fashionable. Is Icelandic in vogue? Malay? Portuguese? Huh?