Joan Pujolar, professor of sociolinguistics at the UOC (Olot, 1964), is one of the leading specialists in the construction of identity through language. In recent years, he has focused his research on new Catalan speakers: who they are, how they change languages, why, and what recognition they receive from the community. On Saturday, October 25, he will participate in the seminar Semicircles organized by the Platform for Language with a timely presentation on Catalan, immigration and social cohesion.

Suspicions about the real will of the Popular Party to implement the literal meaning of the new education law If the result did not favor some of their positions, they are beginning to take shape. This is at least what can be deduced from the circular sent by the Ministry of Education to educational centers, in which it gives instructions on how the results of the consultation should be applied. language in the classroom which was made a few weeks ago.

Heated debates on social media, letters of complaint from former students, and some criticism. The PP and Vox have managed to get the promotion of the dual bilingual name of the city of Valencia has generated a new controversy between the different sensibilities of political Valencianism and, in passing, reinforce the theses of the popular ones who accuse the universities and the Valencian Academy of Language (AVL) of promoting a language model far removed from what citizens use.

The demand for studying in Valencian is growing "spectacularly" and far exceeds the supply of public and private schools. This is the main conclusion of the Valencian Education Workers' Union (STEPV). has compared the data of the consultation on language in the classroom of the Ministry of Education with those of the reports published by the union itself before the entry into force of the multilingual model approved in 2018 and now repealed.

A further weakening of teaching in Catalan, which will add to the decline in its social use. This is the consequence of what many citizens fear about the consultation on the vehicular language in the classrooms that begins this Tuesday in the Valencian Community and will close on March 4. The initiative has been promoted by the PP and Vox, who argue that the vote will give "freedom" to families and will ensure that the language "is no longer imposed." Arguments that have not convinced the majority of associations of parents, teachers and activists. "They disguise what is a persecution as freedom. What they intend is a linguistic genocide," warns the president of Escola Valenciana, Alexandra Usó.

The judicial sword of Damocles has become effective. Catalonia's High Court has ruled that the Catalan government has to force schools to teach 25% of classes in Spanish, which is a blow to the linguistic immersion that has been applied in Catalonia for almost forty years with a wide social acceptance. This acceptance has allowed thousands of children who did not have Catalan as their habitual language to learn it, without being detrimental to the use of Spanish. The civic and academic success of this system is beyond doubt, as corroborated by the data. Now, however, after years of insistence by a minority of families (specifically, a little more than a hundred since 2005) who have enjoyed the active support of the Spanish media and the right, and who have used the courts to achieve their goals, we are entering an uncertain stage.

The incorporation of the Socialists to the National Pact for the Language, together with the governing parties (ERC and JxCat), En Comú and the CUP, is an important step to ensure that the need to give a new impetus to Catalan is addressed with a broad consensus. The situation of the language is really delicate. The fall in its use, especially among young people in urban environments, and as a whole in key sectors such as audiovisual, education, communication and labour, has meant a major setback that should be addressed with strategic intelligence and with the involvement of the maximum number of institutional, social and economic agents. There is no magic formula, nor any simple recipe, to restore the prestige and usefulness of Catalan. What is certain is that a sum of factors, from legal and political to cultural and media, will be necessary for the reconnection of the plural Catalan society with the country's historical language to become a reality in the coming years.

Against the reality of the Catalan school, where Spanish is already de facto the most used language in secondary schools, the courts continue to dictate sentences to protect it from a supposed marginalisation, ignoring the fact of the constant regression of Catalan both in the classrooms and in the corridors and courtyards, and of course also in society as a whole: we only have to remember the situation of film and TV. During the 1980s, immersion in Catalan at school achieved timid advances in the country's historical language's social use; soon, however, it had to be content with avoiding regression. And now not even this. The data is clear, and it is worrying for Catalan in the face of the pre-eminence of Spanish, both inside and outside the education system.

The situation of Catalan in schools is alarming. According to the data made public yesterday by the Catalan government after a survey of secondary school students, the decline in the use of the language is historical, both among teachers when they address a group of students and among the students themselves when they have to do group work. In fifteen years a lot has gone backwards. The reality is that, in practice, Catalan is no longer the most widely used language in the classroom, to the benefit of Spanish, which, just as it is happening in Catalan society, is also imposing itself in schools. Until now we had believed, or had wanted to believe, that language immersion shielded the language for teaching in schools, and that in any case the problem was in the playgrounds and corridors, and of course in the street, where the use of Catalan among young people had been falling due to the demographic and sociological changes of the last two decades. We now know that this was a self-deception or that, in any case, it did not correspond to reality. And we also know that all the demagogy against immersion, equating it with ideological indoctrination, was simply this, demagogy. The language war that has been pursued by the Unionist right has not been successful, but it has been a constant distorting force that has undermined the consensus that arose after Franco's dictatorship to help normalise the use of Catalan in schools and that has managed to make headway through the courts.