Us with us: Cadaqués groups together to preserve its salty speech

CadaquésAdmired for its unique beauty, the town of Cadaqués resists losing one of the most prized distinctive features by its residents and that makes them feel prouder: its particular salty speech, with a vocabulary and expressions so genuine that it is considered a dialectal variety with its own name: the Cadaquesenc. Although it is one of the fishing villages on the Girona coast where the salty speech has been best preserved, largely thanks to its geographical isolation, Cadaqués finds it increasingly difficult to preserve its linguistic uniqueness due to the homogenizing power of social networks, the pressure of tourism, immigration, and demographic changes. "If Catalan is in danger, imagine Cadaquesenc!", warns the philologist Pep Vila, author of the book Paraulari de Cadaqués.

Trying to save the Cadaqués dialect is a David versus Goliath struggle, but, even knowing they are on the weaker side, the town's residents are not giving up the fight. For some years now, the town has been rallying to preserve the linguistic heritage they have inherited from parents and grandparents, reinforcing the age-old spirit of "us with us," which in this town of difficult access the residents have cultivated to help each other mutually in the face of dangers and adversities.

"I also speak Cadaqués dialect"

With this spirit, the Facebook group "Jo també parli cadaquesenc" was born, with more than 1,200 users, where the meaning of words like barrofar is debated or descriptions like this one, from Marga Duran from Cadaqués, can be read: "At Daniela's house, we once killed a chicken. My grandmother also lived on Carrer Unió. We took a chicken from the yard and headed to Daniela's. Once there, in the middle of the shop, she took out a basket, one held the chicken and the other cut its neck. They saved the blood to make omelets. I was very young and I was dead". It is one of the valuable fragments of linguistic memory (and also of a way of life) on the verge of extinction that are collected on the social network of this group. 

A stroll through the town, chatting with the owners of long-standing establishments, including Casino L'Amistat, a gathering point for both locals and outsiders, confirms that the Cadaquès dialect has not been silenced, even though speakers usually switch to standard Catalan when addressing someone not from the town for fear they won't be understood. This is not the case for residents who proudly and assertively identify as Cadaquès locals, such as cultural activist Pere Vehí, owner of the legendary Bar Boia, now closed, or the skipper of the sailboat Sant Isidre, who shows Cape Creus to tourists via a coastal route. "I am a native of Cadaquès and I will speak to you in 'salat'", he warns the participants in the crossing.

A contest to pass on Cadaqués dialect to children

That this pride of "being and speaking Cadaqués" is not lost among the younger population is the objective of initiatives like Gent salada, the program of Ràdio Cap de Creus (the local radio station of Cadaqués) that for eleven years has been inviting the town's children to a competition in which the team that knows most about Cadaqués and its linguistic variant is awarded. In collaboration with the Caritat Serinyana School, the program manages to get the participation of about fifty children from fourth to sixth grade each year, to whom, since last year, those from second and third grade have been added. "It was they who asked us for it, and they have embraced it with such enthusiasm and drive that they have ended up ahead of some teams of older children," explains Lluís Gibert, who hosts the program along with Marga Duran and Lídia Kontos.

According to Gibert, among the participants there are children who already speak at home, but others who do not even know Catalan because they have just arrived from outside Catalonia, many of them from Bolivia, the origin of one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in Cadaqués. "They all take the competition very seriously. They compete as if it were the Champions League and when some lose they cry buckets", admits Gibert. For him, the task of preserving Cadaquès dialect through the program is important because it is aimed at the segment of the population that should take over from parents and grandparents and prevent the Cadaqués dialect from having its days numbered. "We are winning a battle, but I fear we have lost the war. If Catalan is in danger, the Cadaqués dialect has even fewer chances of survival", he admits.

From the school, the teacher Ester Faixó, 50 years old, is not much more optimistic, but she does not give up and actively works to make present as much as she can, in the classroom and in the playground, what she calls "our language". Out of 16 students she has in class, only six speak Cadaquès dialect at school, because it is the dialectal variant they use at home with their families. "In class I speak to the students in Cadaquès dialect because it is my way of speaking and it comes out like that", she assures. While ensuring that the Cadaquès dialect is present at school, Ester also strives to make all Catalan-speaking students aware that they should not switch to Spanish when addressing newcomer children, "as this does not help them learn the language of the host country".

The "salat" dialect is used at school for communications from teachers addressed to parents, in the end-of-year magazine, at the "Jocs Florals" or on posters to announce school activities such as the book exchange for Sant Jordi. It is a grain of sand, tiny but necessary, which is added to those contributed by initiatives such as the program Gent salada or the calls from the "Societat L'Amistat" for neighbors to propose Cadaquès words, expressions or sayings to be printed on the sugar packets served with coffee in the town's establishments.

A very different situation is the one drawn today by the philologist Pep Vila, author of the

Duran also appeals to the sense of pride of the Cadaqués residents when it comes to maintaining their way of speaking when addressing people from outside the town. "We must be aware that they will understand us equally if we don't switch to standard Catalan," says the councilor, who announces for the autumn the creation of a Council of Elders for the preservation of the town's historical memory, including its linguistic heritage.

The opinion of philologists

Studied and collected by the philologist Ernesta Sala in various volumes, including the one titled El parlar cadaquesenc, the Cadaqués way of speaking does not have a grammatical norm and the same word can have various spoken or written variants depending on who uses it.

In her book, Ernesta Sala documented thousands of words and expressions from Cadaqués extracted from oral expression. When the book was published, in 1983, Sala assured that she was convinced that the way of speaking in Cadaqués "is not about to disappear, but rather continues to be very much alive". "What happens is that when speakers address a foreigner they no longer use it or, rather, they assimilate it to the Empordà dialect, due, as is known, to the often absurd reaction, most of the time mocking, of so many foreigners who are surprised to hear a way of speaking different from their own," wrote Sala.

A very different situation is what philologist Pep Vila, author of the Paraulari de Cadaqués, paints today, in which he collects about 2,000 words gathered from written expression. For Pep Vila, who is already working on a second volume to complement the first, the proper speech of this town is mortally wounded by the homogenizing force of technology, television and other media, by immigration, and by the lack of regulations for the protection of Catalan and its dialectal variants. According to Vila, the Cadaqués dialect also suffers from the loss of vocabulary associated with fishing and agriculture, in clear regression in the face of the commitment to tourism. Vila praises the initiatives that have arisen in the town to preserve its speech, but assures that they are entirely insufficient in a context where even Catalan is in danger. "The residents of Cadaqués want to live in Cadaqués dialect, and I want to live in Girona in Catalan, but unfortunately I can't," he laments.