# Learning a regional language when moving there



## Orpington

A Catalan friend of mine said many Catalans find it rude that people from Castillian-speaking areas of Spain do not bother to learn Catalan if they move to Catalonia.

Also, I have family in Wales, and they express the same kind of feeling, although not as strong.

In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?

Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?


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## twen

I think much has to do with the political history of the region.  Often, today's "dominant" language resulted from political-military conquest in the past.  Maintaining the heritage language in a region is a form of resistance to such conquest and a source of identity. 

I'll be interested in reading other posts (such as from Canadians) on this topic.

twen


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## MarX

I don't really know about Catalonia, but in València, the natives don't really expect you to learn Valencian. At least that was my impression.

I learn Valencian because I like the language, even though in many parts of València you can get along just fine with only Spanish.

Records,


MarX


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## MarX

Orpington said:


> In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
> 
> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?


 
As for *Minahasa* (*Manado*) in Indonesia, I think when you move there you automatically pick up the *Manado* dialect, because it is practically the vernacular form used everywhere, even in relatively formal situations.
I don't know if the situation has changed now, but when I was there two years ago, *Bahasa Manado* was still quite strong in oral use.

You aren't necessarily rude if you don't speak *Bahasa Manado *in *Minahasa*, but you're going to be "out of place".

Perhaps with stronger migration and influence from other parts of Indonesia the situation will change. Only time will tell.

Salam,


MarX


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## mirx

I wouldn't bother to learn it. And this is not something consciously decided but rather something that just happens. 

If I went to Catalonia and people didn't reply to me in Spanish, then I of course would try to learn their language; but if on the contrary, they followed up my conversations in Spanish and didn't show any sign of annoyance I would certainly not bother learning another language, unless of course, that I had a particular like and inclination for learnig langauges.


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## LMorland

Dear Orpington,

I'm glad you posted this question, because I feel passionately about this topic. Two different friends of mine have moved from California to Barcelona in recent years, with two different reactions to the local language. 

When my friend Ilona moved there in 2003, she could speak (Central American) Spanish, but she immediately started taking classes in Catalan. Her new 'immigrant' friends -- both those from other countries as well as from other regions in Spain -- were _amazed _that she was taking the trouble to do that, since all the Catalonians are bilingual. But she was living in a house with two Catalan guys, and she realized that she would never be able to achieve a really deep friendship with her Catalan friends if they could only speak to her in Castellano. (Her daughter was enrolled in public schools and learned to speak perfect Catalan.)

Ilona had to move back to California after a couple of years, but last year a couple I know well moved to Barca from San Francisco. The husband is from South America and the wife is English-speaking. They have made _no effort _to learn Catalan, and the husband is remarkably uninterested in doing so. I am dismayed by their attitude. But so far they have no Catalan friends; with one exception, their social circle is made of of ex-pats of one sort or another. 

So there really seem to be two cultures happening in Barcelona; the locals, plus a tremendous wave of Castellano speakers who have arrived in the past 15 years. It's becoming a struggle to maintain the primacy of their language.

(As for Wales, I know an English public artist who moved to Aberystwyth 30 years ago and is one of the biggest Welsh language nationalists there is! But I imagine that he's in the minority. The problem in Wales is that a majority of Welsh don't speak Welsh as their mother tongue.) 

As twen pointed out, the source of the problem, in both countries, is political.


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## Orreaga

A couple of factors would determine my choice: how easy is it to "get by" without the language (how common is the usage of my own language in the region) and how difficult is the language to learn.  Catalans can claim that their language is very accessible to Castillian speakers, not very difficult to learn.  At the same time, Catalans are all fluent in Castillian and most will default to that language when deemed necessary or convenient.  Many possibilities for communication exist there, even bilingual conversations are common, with one person speaking only Castillian and the other Catalan, with complete mutual comprehension (both speakers are bilingual, but just speaking in their preferred language).

The Basques, on the other hand, speak a language unrelated to the Romance languages around them, it is very difficult for others to learn, being a language isolate.  Native speakers are a much smaller percentage of the population in the Basque region, compared to Catalonia, as well as people who have it as a second language.  So people who migrate to the Basque region are much less likely to "pick it up" as they might Catalan, and perhaps can expect more sympathy from native speakers than the Catalans might have for migrants to Catalonia, which, by the way, has a very extensive and well-funded language normalization policy which heavily invests in the "integració dels nouvinguts", integration of newcomers culturally and linguistically.


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## Mahaodeh

It depends on the duration of my stay and how permanent it is. If I intend to stay for a few months, I would assume the effort would be personal but if I intend to stay for 5 or 6 years then I think it would rude of me not learn at least to communicate with the people in their native language.

This has nothing to do with wether they were bilingual or not; I just base this on the reaction of Arabs when someone moves to live in their areas. If he has come on a short-term basis (such as to complete a project or visit some people...etc.) then nobody really expects him/her to learn Arabic; but if he/she has moved there to stay, or moved there for an extended period of time people get offended that he/she didn't bother to learn.

I personally know someone that has been here for 15 years and he doesn't look like he intends to leave soon, he doesn't even know how to say "excuse me" in Arabic. It doesn't matter that most Arabs are able to at least "get by" with English, it's still rude that he didn't at least try to pick up some words that are repeated so often in front of him.  I find that rather arogant of him.


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## MarX

LMorland said:


> So there really seem to be two cultures happening in Barcelona; the locals, plus a tremendous wave of Castellano speakers who have arrived in the past 15 years. It's becoming a struggle to maintain the primacy of their language.


 
A small note:
There have been waves of immigration to Catalonia since the sixties. 



Orreaga said:


> The Basques, on the other hand, speak a language unrelated to the Romance languages around them, it is very difficult for others to learn, being a language isolate. Native speakers are a much smaller percentage of the population in the Basque region, compared to Catalonia, as well as people who have it as a second language. So people who migrate to the Basque region are much less likely to "pick it up" as they might Catalan, and perhaps can expect more sympathy from native speakers than the Catalans might have for migrants to Catalonia, which, by the way, has a very extensive and well-funded language normalization policy which heavily invests in the "integració dels nouvinguts", integration of newcomers culturally and linguistically.


 
The Catalan courses might be not of much use in the end if you don't have friends who speak Catalan fluently, because the Catalan speakers, especially in Barcelona and València, tend to speak to foreign looking persons in Spanish.


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## ivanovic77

MarX said:


> A small note:
> There have been waves of immigration to Catalonia since the sixties.


 
In fact, Catalonia has been experiencing massive waves of inmigration from other parts of Spain during the whole 20th century. The biggest immigration wave was, as you mention, in the sixties, with an enormous amount of people coming mostly from Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia.



> The Catalan courses might be not of much use in the end if you don't have friends who speak Catalan fluently, because the Catalan speakers, especially in Barcelona and València, tend to speak to foreign looking persons in Spanish.


 
Yes, this is sadly true.


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## LMorland

MarX said:


> A small note:
> There have been waves of immigration to Catalonia since the sixties.


Thanks for the correction.  I need to finish reading my history of Barcelona!





> The Catalan courses might be not of much use in the end if you don't have friends who speak Catalan fluently, because the Catalan speakers, especially in Barcelona and València, tend to speak to foreign looking persons in Spanish.


And then the other side of the coin is illustrated by my friend Ilona's experience (see my post #6 above).  After a few weeks of classes, she attempted to use Catalan in simple situations, such as in small shops and cafés.  Fully half the time the person behind the counter (or serving her) was an immigré from some other part of Spain (or the world)... and didn't him- or herself speak Catalan.  The rest of the time (for the reasons you note) it didn't always register with her interlocutor that Ilona was trying to speak Catalan; their first impression would be that she was an anglophone with a bad command of Castellano! 

Still, she tried her best: for example, when she wrote notes to the teachers or parents at her child's school, she would get help translating her writing into Catalan before distributing it, rather than writing in Castellano, which they all would, of course, have understood.

On the other hand, my American stepson who moved to Munich seven years ago had the opposite experience:  His Bavarian wife told him _not to try to speak Bavarian; the locals don't like foreigners trying to speak their dialect! _


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## twen

Original questions:

_In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?_

_Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?_

I think there is a significant difference between a person relocating from one country to another versus one who is a native of a country where there are regional languages (or dialects, in some cases). The concept of "dominant" language/culture is more personally relevant in one's native country than it would be to a foreigner.

Interested in your comments.

twen


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## LMorland

twen said:


> _In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?_


Yes.  (Unless it wouldn't be appreciated by the locals; see the _caveat_ about Bavaria in my post above.)


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## Orreaga

As an American tourist in Catalonia last year, and as someone who speaks good (Latin American) Spanish and passable Catalan, I naturally wanted to try speaking Catalan as much as possible.  I received several confused reactions, but nevertheless I always approached someone in Catalan, even if they looked like a foreigner (for instance, a waiter who looked Middle-Eastern).  I wanted to practice, and I wanted to show that there is an occasional tourist who bothers to learn Catalan.  When I received a reply in Spanish, I would usually switch to Spanish.  Once, I got a bilingual reply to a question about the time, first in Spanish, then Catalan.

But the most satisfying and rewarding experiences were when I was replied to in Catalan without any question about why I spoke the language, and as if it were the normal thing for me to do.


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## chics

I've been living in Munich only few weeks, and I learned a little of Bavarian because... they taught me! They seemed very interested and glad to teach me some words and easy sentences, but it might be at least in part because a sort of feeling "ah, you're Catalan, so you do understand us". 

Answering the question: yes, if I went to live in Wales I'd like to learn their language. I think the most important reason to choose a language to learn is that it's the one spoken where you live. I can't conceive living in a country without speaking their language, I know it's possible, but I don't like it and of course I consider really rude the people who do that.

It depens on the difficulty of language and the time you spend there, of course. When I visit a country, even if it's for an only one day or some hours, I learn at least this four words in the local language: _Hello/good morning, please, thank you, good bye_ and I try to use them even if I have to say everything else in another language. If I live some months or one year in a latin language spoken country or region (Galicia, for example) I'll try t learn it. If it's a more difficult language, I'll do my best. Even learning partially a language is much better than not understanding any word...

In Barcelona it's possible to live in English. I know some people who's been living there for years without speaking a word of Spanish or Catalan. I don't like them. Although I can be polite and smily when I see them, I don't want to be their friend and I'm not interested in anything about them. In fact, almost nobody (except some other ex-pat like them, not all of them!) there likes them. 
Same in Paris.

I recommend you to use the "four basic words" (_hola/ bon dia, sisplau, gràcies, adeu_) in Catalan when being in Catalunya, Balear Islands and Comunitat Valenciana, or at least the first one: _bon dia_, the first word you'll say when talking to anyone. You'll see that people will be more pleasant.

We're used to speak Spanish to foreigners, even to try English, if necesary, to make it easy to them but also because we're fed up with tolerating people saying that we're bad-mannered people and worse things (including _you're fascists, killers_ or _assassins_) so we green and change our language for them. But you can always say "I try to learn Catalan", and as you'll imagine, we'll be so happy that we'll help you in anything you need and you'll enter quickly to our_ little Catalan comunity_, if you want, of course.

There are also other kind of courses, assotiations, _amateur_ sport teams, theatre, _festes del barri/poble_ committee, _colles castelleres_, etc. to meet local people, try things that aren't only created to foreigners. And there're also the _parelles lingüístiques_ (language "couples"), there are more that fourteen thousand of them: it's free, a person will spend some time with you speaking in Catalan each week.


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## ivanovic77

Before getting involved in learning a new language, I would take into consideration some fundamental points:

1. Percentage number of speakers of that language in the area.

2. Level of difficulty of the language to be learned.

3. Level of nationalism and self-esteem among speakers of the minority language and problems that I might face if I don't speak it.

I would weigh the pros and cons carefully since I think learning a language is a hard process that takes a lot of time and effort, and unfortunately I don't have unlimited time. There are many interesting things to do in life besides learning languages.


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## twen

Going back to Orpington's original post, this is a matter of national/regional/cultural/linguistic identity and solidarity.  When one relocates to another region within the _same country_, the question of assimilation comes into play.

So, essentially, if you relocated from an area where the dominant language of the country was the norm to a region where another language was the norm, would you learn the regional language?  (After all, isn't the reverse true when speakers of the minority language move to "the big city," regardless of the country?)

twen


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## chics

> I would take into consideration some fundamental points:
> 
> 1. Percentage number of speakers of that language in the area.
> 2. Level of difficulty of the language to be learned.
> 3. Level of nationalism and self-esteem among speakers of the minor language and problems that I might face if I don't speak it


On the contrary, I don't care the level of nationalism at all, and I can always spend two or three hours a week to learn the language of my neighbourgs -if it's difficult, it'll just take more time. 

Providing they speak it, of course. I agree with you that a minimum of speakers is necessary.


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## raptor

> In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
> 
> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?


 
Coming from Canada, I would try to learn any dominant language where I visit, or move to.  If I moved to Quebec, I would learn French for a few weeks/months beforehand to get by, and pick up the rest while there and read books/magazines etc in that language.  Of course, there being no English signs or printed materials in Quebec, I would have to pick it up fast!

On your second question, I would say that I believe it to be either rude or simply ignorant to learn the main language of the country, but not the language of the region you are visiting.  But I would never look down at someone who does not speak my native tongue perfectly.

I think that if someone has studied a certain language, for example Spanish, they should take that into account when choosing where to vacation/move/etc.  If I studied Spanish, my first choice of vacation is not going to be Berlin.  If I desperately want to go to Berlin, then I should learn some German beforehand.  Otherwise, choose a Spanish vacation spot.



> When I visit a country, even if it's for an only one day or some hours, I learn at least this four words in the local language: _Hello/good morning, please, thank you, good bye_ and I try to use them even if I have to say everything else in another language. If I live some months or one year in a latin language spoken country or region (Galicia, for example) I'll try t learn it. If it's a more difficult language, I'll do my best. Even learning partially a language is much better than not understanding any word...


 
I agree with chics: learn the basics, try your best.  People won't (or at least shouldn't) get angry at you for trying.  Trying means you are interested, and involved.  Not trying is much more of an insult than not speaking very well.

raptor


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## ivanovic77

chics said:


> On the contrary, I don't care the level of nationalism at all, and I can always spend two or three hours a week to learn the language of my neighbourgs -if it's difficult, it'll just take more time.


 
I consider it's necessary that minority-language speakers take good care of their culture and language. I probably wouldn't bother learning a language that even the native speakers don't consider to be important and even feel ashamed of it, especially if I don't have enough time to learn it and the language is very difficult. This contempt for one's own culture and language is sad, but true in many regions of the world.

On the other hand, I think we are mixing up two different things:

1. Learning a language

2. Learning a few basic words, phrases and greetings to look like the clever cosmopolitan foreigner.


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## LMorland

ivanovic77 said:


> 2. Learning a few basic words, phrases and greetings to look like the clever cosmopolitan foreigner.


Dear ivanovic77,

Do you really feel that people who take the time to learn a few basic phrases do it just so that others will see them as "clever" and "cosmopolitan"?  I've found that when I go to countries whose languages aren't often attempted by foreigners (Hungary and Portugal come to mind) that the locals receive my feeble efforts to communicate in the spirit in which they are intended -- that is, respect for the culture of the people whose city I am spending time in.

Of course, as you've pointed out, this thread is_ supposed to be_ about people _moving to a place_ and not about people who are just passing through.  However, when you are a foreigner, people can't tell whether you're visiting or not, unless by your attempts to master the local language.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

As a proud Catalan and respectful person toward other cultures, *I find it MOST RUDE when people living here decide they can get by without learning the original language of the place. It is a MOST LAZY AND DISRESPECTFUL attitude*.

On the other hand, I would not call Catalan a REGIONAL LANGUAGE. I believe languages go beyond any geographical stadium. Think, also, that it is not that much of a "small" language, as many tend to state, especially certain right wing Spaniards. There are more speakers of Catalan than of Dutch or Danish, for example; and then, Catalan is the language of a great literary tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. Ramon Llull (from Mallorca), in fact, is the first known (and well known) author to write in a vernacular tongue. Our Josep Pla, as a scholar once said, is as big as Germany's Goethe, but since he is considered the author of a so called "small" language, few know about his great works.

Love to all of you who care about languages, which is to care about people, after all  Us estimo


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## MarX

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> As a proud Catalan and respectful person toward other cultures, *I find it MOST RUDE when people living here decide they can get by without learning the original language of the place. It is a MOST LAZY AND DISRESPECTFUL attitude*.
> 
> On the other hand, I would not call Catalan a REGIONAL LANGUAGE. I believe languages go beyond any geographical stadium. Think, also, that it is not that much of a "small" language, as many tend to state, especially certain right wing Spaniards. There are more speakers of Catalan than of Dutch or Danish, for example


 
Ähm, you're right about Danish, but Dutch has over 20 Million native speakers, as far as I know. Not counting the second language speakers yet.

Back to Catalan:
As you probably know, most foreigners trying to learn Catalan have to face disappointment day by day because in most of the cases, people answer them in Spanish. Even the native Catalan speakers.
The situation outside of Barcelona and València may be different, but in those two regions one shouldn't take it amiss if foreigners got discouraged and decided to stop learning Catalan actively.

Records, 


MarX


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## MarX

A small addition:

In some regions, the locals don't really like it if you try to speak their language or dialect.
LMorland gave the example of Munich (Although I have to admit that when I went there, all of the young people spoke Hochdeutsch. Many of them without accent.)

Grüsse,


MarX


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## TraductoraPobleSec

MarX said:


> Ähm, you're right about Danish, but Dutch has over 20 Million native speakers, as far as I know. Not counting the second language speakers yet.


 
I appreciate the correction, MarX.

Best regards from Barcelona


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## sokol

Firstly, I'd like to bring light to the 'Munich situation':


LMorland said:


> On the other hand, my American stepson who moved to Munich seven years ago had the opposite experience:  His Bavarian wife told him _not to try to speak Bavarian; the locals don't like foreigners trying to speak their dialect! _


Not true entirely.


chics said:


> I've been living in Munich only few weeks, and I learned a little of Bavarian because... they taught me! They seemed very interested and glad to teach me some words and easy sentences, but it might be at least in part because a sort of feeling "ah, you're Catalan, so you do understand us".


 Not entirely correct either.


MarX said:


> In some regions, the locals don't really like it if you try to speak their language or dialect.
> LMorland gave the example of Munich (Although I have to admit that when I went there, all of the young people spoke Hochdeutsch. Many of them without accent.)


Again, as the two postings above, partly true, but nowhere near the whole truth.
Probably someone more familiar with the 'Munich situation' would like to correct what I'll have to say (and you're welcome to do that), but my remarks on that one:
- there was much migration to Munich already before WWII and especially afterwards (firstly, Germans leaving from the former German speaking areas in Poland and Czechoslovakia, secondly, migration from Northern to Southern Germany due to economic reasons): so indeed there are a great many 'Hochdeutsch'-speaker living now in Munich (who, for the most part, are not very much in favour for adopting the regional language): for these it would seem most unlogical for foreigners coming to Munich to try and learn Bavarian
- the social gap is to consider: both middle class and lower class citizens of Munich just might consider it inappropriate for foreigners to adopt the dialect even though they themselves mostly speak dialect
- and then of course you surely (still) will find citizens very proud of their Bavarian language who would be delighted if you'd try to learn Bavarian


But back to the general question: *learning a regional language when moving there* - yes or no?
This depends very much on the situation.

People from regions where one does speak dialects only within the family or with very good friends (or not at all) have a tendency to adopt this behavior if moving somewhere else - meaning, not learning regional language.
On the other hand, people who do speak their dialect most of the time, not only within the family but with strangers too, tend to be more open to learning a regional language.

And the other way round, from the view of citizens of a region where there is a minority language spoken, or a dialect in colloquial speech: in this case, I am very much in favour that migrants (be from within the country or from abroad) really should take the pains of learning the minority language or the dialect - if these are used in colloquial speech the citizens won't object against foreigners learning these, of that I'm quite sure, even if there might be some negative reactions (or switch to 'national' language) of the citizens at first.

In German speaking Switzerland, for example, learning the local dialects (Kantonsdialekt) is almost obligatory - but not so in the _Romandie _(the French part). Italian Ticino seems to be somewhere between the two, and as for Graubünden, I am not quite sure but I think most migrants there have a very hard time learning Romuntsch as this is split into several dialects. In Switzerland you find all facettes of the problem.

In Austria too, for that matter, but Austria is linguistic chaos  this would take longer to describe.


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## chics

ivanovic77 said:


> On the other hand, I think we are mixing up two different things:
> 1. Learning a language.
> 2. Learning a few basic words, phrases and greetings to look like the clever cosmopolitan foreigner.


No, what happens is just that there's a wide range of levels in "knowing" a language, between being able to say few words to speak it as a native. I won't expect the same level of knoledge if the foreigner is been here for few months than for some years, neither if his mother tongue is "easy" than if it's very different. Etc.

I don't agree with you about nationalism but I respect. I find it interesting as well that people see that we in our country -in our city, he, he- can think in different ways. To me, what motivates me the most is relationship with people and culture: cinema, literature, theatre, etc. That's "what would I miss if I can't understand/speak in that language?"


To make a more general contribution, I can say that -in general- people from bilingual areas or areas where a "regional***" language is spoken are more sensitive to other regional languages, and also to minoritaire languages in general. Usually, people whose mother tongue is minoritaire feel more alike to learn a regional language. For example, a lot of people in USA or UK don't see any effort on foreign people living there and speaking English, it's "normal", whereas all the people from India (Switzerland, etc.), for example, that I know in Catalonia and Balears are very interested in learning and speaking Catalan, even if they know that they'll live there only for one year or less.

In Spain it's very clear than most of people from bilingual regions would like to learn another regional language (even Basque, at least try to learn something) if they move to a region where it's spoken, even if we all speak Spanish - so it's not _necessary_. However, it's more difficult to find this attitude in Spanish people coming from a region where only Spanish is spoken.

** *I think you'd mean what we call "languages without a State", although, in fact, Catalan is the official language of Andorra.


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## LMorland

sokol said:


> In Austria too, for that matter, but Austria is linguistic chaos  this would take longer to describe.


Well, go ahead and try; I'm all ears!

As for your verdict of my post being "not entirely correct": I was _quoting_ my Bavarian daughter in law as saying that Bavarians don't want foreigners trying to learn their dialect, _rather than stating it as a fact._  As for class attitudes, she grew up rather well off (in Regensburg, not Munich), and  has lots of 'absolutes' about what is or is not acceptable, among them a definite prohibition on non-Bavarians trying to learn the dialect!  

I got the idea (and I could be wrong) that it's a way of showing that you belong to a exclusive 'club' -- no _auslanders_ need apply! For example, she always insists on making dinner reservations, because she believes that we'll get a better table if the management hears her voice.

But I'm also under the impression (one that I would never share with her) that the Bavarians who feel as she does suffer a lack of self-esteem, because their dialect has been made fun of by hoch Deutsch speakers.


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## MarX

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> I appreciate the correction, MarX.
> 
> Best regards from Barcelona


Amb molt de gust!


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## panjabigator

Orreaga said:


> But the most satisfying and rewarding experiences were when I was replied to in Catalan without any question about why I spoke the language, and as if it were the normal thing for me to do.


I'll admit that after the first week of life in Catalonia, which included a news interview on TV3 and an onslaught of comments on how great it is that I speak (used loosely!) Catalan, I felt pretty damn good about myself!  But I later tired of repeatedly having to explain where the hell I learned it from, and began wishing that people would just bloody QUIT asking me.  I usually am damn resolute in speaking Catalan (meaning, if I start in Catalan, I continue unless the speaker is castellanoparlante) but I began to falter, not because of wanning interest but because of time: how many times a day am I expected to explain the linguistic marvels of an Indian decent 22 year old attempting to speak Catalan?  My Spanish was repeatedly being written off as trivial, and I was really surprised!  I have to say, it's only natural that one would express interest, surprise, and even shock at hearing a "foreigner" speak your own language, so I learned to accept it and move on.  The best feeling ever, as Orreaga clearly has put, was when I was ignored, and spoken to as if I were born and raised Catalan.  When people looked over my trivial language mistakes and blunders and just spoke to me, it was so refreshing.  Eventually when they enquire on where I studied Catalan, and I happily reply with my by now robitic response...



sokol said:


> In Austria too, for that matter, but Austria is linguistic chaos  this would take longer to describe.



I too am all ears.  If this merits another thread, by all means, let's do it



chics said:


> To make a more general contribution, I can say that -in general- people from bilingual areas or areas where a "regional***" language is spoken are more sensitive to other regional languages, and also to minoritaire languages in general. Usually, people whose mother tongue is minoritaire feel more alike to learn a regional language. For example, a lot of people in USA or UK don't see any effort on foreign people living there and speaking English, it's "normal", whereas all the people from India (Switzerland, etc.), for example, that I know in Catalonia and Balears are very interested in learning and speaking Catalan, even if they know that they'll live there only for one year or less.
> 
> In Spain it's very clear than most of people from bilingual regions would like to learn another regional language (even Basque, at least try to learn something) if they move to a region where it's spoken, even if we all speak Spanish - so it's not _necessary_. However, it's more difficult to find this attitude in Spanish people coming from a region where only Spanish is spoken.
> 
> ** *I think you'd mean what we call "languages without a State", although, in fact, Catalan is the official language of Andorra.



I'm going to make some Catalan comments, but I'm worried that I'm treading in shark infested waters.  I really hope this thread doesn't get closed as countless other have.

Chics has hit the needle on the nose.  I am met with bewilderment when people find out that I'm a Catalanophile (also an Indianophile and Castellanophile ), and people like myself (at least in Vic) are few and far between.  Simply put, most people here are more interested in Spanish and were surprised at how ubiquitous Catalan is.  One of my friends drones ON AND ON about how she supposedly never hears Spanish and how she hears both languages in the classroom.  She is also distraught over the lack of Spanish signs (which isn't the end of the world in my opinion...blow your nose and get over it!) and the abundance of Catalan advertisements.  She is not alone...I know plenty of Erasmus who students who have various levels of linguistic discomfort with Catalan.  To many of them, I say "well why the hell did you choose to study here?!?!?"

Getting back to Chics' reply, the fact that I also speak a infrequently studied language has speaks volumes of my interests.  Panjabi is almost never studied, and there are plenty of Panjabis who do not see any need to speak it.  Panjab has experienced a comparable level of migration from other regions of India as has Catalonia from "Spain" and these people 99 times out of 100 do not learn Panjabi.  If you move to a specific region of India, it would be wise to learn a bit of the native tongue, which would be well received but not at all expected.


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## Sepia

First, I am not sure there are more Catalan speaking people than there are people who speak Netherlands, as mentioned further up thread. Don't forget that this language is spoken in more than one country. But there are only roughly 5.5 Mill. people speaking Danish, even including those who are not born in Denmark. So on that point it is true.

But I think anybody who spends longer periods of time in an area where a - to him - foreign language is spoken is downright stupid if he does not try to learn that language so well, that he at least understands a good deal of what is spoken or written around him. Polite is one thing. I don't think that Danes find it inpolite that all the Germans invading the North Sea coast every summer do not speak Danish, but those who go there every Summer for years and years - and also Spanish people living in Catalunya are either arrogang or stupid if they don't learn the language. 

I mean, if you don't understand what is going on around you, you'll always be the last one to get information. That can be bad in al lot of situations. And socially you are never really in the circle. Now of course, a lot of English language natives will come with their usual "... but it is so IMPOLITE to not speak English when there is someone around who does not understand what is being said ..." (I've heard this BS a lot and there was a thread on this subject too). Come on, I MAY speak to a German in English when there is a monolingual English speaker around, but I MUST not. What about the locker room in your sports club? Shall I watch the door all the time, in case somebody enters who does not understand the language I am speaking? Nobody else does. Where I am normally training in here in Hamburg it actually has occurred that I was training next to two guys speaking Catalan. In Barcelona or Palma that will happen even more frequently. Sometimes people next to you will be talking about some problem and you can help them out. Sometimes you have a question in a shop, and the shop attendant asks his colleague and you can supervise that he understands it right, and add information if necessary. Providing you (at least) understand the language. 

OK I am not so far that I can invest the time needed in learning Catalan properly, because my Castellano needs a lot of working on, but even though I only go to Mallorca some 2-5 times a year, I always turns out to be a good thing that I at least understand some Catalan. At the latest when I move there permanently I'll learn Catalan.

Everybody SHOULD do what he FEELS LIKE doing, but not learning the language used where you are generally or regularly at is downright stupid.
And sometimes a matter of arrogance.


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## sokol

LMorland said:


> Well, go ahead and try; I'm all ears!


(Firstly, I appreciate of course that your Bavarian example was only a quote - interesting elaborations of yours in this post, by the way.)

But, well, if it's of interest, a short description of the Austrian situation (the long one has about 200 pages in A4-format, so I'll try to be concise ;-):

*Eastern Austria,* especially Vienna & Graz (with suburbs & surroundings):
Foreigners coming there would probably encounter troubles if learning the local dialect - not because the Austrians wouldn't appreciate this in general, but because there is a very clear social stratification of different language varieties.
Furthermore, in this region it's rather common for parents to speak 'Hochdeutsch' with their children (while talking dialect with their friends), and so the younger generation now has adopted a mixed language with Austrian 'Hochdeutsch' phonetics, but morphological and grammatical structure to a great degree still is that of dialect. If you'd come as a foreigner to Vienna and communicate with middle and upper class mainly (or exclusively) then you might get the impression that this were the 'regional language' - it is not quite, but (for the time being) only spoken by the younger generation, and only a part of them (very common up to 20 years of age, but existent up to 30, probably 35 years, not much more).
In Eastern Austria too there are more negative attitutes toward their own dialects (whereas Western Austrian dialects often are considered 'beautiful' in the east); you'd have to consider this too, in the East, so you'd have to be 'careful' if considering learning the regional language.
However, even in the East Austrian dialects are considered as at least 'somehow' being a symbol of the Austrian nation, so there's some prestige attributed to dialects even here. Very complicated at times for me too, as I was born and raised in the northwest ...

*Western Austria:
*According to region it would be considered as appropriate or even (almost) imperative to learn the local dialect *if *you would like to integrate fully into society. And if you choose not to you would be to a degree (again, according to region) considered as a 'foreigner-not-wanting-to-integrate', whereas in the East it would most likely be considered sufficient if you'd just learn the Austrian variety of 'Hochdeutsch'.
As for the regional differences, they are really huge.
_Salzburg-City _is (even though being much smaller than Linz and lying farther in the west) somewhere in the mid between east and west - dialect there is not so strong as in Salzburg-State (the rural surroundings of the capital) or Linz.
As for _Linz_, dialect is quite strong there and though you wouldn't be bothered very much if you wouldn't learn dialect there, Linz still is one of the bigger regional cities (over 200.000 inhabitants). But if you'd like to integrate you'd be good advised to learn dialect there.
As for e. g. a small rural community in Upper Austria, where I grew up, you'd be an outsider forever if you wouldn't learn the local dialect - there are only few exceptions of that rule (we had an Arabian doctor never really quite learning dialect who really _was _integrated, surely has to do with the prestige of his profession). It would not suffice to only learn 'Hochdeutsch', not by far.
And indeed there are a few examples of foreigners integrating very well there, especially refugees from former Yougoslavia did integrate almost perfectly, that is: the younger generation, perfectly (meaning, they speak dialect perfectly _and _are integrated perfectly, both goes together), and the parents to a degree.


All in all: if you ever would like to settle in Austria and if you weren't sure if you should learn the regional language, I would recommend very strong that you should at least try, but that you should carefully observe your immediate surroundings as to what language varieties are used in everyday life. It is not really possible to state a general rule about appropriate behavior considering the topic of this thread.


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## LMorland

Sepia said:


> First, I am not sure there are more Catalan speaking people than there are people who speak Netherlands, as mentioned further up thread. Don't forget that this language is spoken in more than one country.


Just to get this point straight for the record, there is a great Wiki article on the Catalan and Valencian languages here,* and these are the statistics it gives on Catalan speakers:

Catalan-speaking territories 9,587,763   
Rest of World 350,000   *
TOTAL* *9,937,763

* As for Dutch speakers, as Sepia rightly points out, Dutch is also spoken in Belgium and in other countries as well, such as in parts of Indonesia.  The Wiki article on Dutch states that 23 million people speak it as a first language, but others have stated 21 million; at any rate, there are more than twice as many Dutch speakers than Catalan speakers. But nearly 10 million ain't bad! 

EDIT:  sokol, I just saw your thread (somehow I skipped over it), and I thank you very much for taking the time to reduce your 200 pages into three paragraphs. I find your report fascinating! I've visited Graz, Vienna, and Linz (on three separate trips), and I had_ no idea _what lay beneath the linguistic surface there!


* I don't always trust Wikipedia, but this one sources the  _Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya, among others, so I think that one can have confidence in it._


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## Orpington

How about a country like Wales, where almost everyone speaks English, but a substantial minority can speak Welsh?


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## MarX

LMorland said:


> As for Dutch speakers, as Sepia rightly points out, Dutch is also spoken in Belgium and in other countries as well, such parts of Indonesia.


 
It's true that my grandfather received his education in Dutch, and he theoretically is able to speak Dutch perfectly, but the people educated in Dutch have been a small minority, even in their generation (my grampa was born in 1919), and with other Indonesians they have always preferred speaking Malay, with Dutch words sprinkled in occasionally. Not to mention that their number is in constant decline.

I'm sorry, but I'd say that including Indonesia to the areas where people speak Dutch is a slight exaggeration.

I'd like to emphasize that I don't intend to offend anybody, lest such incidence as with Jeromed occur again.


Sokol, thank you for your explanation.
The situation in Western Austria is similar to that in *Manado*.
In fact, I believe if you live in *Minahasa* you'll automatically pick up the dialect. Unless you don't have any contact with people.


Groetjes! 


MarX


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## Sepia

Orpington said:


> How about a country like Wales, where almost everyone speaks English, but a substantial minority can speak Welsh?


 
Do you have numbers to go with "substantial minority"? 

Am I likely to stand next to two persons speaking Welsh in a pub or such? Are there enough speakers that I would even have a decent chance of learning the language if I lived there?


I don't know about Wales, but I always found the situation in Ireland very strange. Their native language is theoretically still alive but very, very few people speak it. I imagine that the situation in various parts of the UK are even more strange.


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## Brioche

I think it is asking too much of the average foreigner who comes to Germany, Austria or Switzerland to learn both Standard German _*and *_the local Mundart. Very, very few have such linguistic abilities.

It would be a proper nuisance if you worked for a firm which moved you from branch to branch!

I lived near Frankfurt am Main for a few years. I never tried to learn Hessian dialect. I found it quite enough work trying to learn Standard German. 

Naturally, I got to understand the local way of speaking, which is much closer to book German than Bairisch or Allemanisch dialects.

If I went to live in Liverpool or Newcastle (UK) I would not try to speak Scouse or Geordie. If I went to live in South Africa, I would not try to become a Jaapie.


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## LMorland

Sepia said:


> Do you have numbers to go with "substantial minority"?


Yes, I was told that 15% of Welsh persons speak Welsh as their first language, and up to 50% can carry on a decent conversation in the language.  That was back in 1991, though, and somebody should check these statistics.

EDIT:  Now I've discovered a terrific website by the *Bwrdd yr Iaith/Welsh Language Board *with a sub-page entitled "*Who are the Welsh speakers? Where do they live?"* The news is very, very good! 


> The initial 2001 Census figures released back in February 2003 _showed an increase of around 80,000 in the number of those who can speak Welsh._ The figures released in May, 2003 showed that 37.7% of children between 3 and 15 years old in Wales can speak the language – which is an increase of 13.4 percentage points since the last Census in 1991.





Sepia said:


> Am I likely to stand next to two persons speaking Welsh in a pub or such?


In Cardiff, it is not likely.  The further north you go, the more likely it is.  In Aberystwyth, it is not at all unlikely.





Sepia said:


> Are there enough speakers that I would even have a decent chance of learning the language if I lived there?


Yes, again, depending on which city you choose.





Sepia said:


> I don't know about Wales, but I always found the situation in Ireland very strange. Their native language is theoretically still alive but very, very few people speak it. I imagine that the situation in various parts of the UK are even more strange.


I'm glad somebody brought up Ireland, because that's the one minority language I've tried to learn to speak (and failed, up till now). I studied Old Irish for two years and Modern Irish for another two years before going to spend two weeks in the Kerry Gaeltacht (_gaeltacht = Irish Gaelic speaking area)_.  

The problem is that, not unlike the Catalonians in Barcelona, everyone there is bilingual.  So if you're in a store and trying to work your way around the grammar (completely unlike that of English) and pronunciation (not easy, as the consonants in words change depending on the words preceding them), it can require a lot of patience on the part of the shopkeeper.  Since both of you speak English fluently, there's not much motivation on the part of the locals to suffer through your feeble beginner's efforts.

The situation is much better in the Donegal Gaeltacht, I'm told, because an excellent summer school has taken place there for decades now, and the locals are habituated to helping out the language learners -- who come from all over Europe, by the way.

The difference between Ireland and Wales is due to politics, I think.  In Wales, it's a renegade act to speak Welsh, because the English in London are in charge; Wales doesn't even have its own parliament.  So -- along with other acts of nationalism such as covering over English-language road signs and painting letter boxes green -- learning and speaking Welsh is "cool" and a way of "sticking it to the man".

It's 180 degrees the opposite in Ireland.  There _the government forces every schoolchild to study the language.  _It's a difficult language, and often badly taught.  Further, if you fail Irish, you won't get a leaving cert.  So the students _hate it -- _until they find themselves on a train in England and want to make fun of the codger in the seat opposite.  Or until they marry and want to say things in front of the children that they won't understand.  (I've heard both examples many times.)

So, if you should move to an Irish-speaking area of Ireland, you'll always be an outsider if you don't learn Irish ... but it won't be easy in the beginning!


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## Sidjanga

LMorland said:


> ...
> As for your verdict of my post being "not entirely correct": I was _quoting_ my Bavarian daughter in law as saying that Bavarians don't want foreigners trying to learn their dialect, _rather than stating it as a fact._  As for class attitudes, she grew up rather well off (in Regensburg, not Munich), and  has lots of 'absolutes' about what is or is not acceptable, among them a definite prohibition on non-Bavarians trying to learn the dialect! ...


I myself grew up in Bavaria, and I dare say as a dialect, which has no clear "frontiers" with "Standard German", it is difficult to draw lines. Actually, I personally do not think that Bavarian as a dialect -and not a language (well, it hasn't an army, anyway - should be discussed here.

And nobody can certainly "be against" that someone who moves to a new place just picks up certain words and frases, and maybe adopts the regional accent as time goes on.
But that will happen anywhere you move, be it an Andalusian village, be it in the South of Italy, in Bavaria or in Scotland.


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## Pedro y La Torre

LMorland said:


> It's 180 degrees the opposite in Ireland.  There _the government forces every schoolchild to study the language.  _It's a difficult language, and often badly taught.  Further, if you fail Irish, you won't get a leaving cert.  So the students _hate it -- _until they find themselves on a train in England and want to make fun of the codger in the seat opposite.  Or until they marry and want to say things in front of the children that they won't understand.  (I've heard both examples many times.)



You're completely right. Irish is a language forced upon most students outside of the _Gaeltachtaí_ so the majority dislike it (however even if you fail, you still get your Leaving Cert., that rule changed a few years back). On the west coast I think the numbers are picking up again somewhat but there is almost no motivation for most people to bother learning it. Around Dublin especially, there really is no point, excluding schools you will never have a chance to speak it.


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## ivanovic77

LMorland said:


> So the students _hate it -- _until they find themselves on a train in England and want to make fun of the codger in the seat opposite.


 
This is unfortunately one of the few and worst uses that some stupid people often make of minority languages. I've also experienced this behaviour here in Spain with Catalan and Basque. People who don't give a damn for the regional language will probably start to use it as soon as they see a chance to piss off someone from other parts of Spain (particularly from Madrid). This attitude has always driven me nuts, since they seem to only perform the most destructive linguistic behaviour wherever they are: Neither speaking nor studying the minority language, thus contributing to destroy it, and only making use of it in order to make someone feel uncomfortable, contributing in turn to discredit their region and the responsible speakers who really take care of it.

Of course this is an attitude more commonly observed among the younger generation, but I've seen some people not so young behaving like that.


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## sokol

Brioche said:


> I think it is asking too much of the average foreigner who comes to Germany, Austria or Switzerland to learn both Standard German _*and *_the local Mundart. Very, very few have such linguistic abilities. (...)
> I lived near Frankfurt am Main for a few years. I never tried to learn Hessian dialect. I found it quite enough work trying to learn Standard German.


In and near Frankfurt am Main, though in this region dialects still are very much alive, probably no one would ever demand from you learning the local dialect - this even wouldn't happen in Munich though you might just be granted 'warm feelings' from some of the Bavarians, though this is a complicated matter (to say the least, as already mentioned).
If you'd go farther north in Germany, learning the dialect would be even less necessary.

However, in German speaking Switzerland learning the dialect really is as good as obligatory; there are already dialect phrasebooks, and 'Swiss German immigrants' in fact speak dialect in everyday life - they just have to (if they don't want to live as outcasts).
In Austria, the situation is much more complicated as already stated.
So it doesn't depend so much on your own intents but also on the culture of the region where you choose to live - in Austria, you really don't *have *to learn the dialect (it is not a requirement as it is in Switzerland), but if you don't you might not feel very comfortable - depending on region.
If you came to work here only for a limited time this of course would be different - but in this case, you wouldn't want to integrate into the local culture, now would you?

But as for example: there do live quite a number of Irish people here in Vienna, working as bartenders in Irish pubs (yes, really!) (well, some of them are Scottish or even English ). They tend to get through live with mostly English and some basic knowledge of German, but then Vienna is a megacity (well - kind of ;-) and dialect is no requirement in Vienna, more like optional.



Brioche said:


> If I went to live in Liverpool or Newcastle (UK) I would not try to speak Scouse or Geordie. If I went to live in South Africa, I would not try to become a Jaapie.


Would be interesting to hear from someone from that regions how the locals would react; I'd guess in Newcastle such linguistic behaviour is more likely being accepted than in Scotland, with new national or regional pride (whatever term you prefer) growing there.



LMorland said:


> EDIT:  sokol, I just saw your thread (somehow I skipped over it), and I thank you very much for taking the time to reduce your 200 pages into three paragraphs. I find your report fascinating! I've visited Graz, Vienna, and Linz (on three separate trips), and I had_ no idea _what lay beneath the linguistic surface there!


It is still a huge simplifications, there are great differences even in Eastern and Western Austria between regions where dialect is more important and others where Standard (Austrian) German is more likely being accepted if you came there as a foreigner to stay.

So, Austria really is linguistic chaos - there are lots of conflicting attitudes toward dialect and standard language, but we Austrians tend to _not discuss them openly _but rather stating our opinion on these topics with the linguistic variant we choose to use.
(Meaning, for example, if someone speaks dialect to a foreigner this indicates clearly that he expects him to at least understand dialect and probably stating that the foreigner should at least try to learn the dialect. On the other hand, if someone switches to English instead of speaking dialect or 'Hochdeutsch' to a foreigner then this could mean that this person does not like talking 'Hochdeutsch' but would not like to state that a foreigner should learn dialect - and therefore would switch to the 'neutral' English language. - This are only _some _other facettes ...)

I can understand very well that it is extremely difficult for foreigners coming to live here to get the hang of choosing the right language variety at the right time ...

And as I re-read your previous posting, some further remarks:


LMorland said:


> (...) I was _quoting_ my Bavarian daughter in law_ (...)._  As for class attitudes, she grew up rather well off (in Regensburg, not Munich), and  has lots of 'absolutes' about what is or is not acceptable, among them a definite prohibition on non-Bavarians trying to learn the dialect!
> 
> I got the idea (and I could be wrong) that it's a way of showing that you belong to a exclusive 'club' -- no _auslanders_ need apply! For example, she always insists on making dinner reservations, because she believes that we'll get a better table if the management hears her voice.
> 
> But I'm also under the impression (one that I would never share with her) that the Bavarians who feel as she does suffer a lack of self-esteem, because their dialect has been made fun of by hoch Deutsch speakers.


Yes, it is not unusual of Bavarian dialect speakers being made fun of in Germany; I grew up near the Bavarian border, and while pupils Austrian schools never were ridiculed for speaking dialect at all (but probably for speaking a 'funny' dialect from another village than the one where other pupils came) it was (and is) not unusual at all for teachers in Bavaria telling the pupils that they will get 'nowhere' with their dialect and that they should abandon it in favour of 'Hochdeutsch'.
There are whole homepages dedicated to this (Bavarian) problem. It's not so here - or at least, although there are prejudices against some dialects in Austria, the thing is handled differently.


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## ernest_

Orpington said:


> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?



I think problems usually begin when people start attaching labels such as "regional" or "main" to different languages. For example, in Spain you'll find that most monolingual Spanish speakers believe that Spanish is the "common" language of all Spaniards - even the Constitution says so, I think. So, when they move to a region where another language is spoken they explain their reluctance to learn the language in question by pointing out that Spanish is the "common" language, so there's no need to learn another one. However, they forget that many people in Spain has learned Spanish as a second language, not from their parents or friends but in school, as it is required by law. So, basically, these people have made an effort to learn a different language, and so they expect the same from Spanish speakers moving to their region, which is fair enough. It is a question of common decency, I think.


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## Orpington

sokol said:


> Would be interesting to hear from someone from that regions how the locals would react; I'd guess in Newcastle such linguistic behaviour is more likely being accepted than in Scotland, with new national or regional pride (whatever term you prefer) growing there.



Actually I happen to be from Newcastle, and if a foreigner spoke in Geordie, most people would probably think they were making fun of the accent.


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## LMorland

Orpington said:


> Actually I happen to be from Newcastle, and if a foreigner spoke in Geordie, most people would probably think they were making fun of the accent.


Please correct me if I'm wrong, you Bavarians participating in and/or reading this thread, but I've gotten the impression that that is _precisely _the danger in attempting to speak Bavarian in that part of the world.


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## Orpington

In Newcastle anyway, I think people would think this way just because it would be so very rare for a foreigner to attempt to speak Geordie. If someone from elsewhere in England spoke Geordie, they would either pass themselves off as local (quite likely, there are various strengths of the dialect), or it would DEFINITELY be seen as a bit of an insult.

I imagine it's the same for Bavarians?


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## panjabigator

How about learning Quebecois French when moving to Quebec, as opposed to the Parisian variety.  Is that encouraged?


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## sokol

LMorland said:


> Please correct me if I'm wrong, you Bavarians participating in and/or reading this thread, but I've gotten the impression that that is _precisely _the danger in attempting to speak Bavarian in that part of the world.


I think that this is true for Bavaria only _partly _because I personally do know some Bavarians _very _proud of their dialect (well ... 'extremely proud' of it would be more exact, I think) who would strongly appreciate if foreigners would learn Bavarian dialect.
However, this so very strong pro-dialect-attitudes are in itself a sign of how 'difficult' the stand of dialect in Bavaria is, as opposed to Austria where there is a much more relaxed attitude towards dialect, and foreigners trying to learn it.

We in Austria at the moment do have a very political case of asylum seekers being rejected by the administrative body - you may google for Arigona Zogaj, you'll find enough on the political stuff there: this is no political thread, so please let's don't discuss politics of this case.
Anyway, Arigona Zogaj (a girl aged 15 living in Austria since 2001) has integrated perfectly, she even spoke the local dialect of the village where she lives, in Upper Austria.
Especially the fact that she spoke dialect has caused very positive reactions to her case - it is a good example of how Austrians are (mainly) in favour of foreigners learning the regional dialect.



Orpington said:


> In Newcastle anyway, I think people would think this way just because it would be so very rare for a foreigner to attempt to speak Geordie. If someone from elsewhere in England spoke Geordie, they would either pass themselves off as local (quite likely, there are various strengths of the dialect), or it would DEFINITELY be seen as a bit of an insult.
> 
> I imagine it's the same for Bavarians?


I imagine that the same as for Newcastle and Geordie does apply for Northern Germany and Platt - I could imagine that villagers in Schleswig-Holstein would have a hard time to accept a foreigner trying to speak their dialect.
But at least in rural Bavaria I know of examples where this is clearly not so, although LMorland's report shows that to a degree the same could happen.



panjabigator said:


> How about learning Quebecois French when moving to Quebec, as opposed to the Parisian variety.  Is that encouraged?



Not to myknowledge, no. I've read articles of Monica Heller (a Canadian linguist) about the situation in Quebec, written in the 1980ies.
At least at that time_ francais quebecois_ was considered as a group-marker of the local (francophone) population and it was not appreciated if foreigners tried to adopt to that accent.
However, things have changed in Québec since. The province was in the 1980ies in transition from 'English orientated' to 'French orientated' - in the 80ies it was still necessary to negotiate language use (Monica Heller wrote about one of the most typical questions at the time: _'French or English - Francais où anglais?'_, asked everywhere in public space, e. g. in the supermarket, at the dentist, etc) - first there had to be an agreement wether the communication should take place in French or English.

Today, it seems, Québec really is 'French' only (or at least, English considered a 'foreign language' there), and this might have caused a change of attitudes toward Québecois accent.


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## Linguaphile3000

As many have pointed out, I think the kind of discontent that is felt amongst speakers of minority languages (or non-national languages) is a function of the politics of language. Countries that have minorities who have a strong sense of linguistic heritage will definitely be more likely to express this type of discontent.

I used to live in Stavanger, Norway and when I did so, though I went to an English speaking school, when I learned Norwegian I ended up picking up the regional dialect in Stavanger. This dialect, categorized as 'Vestlandsk', or more specifically, 'Stavangersk', sounds quite different from the 'proper' Norwegian (Bokmål), to the point where my friends in the US who have heard me speak with someone from Oslo have often questioned whether we were even speaking the same language! Despite this, a foreigner living in Stavanger would probably never be primed by the local populace to "learn Stavangersk". Norway is an interesting little enclave of linguistic diversity, as there are only about 4.5 million people there, but there are 9 ways of saying "I" and various differences in simple words such as "not", "know" and "school". Perhaps it is the geographic isolation and mountainous character of Norway which creates this fascinating reality.

All this being said, every time I open my mouth to a Norwegian, though they think it is curious that I picked up Stavangersk, it is always more important that my meaning is being conveyed. If you are a foreigner grappling to be understood, I think it is best to stick with the national language. After all, how are you trying to define yourself? 1) As a foreigner living in Spain? Or 2) as a foreigner trying to become Catalan? If you are the latter, I say, "Go for Catalan!" If you are somewhere in between, you can always learn some phrases that are quite different and be seen as a compassionate foreigner who respects the linguistic identity of the region. That being said, be careful because these 'dialects' are often stereotyped by speakers of the national-variety as backward, funny, or downright stupid. As Orpington and Sokol have pointed out, a foreigner trying to speak Geordie or Bavarian might be misconstrued as making fun of the dialect  - so tread carefully! For all intents and purposes, learning the national language is going to connect you with the most number of people possible. 

-LP3000


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## ivanovic77

Hi Linguaphile, 

Just an observation, I think you're confusing Castilian (Spanish) with Catalan, a language which *is not* a dialect of Spanish.


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## LMorland

ivanovic77 said:


> Just an observation, I think you're confusing Castilian (Spanish) with Catalan, a language which *is not* a dialect of Spanish.


ivanovic77's comment made me realize that we may be confusing the situation in Catalonia with that of regional dialects such as Vestlandsk (or more specifically, 'Stavangersk').  The major difference being (I pose it as a question), *are street signs, posters, etc., in that section of Norway written in standard Norwegian or in **Stavangersk?  *

Or I could ask you, sokol,what was the official written language in the "small rural community in Upper Austria, where [you] grew up"?

From what each of you has written, I imagine that the signs are the same in those small towns as in Oslo or in Vienna, respectively. 

I don't know the status of Valencian in Valencia, but it may surprise people to learn that in Catalonia, _everything _is wrtten in the Catalan language.  The languages of the schools (including the university), of the government, of advertising -- _all_ is in Catalan.  As an example, here's a photo I took of a poster there this past May: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lmorland/517235920/in/set-72157603120167323/

(If memory serves, it is only in the train stations that one finds bilingual signs all about.)

I should think that this official status of Catalan would influence the decision of foreigners on whether or not to try to learn it.

___________
Note: Ivanovic77 also remarked earlier in the thread that in medieval times Catalan (along with Occitan, it should be remembered) was a more important literary language than was Spanish/Castellano.  

However, it could perhaps be argued that many of the "dialect languages" of Austria (as well as Bavarian) equally have their own history extending back hundreds of years, and it is only due to the political ascendacy of the _hochdeutsch _speakers that their languages have been reduced to the status of "dialects". On the other hand (I confess complete ignorance of the situation) some of these could have 'branched off' at a later date, and therefore be accurately described as  _dialects. _


----------



## Lingvisten

If foreigners come to Denmark to stay for a while or even forever, they're expected to learn Danish, allthough you could easily get by using English. When Danes move to another part of the country, where dialect is spoken amongst the "natives", he would not try to learn the dialect, because all the dialect speaker understand and are able to use standard Danish. People who try to learn and speak the dialects, which are not theirs, are often laughed at.


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## sokol

LMorland said:


> Or I could ask you, sokol,what was the official written language in the "small rural community in Upper Austria, where [you] grew up"?


Everywhere in Austria, no matter what regional dialects are spoken there, street signs and official written language always is, of course, standard German or 'Hochdeutsch' as it's called by us here, except in minority regions where Slovenian, Croatian and Hungarian too have an official status.

As for Norway I am not sure but I'd be surprised if the signs would be in local dialect - in Norway there are, basically, two written standards (Bokmål and Nynorsk, the former being the 'old' standard influenced by Danish - as Norway once was part of the Danish Kingdom - and the latter being based on, if I remember correctly, southwestern dialects of modern Norway and therefore supposedly being closer to modern Stavanger dialect, but this only does qualify as guesswork of mine).
Though there are certain similarities between Norway and Austria there are fundamental differencies, too.
The Austrian German situation probably is more like that one of Scots in Scotland.


LMorland said:


> However, it could perhaps be argued that many of the "dialect languages" of Austria (as well as Bavarian) equally have their own history extending back hundreds of years, and it is only due to the political ascendacy of the _hochdeutsch _speakers that their languages have been reduced to the status of "dialects".


Not quite.
History, too, is quite different to that one of Spain (or Norway, for that matter).

Austria once was the leading nation in the German speaking area - at the times of the Habsburg area, before the Kingdom of Prussia took over as leading nation.
However, Austrian 'Hochdeutsch' never was based on the local dialects even though in the 19th century 'Hochdeutsch' as spoken and partly even written in Austria clearly showed influence of the dialects. Read Nestroy for (written) Austrian German strongly influenced by dialects. The written German standard is based more on Swabian and Franconian dialect; even in medieval times the language written in Austria was only this 'southwestern' standard with some Austrian influence.
(The same is true for Bavarian, of course, as both belong to the same dialect group originally called 'bairisch', the separation into Austrian and Bavarian came later with new political borders. It is like with Valencian and Catalan: Catalan now has an official status in Catalunya [*EDIT*]- Austrian dialects, though not having an official status properly, are well accepted in Austria, whereas Bavarian dialects in Bavaria are nowadays very much under pressure.)_
[I did edit out the reference to Valencian as papillon told me that Valencian indeed, nowadays, is co-official!]_ 

Catalan, on the other hand, really was a written language in its own rights some centuries ago.
(Again, I'm thinking of comparing the Austrian situation more with Scotland.)


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## Brioche

sokol said:


> Anyway, Arigona Zogaj (a girl aged 15 living in Austria since 2001) has integrated perfectly, she even spoke the local dialect of the village where she lives, in Upper Austria.



What other form of German would she have spoken? 

The children of refugees or immigrants to Australia learn to speak Australian English, and sound just like other children in Australia.

It's those who arrive as teenagers and adults who speak with an accent all their lives.


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## sokol

Brioche said:


> What other form of German would she have spoken?
> 
> The children of refugees or immigrants to Australia learn to speak Australian English, and sound just like other children in Australia.
> 
> It's those who arrive as teenagers and adults who speak with an accent all their lives.



The difference is that in Austria there is a rather great linguistig gap between dialects and standard language.
And that not at all each and every immigrant gladly adopts to either or both those languages, like they probably do in Australia.
As for older immigrants who come to live in Austria, only few of them really manage to learn the language perfect, be it standard language or dialect: this, I think, would be the same everywhere.

However, it is not obvious that immigrants everywhere would learn the regional language or dialect (at least that is what this thread is about).

In the German part of Switzerland each immigrant would have to learn both standard language and dialect (both being different enough that they really are two different, though related languages): this is as good as obligatory there.

In Germany, however, most immigrants would tend to learn only standard language and probably acquire a local accent, but rarely the local dialect (or if then rather in Southern Germany, surely not in the North).

In Austria, however, there are no clear-cut rules like in Switzerland to _having _to learn both standard language and dialect, and on the other hand there is no clear consensus for foreigners learning standard language only, in fact immigrants who only learn standard language still would be considered as 'not integrated' especially in Western Austria, especially in rural regions.
So, acquiring of the local dialect like Arigona Zogaj did is a marker for good integration into the local society. It is even more because this signals that she really identifies with Austria.
This makes a difference here as we, too, have considerable numbers of immigrants not integrating very well at all. For example the Turkish minority in Austria mostly keeps to themselves and therefore have rather bad knowledge of standard German and little or no active competence in regional dialects.

To integrate like Arigona Zogaj did is not at all the norm in Austria. Especially in bigger towns like Vienna there is a problem of immigrant ghettos where immigrants stick to themselves and even their (Austrian born) children often hardly speak any German when they start kindergarten or school.
Of course, this immigrant ghettos are due to both rejection of immigrants throuhg Austrians and deliberate seperation of immigrants of their own will, nevertheless they pose some serious problems. This is a matter very much discussed here in Austria, but I do not want to start a political discussion here, please.
(And anyway our moderators wouldn't tolerate that, rightly so.)


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## chics

Sorry, I'd like to remind you that we are talking hre in this thread about learning a new *language* -not accent, not dialect- when changing of area in a same country.

Of course if I go to live in the South of Spain, for example, they can not be always very happy if I try to badly imitate their way of speaking in Spanish, some of they might think that I laugh of them. Besides, it doesn't give me new information or utility, comparing of talking Spanish from the North. Of course I'd understand everything, it's the same language! 



sokol said:


> Catalan is a language, not a dialect. Valencian is the same language. Catalan-Valencian is a complete spoken and written language which has its grammar, its literature and even some dialects. For example, the dialect spoken in the East of Catalonia is different from the one sponken in the West of Catalonia and País Valencià.
> Catalan has almost ten centuries of literature, including the Middle Age, as Occitan, and also today; in poetry, prose, theatre, journalism, etc.


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## sokol

chics said:


> Valencian is the same language. Catalan-Valencian is a complete spoken and written language which has its grammar, its literature and even some dialects.


I do know that Catalan and Valencian are, essentially, the same language, but I've also read in a phrase book of Catalan that some Valencians are very peculiar about their language being called 'Catalan', so I chose to avoid that.

And as for language and dialect, the *principle *essentially is the same. At last, 'a language is a dialect with an army and a navy', as the popular linguistic bonmot goes, supposedly at first used by George Bernard Shaw if I remember correctly.
The differentiation between 'language' and 'dialect' is much more difficult than most people think, but if you'd like to discuss this in detail I'd propose to open a new thread concerning this issue. (I'm not quite sure which forum would be the correct one for that question ...)


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## jonquiliser

chics said:


> Of course if I go to live in the South of Spain, for example, they can not be always very happy if I try to badly imitate their way of speaking in Spanish, some of they might think that I laugh of them. Besides, it doesn't give me new information or utility, comparing of talking Spanish from the North.



Though many people say many Andalusian accents se te pegan mucho, so... 

If I go somewhere, I usually try to learn something of the language, simply because I like it and being in a place is a great opportunity to learn the languages of that place! I don't't find it in any way disrespectful though if someone stays in Finland without learning Finnish (or Swedish or Saame...). On the other hand, I sometimes do find it disrespectful of people to expect only others to make the effort to understand or communicate (this goes for _both_ 'locals' and 'newcomers').

Funnily, in Galicia I had some strange responses to the fact that I was learning Galician, not Spanish. The mother of a friend even thought it was for her to have a say, and left clear I shouldn't learn Galician  Later on I did learn Spanish too, though, as I got to know people from other places in Spain, who didn't speak Galician.


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## cuchuflete

chics said:


> Sorry, I'd like to remind you that we are talking here in this thread about learning a new *language* -not accent, not dialect- when changing of area in a same country.



I've been following this thread, and thinking about what I would or should do if I were to
move within my own country, and even within my own small state of Maine.  Near the Canadian border, and within my own state, there are towns where most people speak French.  What doesn't matter at all is that it is not the same French as spoken in Europe, or that it may be significantly different from the Quebecois spoken in Montreal.  For me, it is simply a new language.  It is spoken in the same country that mostly uses the English that is native to me. Putting a label on that particular version of French, be it 'regional' or 'local' or 'dialect' really misses the point.

I assume I could manage perfectly well using English and nothing else.  This would not be a good idea for two reasons.  First, I would deny my new neighbors the courtesy they deserve.  Second, and perhaps a good deal more important to me, I would deny myself the ability to get to know and to be a part of my new home community.


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## sokol

cuchuflete said:


> I assume I could manage perfectly well using English and nothing else.  This would not be a good idea for two reasons.  First, I would deny my new neighbors the courtesy they deserve.  Second, and perhaps a good deal more important to me, I would deny myself the ability to get to know and to be a part of my new home community.



I fully agree with you on this one and I do think that this is the point of the whole thread, really.


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## Gil

La situation au Québec.
Les Québécois francophones s'attendent que les nouveaux arrivants apprendront le français.  
Les nouveaux arrivants qui apprennent le français sont par la suite surpris qu'on exige la connaissance de l'anglais pour certains emplois. 
Les Québécois ne s'attendent pas que les nouveaux arrivants parlent avec un accent de la Beauce ou du lac Saint-Jean.

Parler de la situation linguistique du Québec sans faire de distinction entre l'île de Montréal, l'Ouest de l'île de Montréal (West Island) et le reste du Québec, c'est faire erreur.  

On a beaucoup parlé jusqu'ici du respect à accorder à la société qui nous accueille, mais pourquoi ne pas aussi se demander égoïstement si nous aimons étudier les langues et, sinon, aller où nous n'avons pas à étudier.


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## sokol

Gil said:


> Parler de la situation linguistique du Québec sans faire de distinction entre l'île de Montréal, l'Ouest de l'île de Montréal (West Island) et le reste du Québec, c'est faire erreur.


Monica Heller a décrit la situation à Montréal, écrit en 1978. ('Negotiations of Language Choice in Montreal', the oldest article of hers that I know of; besides, later, other articles too on the same topic in several linguistic publications.)
Évidemment la situation est différente aujourd'hui.


Gil said:


> On a beaucoup parlé jusqu'ici du respect à accorder à la société qui nous accueille, mais pourquoi ne pas aussi se demander égoïstement si nous aimons étudier les langues et, sinon, aller où nous n'avons pas à étudier.


C'est vrai, si.


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## Pedro y La Torre

sokol said:


> Monica Heller a décri*t* la situation *à* Montréal, écri*t en* 1978. ('Negotiations of Language Choice in Montreal', the oldest article of hers that I know of; besides, later, other articles too on the same topic in several linguistic publications.)
> Évidemment la situation est diff*é*rent*e* aujourd'hui.



En fait, selon le dernier recensement, moins de 50 pour cent d'habitants à Montreal  ont le français pour langue maternelle.


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## sokol

Pedro y La Torre said:


> En fait, selon le dernier recensement, moins de 50 pour cent d'habitants à Montreal  ont le français pour langue maternelle.


(Probably I shoudn't offend again with my bad French.)
 But it would be very interesting to know: do they still 'negotiate language choice' in Montréal like Monica Heller describes?
(Probably I should refer to the oldest article - as far as I'm aware of - of her referring to Québec here in the thread:
Monica Heller, "Bonjour, Hello?" - Negotiating Language Choice in Montréal, 1978
It's not meant as advertising, it's a source.)


----------



## María Madrid

LMorland said:


> So there really seem to be two cultures happening in Barcelona; the locals, plus a tremendous wave of Castellano speakers who have arrived in the *past 15 years*.


*15* years? Are you joking? "Immigrants", this is people from other (poorer) areas of Spain have been moving there since the 19th century!! 

As for the original question, I've lived in other areas with a local language (and since they don't call it Catalonian language, I won't either): Valencia and Majorca, I got along all fine with Spanish, people understood I didn't speak the language and never seemed to be annoyed about it. After some time I could understand what they said and if some friends were having a conversation in their local language it was no problem for me, I answered in Spanish, I asked if I didn't understand, when there was a larger group of people they just switched from one language to the other all the time... no problem at all. I didn't refuse to learn the language, I had no time for lessons, I didn't want to make a fool of myself making mistakes all the time so I didn't speak the language, but I certainly learnt a some expressions. If I had stayed longer I would have learnt more, I'm sure, but I knew even then I wouldn't be staying long enought to learn the language properly. 

On the other hand I got responses in Catalonian when shopping in Barcelona (and I was simply a tourist), even if I explained I didn't understand what they said and I was a customer. Even in Athens, Greece, some lady answered to me in Catalonian when I asked her in Spanish if she was standing on the ticket line to the museum entrance or whatever that was (I had heard them speaking Catalonian and I thought it would be reasonable to ask them in Spanish rather than in "signal language"). She said something too quickly and I just didn't get what she said, I said so in Spanish, she replied in Catalonian once again. She looked away. I looked puzzled. Her husband answered to me in Spanish.

Of course I've met a lot of people in Catalonia who didn't seem to have a problem with my speaking Spanish, even if I was only a tourist there, but my "conflictive" experiences have come up only with Catalonian speakers when I wasn't even living there.

I always thought that being bilingual was a blessing, but some people just don't see it that way. Saludos,


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## TraductoraPobleSec

I totally agree with you, María, that there is a lot of unpoliteness going on and that certain people take the issue over the top. However, as a speaker of both Catalan and Spanish and as a Catalan, I can tell you that this narromindness you have encountered unfortunately happens with people on both “sides”. There are very narrowminded and rude Spanish speakers in Catalonia who won't listen to anyone talking to them in Catalan and the other way round, as you mentioned. *These behaviours are both to be pitied*.


As for Valencians and Majorcans stating that they do not speak Catalan, I'd say this is more of a Valencian thing. Most Majorcans say that they speak Majorcan but are aware it's their way of speaking Catalan. To be honest with you all, it's just a question of names: we all understand each other perfectly and can even imitate the accent as it happens with English speakers from Britain, Australia or the American continent.


The point here is not to misregard any language in this world at all and always show respect. Any language is a precious jewel and should be preserved. Nobody has the right to underestimate a way of talking and everyone should remember that no language is richer than the rest. A phenomenon that is worrying me now is the increasing use of English here in Barcelona because of the many expats who have settled here: I admit that I myself have my hair done at an English hairdresser whose slogan is “Don't let Spanish get between you and your hair”(which, if I think of it, it's even insulting) and I swear I was once attended in English at the Zara in Gran Via and Passeig de Gràcia: I went to one of the assistants who was folding clothes to ask for the price of a shirt which did not have a tag. I don't remember whether I talked to her in Spanish or Catalan, but I'll never forget her answer: “Could you speak to me in English, please?”. This happened some years ago: had it happened to me now, I'd have run to the Consumer's Office.


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## papillon

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> ...I admit that I myself have my hair done at an English hairdresser whose slogan is “Don't let Spanish get between you and your hair”(which, if I think of it, it's even insulting)...


An add from this hairdresser also appears in my edition of TimeOut Barcelona (~2005-2006). If I remember correctly it's "Don't let *your* Spanish get between you and your hair.

In what way is it insulting? To whom? My understanding is that it's just poking fun at the expats' and, most of all, tourists' poor mastery of the Spanish language.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

papillon said:


> An add from this hairdresser also appears in my edition of TimeOut Barcelona (~2005-2006). If I remember correctly it's "Don't let *your* Spanish get between you and your hair.
> 
> In what way is it insulting? To whom? My understanding is that it's just poking fun at the expats' and, most of all, tourists' poor mastery of the Spanish language.


 
As I said, I myself go there to have my hair done (because I like the way they work), but I find the add somehow insulting to the locals*, *as if the local languages were a hindrance to be avoided, when, in my humble opinion, they should be promoted*.

* But then I thought it was "Spanish" not "your Spanish"; still, it's not, let's say, politically correct. I hope that you all get my point


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## Orreaga

Bones Festes a tots!! 

Interesting stories, Tradu, thanks for sharing them.  I wonder if the assistant who wanted to use English was a native speaker of English, or perhaps an East European who had recently arrived and knew English but hadn't yet picked up Catalan or Spanish? Would it make a difference to you, as far as whether you'd complain to the management?

Here in my part of the US (and others) it's extremely common to hear Spanish spoken by workers in shops, to hear announcements over the loudspeakers in Spanish in the large stores, Spanish advertisements on TV monitors in department stores, as well as bilingual signs and packaging on products.  We have lots of billboards in Spanish all over the city.  Perhaps you've heard of the recent BBC documentary in which two Spanish-speaking reporters were sent to the US to travel coast to coast for two weeks, attempting to speak only Spanish wherever they went, including restaurants, hotels, etc.  Mostly they succeeded without having to resort to English.  There are plenty of US citizens who feel threatened by this and complain about it, but I think most of us just adapt to it and see it as part of the capitalist "machine," for lack of a better term.  I admit I sometimes wonder what country I'm in, when I notice that I'm probably the only native speaker of English shopping in certain stores at certain times.  But I enjoy having a choice of languages to use, I've even used Spanish to  engage the clerks at my local U.S. Post Office.

To me it just adds a certain "sabor" to living here.  

Excuse me while I have some more bizcochitos and set out the farolitos for Nochebuena.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

But in the case of English in Barcelona, I "read" it differently. From what I gather, many expats here have settled among us not because of them being interested in our culture, but because it's cheaper than in their countries and then there is the sun and lots of partying going on. Many of them could not care less about Spanish, let alone Catalan, which many regard as if it was a Martian language.

Of course, I am not saying they are all like this: WR is a proof that there are many expats in Catalonia and Spain that care about the place and the languages spoken.


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## chics

Orreaga said:


> Bones Festes a tots!!
> Interesting stories, Tradu, thanks for sharing them. I wonder if the assistant who wanted to use English was a native speaker of English, or perhaps an East European who had recently arrived and knew English but hadn't yet picked up Catalan or Spanish? Would it make a difference to you, as far as whether you'd complain to the management?


Hello, I also complained yesterday for a similar case in a Body Shop in Barcelona (although I hadn't still read Tradu's post ). I don't know if that girl was English, from the USA, from Madrid or from any other country but, what difference do you see? To me it's the same. I find all right that peole learn languages and that workers in shops can speak English, Italian, French or Japanese providing they can also speak the languages spoken here: both Spanish and Catalan.
If I lived I the USA I'd thought the same, Spanish and other languages ar fine, but I suppose you'd like to have the option of being assisted in English in your country.

We could open a new thread to talk about expats I know few of them that have at least a minimum of interest in the country they live, actuall they chosed it because they liked it or they were interested in it before. But there are lots of them that come here earning five times more than Spanish people, to have a life of "rich" in a "por country", that live in English or their mother tongue, only with other expats and don't have any respect neither a bit of interest in our people, culture or languages (nor Catalan neither Spanish). 
​


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## Orreaga

Your points are well-taken, chics and Tradu, however with the dollar sinking against the euro, I doubt if any Americans will find it "cheap" to live in the euro zone.  Perhaps Brits will.  

But I believe that since Spain has opened itself to migrant workers from some of the newer EU countries, the same thing is happening there as has been happening in the US.  Employers want to hire cheap labor and don't care if their employees speak the local language or not.  Of course you are right to complain if someone insists that you speak a language not native to the area.

In the case of "rich" expats,  I'm sure you also know that Spain, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands promote developments (especially along coastal areas) to foreigners, telling them that they can live (or retire) in these areas and receive full services in English (English-speaking doctors, even hairdressers, etc.).  It's a very profitable business.  So who is at fault, the expats who are attracted to the area by promotions telling them they don't need to learn the local languages, or Spanish/Catalan authorities and real estate developers who make a profit off of them?


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Orreaga said:


> In the case of "rich" expats, I'm sure you also know that Spain, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands promote developments (especially along coastal areas) to foreigners, telling them that they can live (or retire) in these areas and receive full services in English (English-speaking doctors, even hairdressers, etc.). It's a very profitable business. So who is at fault, the expats who are attracted to the area by promotions telling them they don't need to learn the local languages, or Spanish/Catalan authorities and real estate developers who make a profit off of them?


 
I could not agree more, Orreaga, but never mentioned this point because I did not want to get too "political". In the case of Barcelona, I believe it's true that in great part it's the local government's fault, who seems to care much more about tourists and expats than about locals or people trying to make their living here. 

A proof of this is the increasing number of hotels as well as of apartments that can be rented by the day at very expensive rates. Stores are a problem, too: many all time and "classic" businesses are closing down and "cool" touristy/expat oriented stores are opening instead: go to Plaça del Pi and you will see what I am talking about.

I may seem to be going off topic, but undoubtedly this situation affects language a great deal, which is very unfortunate.

By the way, Chics, you are of Minorcan origin, aren't you? I once witnessed a situation which did really disturb me: I was in a grocery store in Sant Lluís, I believe, and an old British lady was being served at the counter by a Minorcan grocer who talked to her in English as well...  Should not it have been the other way round???


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## yecru

Orreaga said:


> In the case of "rich" expats,  I'm sure you also know that Spain, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands promote developments (especially along coastal areas) to foreigners, telling them that they can live (or retire) in these areas and receive full services in English (English-speaking doctors, even hairdressers, etc.).  It's a very profitable business.  So who is at fault, the expats who are attracted to the area by promotions telling them they don't need to learn the local languages, or Spanish/Catalan authorities and real estate developers who make a profit off of them?


You're right about that. And seeing as most of those ex-pats are citizens of the European Union (Britons, Germans, etc) who have contributed through taxes to the EU, especially to countries like Spain, they are fully entitled to live there without speaking the native language. If not, what is the point of the EU in the first place?

Having said that, if you don't speak the language of the country/region you are living in, you shouldn't expect to be able to get a job in which you need to deal with locals in their own language, and you shouldn't expect to be spoken or attended to in English (or German, etc) anywhere.

But if you can survive without doing it, then I can't see any problem with it. Some of my friends' parents hardly speak any English and they have lived in the UK for over half their lives. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Saying that it is a "lack of respect" for the local language, culture and people seems quite resentful to me. How about considering what these people have contributed to your country (whether it be financially, culturally or whatever).


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## TraductoraPobleSec

yecru said:


> But if you can survive without doing it, then I can't see any problem with it. Some of my friends' parents hardly speak any English and they have lived in the UK for over half their lives. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Saying that it is a "lack of respect" for the local language, culture and people seems quite resentful to me. How about considering what these people have contributed to your country? (whether it be financially, culturally or whatever).


 
Culturally definitely not. And yes, I openly admit I feel resented toward some attitudes, which I consider lazy and disrespectful. I have lived in Britain, Northern Ireland and the United States and trying to achieve a good level of English in order to interact with the locals and even consider myself one was one of my main priorities. 

My humble point of view, of course.


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## yecru

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> Culturally definitely not. And yes, I openly admit I feel resented toward some attitudes, which I consider lazy and disrespectful. I have lived in Britain, Northern Ireland and the United States and trying to achieve a good level of English in order to interact with the locals and even consider myself one was one of my main priorities.
> 
> My humble point of view, of course.


If I lived in another country then I'd do the same as you did. If I went to live in Catalunya then I'd try to learn Catalan even though I already speak Spanish. But I think that those who don't do it are not being disrespectful, although in some case they might be being lazy, but not necessarily.

Just my opinion...


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## TraductoraPobleSec

yecru said:


> If I lived in another country then I'd do the same as you did. If I went to live in Catalunya then I'd try to learn Catalan even though I already speak Spanish. But I think that those who don't do it are not being disrespectful, although in some case they might be being lazy, but not necessarily.
> 
> Just my opinion...


 
And as I said, Yecru, a great deal of this situation has to do with our government here; so, of course, I am not blaming the expats 100% at all.

Have a very merry Xmas / Bon Nadal


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## María Madrid

chics said:


> there are lots of them that come here earning five times more than Spanish people, to have a life of "rich" in a "por country", that live in English or their mother tongue, only with other expats and don't have any respect neither a bit of interest in our people, culture or languages (nor Catalan neither Spanish).


I couldn't agree more. 

Not long a go I went to *my* "ultramarinos" and the owner was being told off by some arrogant jerk who was mad at him because he couldn't understand what he wanted to buy. Apparently the fact that the "customer" didn't speak a word of Spanish and the shop was in a residential area in Madrid (no tourists around here) was completely irrelevant, it was the grocer who was stupid for not speaking English or being unable to read his mind. And it wasn't the first time I'd seen something like that. I don't care how much tax money this guy had payed, whether he lived here or not. Everyone understands not everybody is capable of speaking a foreign language fluently, especially if you learn after a certain age. But expecting people to speak your native language when you live abroad and being annoyed when they don't (as if they had to) is certainly rude, I can't see it any other way. 

And I do believe there's a big difference between residential areas built in the middle of nowhere (but near the sea) whereyou can find all kind of Scandinavian/German/British etc shops and services and a shop in a town. If I were asked to speak English when shopping in Zara in a Spanish town I'd certainly have a few things to say!


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## cherine

yecru said:


> Having said that, if you don't speak the language of the country/region you are living in, you shouldn't expect to be able to get a job in which you need to deal with locals in their own language, and you shouldn't expect to be spoken or attended to in English (or German, etc) anywhere.
> 
> But if you can survive without doing it, then I can't see any problem with it. [...] Saying that it is a "lack of respect" for the local language, culture and people seems quite resentful to me. How about considering what these people have contributed to your country (whether it be financially, culturally or whatever).


I agree with your post, Yecru.
As long as the person is not here for a job, why should we expect him to speak our language? And on the other hand, it would be a bit anoying, if not arrogant, from him to blame us for not speaking his language.


María Madrid said:


> Everyone understands not everybody is capable of speaking a foreign language fluently, especially if you learn after a certain age. Expecting people to speak your native language when you live abroad and being annoyed when they don't (as if they had to) is certainly rude, I can't see it any other way.


I believe this is a very important point that should be taken into account. Some people simply don't have the ability to learn any foreign language, specially when they're past the school age. (There's an interesting thread about language learning at middle age). I know many Egyptians who just can't learn English, and I also know some who speak perfect English, French, Italian... It's a matter of talent.

As for the situation in my country, I can think of those illeterate Egyptians who can still manage to speak few words of English (and sometimes other languages too) to accomodate their need to earn their living (shop assistants, taxi drivers, camel owners in touristic places....) None of these people would expect the tourists to speak Arabic, so they know *they* should be the one accomodating the others, and maybe also out of hospitality: you accomodate your guests' needs, and you don't really expect them to accomodate yours. Whenever a tourist speaks a few words of Arabic, he's met with an encouraging or admiring smile.
It's very likely that a person speaking some English would offer to speak English (even if his English isn't very good) with a tourist who speaks Arabic with some difficulty (even if the tourist's Arabic is a lot better than that person's English) but it's always in the spirit of "helping" the foreigner. It's not meant to be rude nor insulting.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

I agree with all the things you say, Cherine. When I mentioned the case of the lady in Minorca, I forgot to tell you that she was definitely acting with an air of superiority; plus you could tell she was not a simple tourist but someone settled on the island.

Let me mention as well that I feel the happiest person helping around visitors when I see that they look lost. I've helped tourists in Barcelona find their way a thousand times and I use English or Italian when I find myself in these situations. As you say, Cherine, it's really nice when they make an effort and utter a few words in the local language. A simple "gracias" means a lot.

Have a good Boxing Day /Sant Esteve everyone wherever you are


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## sokol

I am no expert on the Catalan situation - so what I'd like to offer here is only my opinion, please treat it as such (and please forgive me if I'm oversimplifying):

About ex-pats:


yecru said:


> You're right about that. And seeing as most of those ex-pats are citizens of the European Union (...) they are fully entitled to live there without speaking the native language. If not, what is the point of the EU in the first place?


Yes, they are (entitled to live there), but no, it's not true that not learning the local language is totally unproblematic and of no consequence to the local population: this, in my opinion, is a misconception.

It disturbs the local real estate market, to begin with, and it ends with disturbing local culture. Language, too, is affected, there's no doubt about that one.
Problem is, the European mediterranean coast is developing into a sun-belt (like Florida & the southwestern states of the US already are).  It is not only idly rich moving in there but pensioners too who find that living on Mallorca is cheaper for them than living in England or Germany (and they don't have to worry about winter which for many older people could become a serious problem concerning health). And especially older peoples often are not so flexible as to learn a new language.

So there are economic as well as cultural consequences of large groups of ex-pats moving in. [Even environmental ones, especially in the case of Spain: water becoming a sparse resource there - well, it always was, but it's much more so nowadays.]
I won't go into detail here, as I am no specialist on the Catalan situation (see disclaimer above ;-), but I'd suppose that for the local population housing costs already may have increased significantly in the last 10-20 years, especially in Barcelona, and the local culture of the city is likely to become much more oriented towards tourists and ex-pats. (The latter, by the way, is a sentiment which Wagner Pá, a musician partly living in Barcelona, has expressed a few month ago in an interview at an Austrian radio station with these words: 'Barcelona has become a theme park for tourists' - although he went on to say that he still likes the city.)

But to discuss these implications on Barcelona here would lead further away from the general question of the thread, I think. (And again, I'm not the expert here ...)



TraductoraPobleSec said:


> I totally agree with you, María, that there is a lot of unpoliteness going on and that certain people take the issue over the top. However, as a speaker of both Catalan and Spanish and as a Catalan, I can tell you that this narromindness you have encountered unfortunately happens with people on both “sides”. There are very narrowminded and rude Spanish speakers in Catalonia who won't listen to anyone talking to them in Catalan and the other way round, as you mentioned. *These behaviours are both to be pitied*.


You've made a good point here, and this is more my field, really.

It seems to be (still) a political decision to speak either Castellano or Catalan in Catalonia (and especially Barcelona).
If Catalans answer Castellanos with Catalan language only (or even English, which would be quite extreme - I imagine that in the examples above the English speakers might have been foreign workers who probably speak Catalan with an accent and Spanish not very well at all) - if they do that, it is a political statement.
On the other hand, if Castellanos insist on speaking Spanish only in Catalonia this too is a political statement.
[If it were not so the last posts in this thread would not have been written.]

This is the case in language situations where the pecking order of languages is either not yet established or about to change (or constantly disputed). Such language situations I would describe as schizoid - with Einar Haugen (on the example of Norvegian Nynorsk vs. Bokmal: see Einar Haugen 1972: The Ecology of Language, p. 148-158: an article written in 1962 titled 'Schizoglossia and the Linguistic Norm'. Not new, I know, but still to the point.)
In such 'schizoid' situations you (as speaker) have no choice to use a language (any language) in an 'unpolitical' way: if you like it or not, as soon as you open your mouth you make a political statement (as to what language you think should be spoken). Of course there are situations where this is very obvious and others where this is not so obvious.

I am not quite sure where Catalonia fits in.
As quoted earlier, based on Monica Heller (see posts above), I am quite sure that Montréal, in the late 1970ies and in the 80ies, was rather 'schizoid' but nowadays might not be any more.
And another example: Carinthia, a southeastern _Bundesland _of Austria, is still rather 'schizoid' even though the situation has improved the last years - but it's still considered being a political statement if one uses in public domains Slovenian rather than German.

Such 'schizoid' situations always do complicate matters *very much* for immigrants or migrants or ex-pats (or whatever phrasing you prefer); it makes it difficult for them to decide which language they should acquire first in order to fit in (if they want to fit in).
Therefore, although I am a linguist and dedicated to remaining neutral, I would say that 'schizoid' linguistic situations (or 'schizoglossia') causes lots of stress - both for the local population and ex-pats - and that therefore it would be best for 'schizoid' situations being solved. The solution may vary - see German speaking Switzerland, for example, which has adopted a strange one: both variants, Standard German and Swiss German, standing side by side, and from immigrants it is not merely wished but demanded that they should learn both of them.

Now would you tell me if indeed Catalonia is 'schizoid'? (Meaning, there's still a struggle about the domains where Castellano and Catalan should be used, and no consensus over this within the population of Barcelona and Catalonia?)

All I could add to this one is that, as a tourist, Catalans showed no disapproval at all of me speaking only Spanish (and badly, come to that, so that I had to ask for a switch to English usually) - but this would be typical, too: it is not I for whom they would have to demonstrate their political opinion but rather Castellanos (or ex-pats, probably).


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## Spectre scolaire

I once had a pen friend in Barcelona – many, many years ago. We wrote to each other in English. Going to Barcelona for a congress more than 20 years after we had lost contact, I got the idea of searching her up. I found her and we had dinner together. This woman (who was some years older than me) had arrived in Barcelona after finishing school in Navarra. This I remembered from our correspondance, but in those days I knew nothing about the language situation in Catalonia, and I never asked her about it. You’ve got to know some of the answers if you want to ask good questions!  When you are 16 you often don’t. 

Being in Barcelona I wanted to see her precisely because of her non-Catalan background. Shortly before going there I had read Kathryn A. Woolard: “Double Talk. Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia”, Stanford Univ. 1989, a brilliant introduction to what _sokol_ (#81) calls “schizoglossia” (after Einar Haugen). 



			
				María Madrid said:
			
		

> As for the original question, I've lived in other areas with a local language (and since they don't call it Catalonian language, I won't either): Valencia and Majorca, I got along all fine with Spanish, people understood I didn't speak the language and [they] never seemed to be annoyed about it. After some time I could understand what they said and if some friends were having a conversation in their local language it was no problem for me, I answered in Spanish, I asked if I didn't understand, when there was a larger group of people they just switched from one language to the other all the time... no problem at all. I didn't refuse to learn the language, I had no time for lessons, I didn't want to make a fool of myself making mistakes all the time so I didn't speak the language, but I certainly learnt a some expressions. If I had stayed longer I would have learnt more, _I'm sure_[my italics!], but I knew even then I wouldn't be staying long enought to learn the language properly.


 Back to my school days pen friend. I was surprised when she told me that she did not speak Catalan. “I understand it perfectly”, she said, “but why should I speak Catalan when everybody understands my Spanish?” – see _Mar__ía Madrid_.

She had arrived in Barcelona as a young woman – and had settled there. She was not able to speak the language, or she didn't want to make a fool of [her]self making mistakes all the time so [she] didn't speak the language.

For my pen friend, this situation had lasted for decades.

Now, I agree with _cherine_ in saying that “Some people simply don't have the ability to learn any foreign language, specially when they're past the school age”. 

This is certainly true, but there is more to it. I like the notion of *centre* and *periphery* when discussing language situations like the one in Barcelona. _The prestigious language is being learned, the non-prestigious is not._ But what is prestigious may change with time. 

In Arab countries you have a situation of an adamantly non-prestigious vernacular _for written purposes_, a situation which also obtained in Europe during the Middle Age. But in Europe the vernacular superseded the _hieratic language_. Prestige (in terms of language use) is likely to change according to time and space and the surrounding society. 

At a time when it may have become prestigious to learn Catalan, people who had procrastinated doing so – like my pen-friend – are now unable to switch from passive knowledge into active communication behaviour. Her own convention in talking Spanish in Barcelona has become part of her personality. Just think of a man and a woman in love being obliged to speak a third language, and still speaking it 20 years later (although with a lot of code-switching to their respective languages). We all get stuck in conventional behaviour.

I am sure my old pen friend in Barcelona will leave her last breath in Barcelona speaking Spanish. We have to consider the human aspect of language learning and language retention. But we don’t have to accept that a _language policy_ gets stuck. Here is much of the problem for a resurging Catalonia following the Franco dictatorship.
 ​


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## chics

sokol said:


> It seems to be (still) a political decision to speak either Castellano or Catalan in Catalonia (and especially Barcelona).
> If Catalans answer Castellanos with Catalan language only (...) it is a political statement.
> On the other hand, if Castellanos insist on speaking Spanish only in Catalonia this too is a political statement.


It's very important to say that in Catalonia, Valencia and Balear Islands, in general, the language used doesn't imply any political choice. I mean, you may have clues of what a person thinks if he read _El país_ or _ABC_, for example, if he listens to _La Cope_ and some other details. But it doesn't include his langue. I don't know anything at all of a person who talks to me in Catalan or in Spanish and, to a foreigner, learning or not, speaking or not, any language will mean a political decision to us.

I say that because I've been asked to it, in a context of _I still don't know which are the _good_ ones and which the _bad_ ones, I haven't still there a prope comunity so I don't want to choose the _bads_, etc._ so they didn't know if learning Spanish or Catalan or both or any.

There are political parties everywhere which have their opinions, but to people living here there isn't any association like "you speak X so you vote A" and even less "as you vote A but I vote B, I won't be your friend".

Any person from Spain speaks Spanish, not problem there. 
Also, a Spanish person who studies or works and have a normal live, without taking Catalan classes is able -even if he's old or literally stupid- to understand it and have a passive good Catalan level in less than one year. If he try to learn it a little bit, or at least make an effort of trying to speak it (here it's also important to remember that the effort has *two sides*: for us, the locals, it's always easier and more effective to talk to a person that communicates fluently in Spanish than trying to understand, correcting, teaching, etc. a bad Catalan. - But we're glad to do it ) he'll take about six months. If he does it since the beginning, he won't have the problem of people being used to talk with him only in Spanish so he will able to practice easily, it won't be strange for anyone. This people can also take free Catalan courses -payed by Catalan spoken people- to improve it or to learn it quicklier.

After a year living in Catalonia that doesn't speak Catalan is because he doesn't want. I don't mind if he doesn't like our wine, if he doesn't know our flag or our national anthem, if he suports Real Madrid... but a person who has chosen not to communicate implies not a political decision but a narrow mind. Also, obviously he won't be welcomed from most of locals.

A person that decides not to speak Spanish is also narrow-minded. 
Personnally, I haven't seen any, unless in some few cases where a Catalan (Catalan and Spanish speaker) had to speak to a very rude and bad-mannered only-Spanish-speaker person, and it was because _he had been bad-mannered_... not because of the language. 



sokol said:


> Now would you tell me if indeed Catalonia is 'schizoid'? (Meaning, there's still a struggle about the domains where Castellano and Catalan should be used, and no consensus over this within the population of Barcelona and Catalonia?)


No, it isn't. 
Catalan citoyens have the right to use Catalan in *all domains* in their country: Catalonia. Being Catalonia in Spain, Spanish can be used in *all domains*, too. 
Ideally, everyone living and working/studing there should speak both Catalan and Spanish and have the right of choice. But in real world what happens is that some (not much) people decide to use always only one of them (Catalan or Spanish), what's not a problem _providing_ they never eliminate the right of choice of any person, any time.

If I go shopping, to the doctor, if I need a lawyer... He or she must to be able to attend me in both Spanish and Catalan.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

chics said:


> After a year living in Catalonia that doesn't speak Catalan is because he doesn't want. I don't mind if he doesn't like our wine, if he doesn't know our flag or our national anthem, if he suports Real Madrid... but a person who has chosen not to communicate implies not a political decision but a narrow mind. Also, obviously he won't be welcomed from most of locals.
> 
> A person that decides not to speak Spanish is also narrow-minded.
> Personnally, I haven't seen any, unless in some few cases where a Catalan (Catalan and Spanish speaker) had to speak to a very rude and bad-mannered only-Spanish-speaker person, and it was because _he had been bad-mannered_... not because of the language.
> 
> No, it isn't.
> Catalan citoyens have the right to use Catalan in *all domains* in their country: Catalonia. Being Catalonia in Spain, Spanish can be used in *all domains*, too.
> Ideally, everyone living and working/studing there should speak both Catalan and Spanish and have the right of choice. But in real world what happens is that some (not much) people decide to use always only one of them (Catalan or Spanish), what's not a problem _providing_ they never eliminate the right of choice of any person, any time.
> 
> If I go shopping, to the doctor, if I need a lawyer... He or she must to be able to attend me in both Spanish and Catalan.


 
I share the same view and have the same experiences and impressions, dear Chics.

Hope that you are enjoying your holidays in your/my Minorcan paradise 

Bon Nadal


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## sokol

Spectre scolaire said:


> (...) This is certainly true, but there is more to it. I like the notion of *centre* and *periphery* when discussing language situations like the one in Barcelona. _The prestigious language is being learned, the non-prestigious is not._ But what is prestigious may change with time.
> (...)
> At a time when it may have become prestigious to learn Catalan, people who had procrastinated doing so – like my pen-friend – are now unable to switch from passive knowledge into active communication behaviour. Her own convention in talking Spanish in Barcelona has become part of her personality. (...)



Thank you, that's pretty much to the point I tried to make.

My post was not about _political orientation_ but about *language politics.*
Certainly the prestige of linguistic variants and the pecking order in Catalonia has changed very much over the last thirty years - of as much about the Catalonian situation I am sure.
In language situations with changes in stratification (and as Catalan was marginalised during the Franco era but revitalised very much since, there were _huge _changes) there's sure to be a transition period where prestige of the varieties involved is ambiguous.
Certainly it's difficult for older people adapting to new attitudes, and certainly it's even harder to change linguistic behaviour adapted and approved off (at one time) like in the example of your pen friend.

But I am afraid, chics, that it seems I haven't myself expressed clearly:


chics said:


> It's very important to say that in Catalonia, Valencia and Balear Islands, in general, the language used doesn't imply any political choice. I mean, you may have clues of what a person thinks if he read _El país_ or _ABC_ (...)


My posting was not meant like this.
What I wanted to express was language politics, meaning:
- if someone speaks only Spanish and never Catalan in Barcelona, do others think that he is against emancipation of Catalan, of broadening domains for Catalan? (e. g. using Catalan in University, in offices, etc.)? I think that this is not too likely being the case, but that's just a guess
- further, if someone speaks Catalan only in Barcelona and insists on always speaking Catalan even if the opponent obviously does not understand Catalan very well, is this person considered being against using Spanish at all in Catalonia even though it might be that this person might have no active command of Castellano?

As for the latter point I do not know if this happens on a regular basis in Barcelona - and as you said explicitly, this seems not to be the case. But I remember vividly a scene in the movie 'L'auberge espagnole' where a professor at Barcelona university explicitly refused (after a student asked) to hold his lecture in Castellano despite several exchange students (with no knowledge of Catalan) from all over Europe being present, so I am confident that this will happen at least sometimes, on certain occasions. (Even if the people involved are not rude at all. Nevertheless, this is just a movie - not everything we see in movies is the last truth, I know. ;-)

Certainly being pro or contra use of Catalan e. g. at university has nothing to do with political orientation - they could be leftists, conservatives, nationalists or even ecologists. Please excuse for not having made this clear enough above.

But I'll first comment further and then I'll come back to that one (my emphasis in red):


chics said:


> If he try to learn it a little bit, or at least make an effort of trying to speak it (...)


Yes, that's an important point: it's not so easy to learn a new language if you're already older or, but trying to is a signal.
I've always encountered with speakers of languages considered 'small' because of the number of it's speakers that they do appreciate very much if one at least tries, even if one fails - that's what I did with Slovene which I never quite acquired to a degree to let Slovenes really feel comfortable if I tried to talk to them in Slovene. Nevertheless, they very much appreciated the effort.
However, I think one should not be unfair in cases like the one reported from spectre solaire - and personally I do not think that Catalans are, in such cases.




chics said:


> Catalan citoyens have the right to use Catalan in *all domains* in their country: Catalonia. Being Catalonia in Spain, Spanish can be used in *all domains*, too.
> (...)
> If I go shopping, to the doctor, if I need a lawyer... He or she must to be able to attend me in both Spanish and Catalan.


It is one possible solutions to language situations like the one in Catalonia (as it has developed since the Franco regime) to use both language varieties absolutely equal in all language situations.

However, in everyday life this sometimes prove to be rather difficult.
If you come there as migrant you would have to learn both Spanish and Catalan to be a member of the local community and being able to live free as you wish.
If you were to acquire Spanish only you most likely will have troubles integrating properly, but if you only try to get by with Catalan you equally would not have access to the whole city and all the citizens of Barcelona, to pick an example.
But I don't like guessing about a language situation which I do not know very well.

So I'll conclude with this: if it were the case that I would move to Barcelona and I would speak only Catalan, ever, whithout understanding Spanish very well, what problems were likely to occur?
(I speak some Spanish and I've bought a Catalan phrasebook before I spent a short holiday in Barcelona, so I do know that a speaker of Catalan only, with never even having heard any Castellano, would nevertheless understand at least _something_.)

In answering this question we probably could ascertain if the situation in Barcelona indeed is one of schizoglossia or not.

(The other way round, only speaking Spanish in Barcelona, would be much easier to predict - so this one, with trying to get by with Catalan only, would be much more interesting, I think.)


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## Sepia

Coming from an area where the native cultural groups usually are nice to each other and respect each other the Spanish situation also worries me a bit. There are several reasons:
The Catalan speakers are probably the largest "minority" group in Europe it is obvious and very clear that they shall protect their culture or cultures, just like the Basque, the Galician should do too and I admire them for having been able to maintain the use of their languages despite so many years of fascist oppression. Look what is left of the regional languages we used to have in Germany. 
But then we have nationalist politicians like the ones on the Balearic Isles talking about "cultural normalisation" which includes issues like wanting only Mallorqui being spoken on Mallorcan television - no mainland Catalan - although the difference between the dialects are minor. 
And I hear of a school system in Catalunya where such a vast part of the classes are taught in Catalan that an increasing number of kids from Castellano speaking families are dropping out. 
And I have occasionally also met Spanish-teachers (from Spain) who reacted "strangely" when I asked them if they also could speak any of the "regional" languages. 
Could be that some people are pushing it too far, I'd say. 
The region where I come from the attitude is relatively humane. At least today. For various historical and political reasons the regional Low German languages have almost lost their importance in politics and business. In this thread lots of posters keep mixing things up and confuse dialects with languages. What you often hear in the port of Hamburg or on the countryside and you don't understand is often a different regional language and not just a dialect of High German. But what Danish and North-Friesian in Süd-Schleswig and German in Nord-Schleswig is concerned it is different. (Schleswig is a region that is divided in the middle by the Danish-German border). Since we are only talking about a few % on either side of the border we would not expect anyone moving here from somewhere else to learn more than High-German or Danish depending on which country we are talking about. We would not expect anyone from a different region who moves to Flensburg to learn Danish just because a number of people are native Danish-speaking Germans. However, lots of people obviously do for their own sake. People from Denmark, who usually are capable of speaking German well enough to go shopping do a lot of shopping in and around Flensburg, but still lots of larger supermarkets and department stores prefer hiring bi-linguals. On both sides of the border you can graduate from schools with either German or Danish the main language. And even in Hamburg I occascionally find myself chatting in Danish with police officers from the Federal Police (that before the Shengen-Treaty used mainly to serve as our border patrol) - officers who used to be stationed at the northern border. There was never any official requirement for them to learn Danish, as far as I know. 
I think this shows a good attitude and hope others would learn from us on that point. 
What regional languages and politics are concerned, I think that Schleswig-Holstein still has the only ethno-political-party in Europe that was founded by two different ethnic groups together. Even though it is off-topic I wanted to mention this, basically this thread has to do with attitudes towards other cultures living side-by-side in the same area.


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## sokol

I appreciate what you had to say on the situation in Spain: the question being, do indeed some people in Spain (from either side, it doesn't matter) push 'matters too far' so that problems occur which are due to the linguistic situation?

(As for your comment on the difference between dialect and language, though it's off topic here, strictly, I'd just like to comment with a few words: the definition of a linguistic variety as either 'language' or 'dialect' is absolutely arbitrary - it is a _political _decision, _not _a linguistic one, not in the least. See for example Luxemburg, a country that has decided to develop its dialect into a language - the difference is one of _status,_ not one of linguistic distance. It would be equally easy to develop Plattdeutsch, Schwiizertütsch or Austrian German into national or regional language, no problem at all here - in fact, all three of them could develop several regional languages, and the Swiss in a way already have done so.)


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## chics

sokol said:


> What I wanted to express was language politics, meaning:
> - if someone speaks only Spanish and never Catalan in Barcelona, do others think that he is against emancipation of Catalan, of broadening domains for Catalan?


*No*, he's considerer uneducated and rude, he won't never be considerer as a part of our community but as a not welcomed outsider or visitor. But we won't know anything about his political tencencies, neither what he thinks about Catalan or Spanish.
What would you think of a person that lives in Germany but do not want to speak in Germany?


sokol said:


> - further, if someone speaks Catalan only in Barcelona and insists on always speaking Catalan even if the opponent obviously does not understand Catalan very well, is this person considered being against using Spanish at all in Catalonia even though it might be that this person might have no active command of Castellano?


*Not at all*.
The question here is, why the other person doesn't speak Catalan? if he's tourist, for example, it'll be considered rude for a Catalan person to answer him in Catalan, and as I said before *I just never haven't seen it*. I'd be a problem of narrow mind (we said it also many times before in this thread...), not politics of language.
But it could happened that he had met a lot of rude narrow-minded only-Spanish speakers and that this Catalan person is simply  to find another one.

Also: in Catalonia it's *normal* to have bilingual conversations and change language. It's also normal that, in a same conversation of three people, one person talk in Catalan to one person and Spanish to another. It's also normal to have a conversation in which one person speak in Catalan and the other person in Spanish.

At school and university it's normal if a teacher speaks in Catalan but writes in Spanish on the blackboard, students that writte their notes in Spanish although the teacher is speaking Catalan and students who write in Catalan when a teacher speaks in Spanish. Etc.

There aren't any politics there.

By the way, at public universities in Spain, teachers are *free* to explain their lessons in the language that they prefer. It means that in all public universities in Catalonia, Comunitat Valenciana, Balears, Galicia and Pais Vasco there will be classes that aren't in Spanish. In Barcelona (Bilbao and other places) there are some private universities where classes are all of them in Spanish and also others where they're in English. If you want to go to a Spanish university _you should ask before in what languages are the classes given_ and if you want to take all of them in Spanish and in a public one you must go to a monolingual region.


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## sokol

chics said:


> *No*, he's considerer uneducated and rude, he won't never be considerer as a part of our community but as a not welcomed outsider or visitor. But we won't know anything about his political tencencies, neither what he thinks about Catalan or Spanish.


Again, this is *not in the least *about political orientation _but about opinions in what situation to use which language variety._
It might very well be that some people, even though Catalan speakers themselves, might consider it inappropriate to use Català e. g. at church or TV although they might be in favour of using Català and Català only in informal speech - this, of course, is just a guess as I am (see disclaimer above) not familiar at all with the linguistic stratification of Catalonia.

As for example: it would be considered rude in Switzerland if Swiss people from Zurich did move to Geneva and not acquire French properly - but it would be not required of them learning the local accent.
On the other hand, if Swiss people with French mothertongue would move to one of the German speaking _Kantons _it would be considered rude if they did not acquire *both *German standard language and the Kantonsdialekt = the dialect of the region.
This did cause some conflict there (I do not know for sure if the situation has changed in the last decade), though not really serious conflicts - it's just an example to illustrate so that you probably see what my point is.



chics said:


> What would you think of a person that lives in Germany but do not want to speak in Germany?


Well, I can't answer that one as I am not German but Austrian  but I'll answer for the Austrian situation: in Austria it would be too considered rude if one would not want to speak German; however, it would also be considered rude if someone would insist on speaking Standard German ('Hochdeutsch') with a German accent only (meaning 'Germany-German' of course), and in many regions it would be considered rude too if someone who likes to settle down here (so, tourists and temporary workers excluded, of course) would refuse to learn at least understanding if not speaking dialect, too.

But that's again beside the point as I am of one opinion with you that one should learn the language of a region where one wants to settle.



chics said:


> The question here is, why the other person doesn't speak Catalan? if he's tourist, for example, it'll be considered rude for a Catalan person to answer him in Catalan, and as I said before *I just never haven't seen it*.


Me neither. I was in Barcelona for three full days only and everyone was addressing me either in Castellano or (as seemingly it was obvious that I was a tourist) even English. The local population was very friendly to me really, I have no complaints at all. ;-)
(Well - one person, an older man who was very friendly and addressed us as he saw we had no idea at Collblanc metro station where to find Camp Nou, spoke to us in Català, or at least I think that's what it was; we only understood half of it, but just enough to find our way. My guess is that this man just wasn't used to speaking Castellano at all.)



chics said:


> Also: in Catalonia it's *normal* to have bilingual conversations and change language. It's also normal that, in a same conversation of three people, one person talk in Catalan to one person and Spanish to another. It's also normal to have a conversation in which one person speak in Catalan and the other person in Spanish.


If it is like that - meaning that there is no quarrell at all over the language variety used no matter which situation - then of course one could not speak of a schizoglossic situation.
It would just be bilingualism without any language conflict attached to it.

Though I doubt that it is possible for such a fully fledged bilingualism to exist _without any language conflict at all _it might just be that the conflict level in Catalonia is extremely low and barely noticeable - that's not for me to judge.

Nevertheless, this just answers my question from above what would happen if one would learn Català only and then move to, say, Barcelona: one would be considered rude and uneducated - and besides one wouldn't be able to participate in any informal conversation involving language switch. The same would be true the other way round (with knowledge of Spanish only).

So according to your posting, one would have to acquire active and passive competence in either Castellano or Català to 'survive' in Catalonia, and passive competence at least in the other variety.


----------



## Sepia

sokol said:


> I appreciate what you had to say on the situation in Spain: the question being, do indeed some people in Spain (from either side, it doesn't matter) push 'matters too far' so that problems occur which are due to the linguistic situation?
> 
> (As for your comment on the difference between dialect and language, though it's off topic here, strictly, I'd just like to comment with a few words: the definition of a linguistic variety as either 'language' or 'dialect' is absolutely arbitrary - it is a _political _decision, _not _a linguistic one, not in the least. See for example Luxemburg, a country that has decided to develop its dialect into a language - the difference is one of _status,_ not one of linguistic distance. It would be equally easy to develop Plattdeutsch, Schwiizertütsch or Austrian German into national or regional language, no problem at all here - in fact, all three of them could develop several regional languages, and the Swiss in a way already have done so.)


 

Yes, I really believe that they are at the fringe of reversing the situation in the same way as women's equal rights activists still have not realized that there are fields where women are overprivileged. 

In the Catalunya situation school dropout statistics speak for this. Furthermore, as a Mallorcan woman, a Catalan native speaker, said to me: "Sometimes it is taking it too far to be required to learn the local language", she said, pointing out that her husband was a Euskera native speaker, also spoke Castellano of course, but also had to learn Catalan to get a job as a teacher on Mallorca. 

I had to admit she was right, although I had never thought of that possibility.


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## ivanovic77

sokol said:


> Nevertheless, this just answers my question from above what would happen if one would learn Català only and then move to, say, Barcelona: one would be considered rude and uneducated - and besides one wouldn't be able to participate in any informal conversation involving language switch. The same would be true the other way round (with knowledge of Spanish only).
> 
> So according to your posting, one would have to acquire active and passive competence in either Castellano or Català to 'survive' in Catalonia, and passive competence at least in the other variety.


 
In Barcelona, you can get by without speaking a word of Catalan. You wouldn't be considered neither rude, nor stupid, nor derogatory toward Catalan-speakers, nor even politically-oriented whatsoever if you lived in Barcelona and your only language was Spanish. There are actually hundreds of thousands of people in Barcelona and metro area who don't speak a single word of Catalan. And believe me, they have a nice, normal, fulfilling life. Maybe they might encounter a few setbacks or problems if they applied for a 'public-facing' job or to work as a government official, but in most jobs you don't need to speak a word of Catalan. 

On the other hand, if you tried to get by with only Catalan as you've mentioned, you would most likely be seen as a weirdo, especially being a foreigner, and most people, even Catalan-speakers, would ask you again and again: "Whoa, how can you possibly speak only Catalan and not Spanish?!" (see panjabigator's post in previous pages).

Just to illustrate this latter point, the few times that I or anyone of my family have ever met someone from Perpignan or the Roussillon (a Catalan-speaking region in southern France), it was for us an amusing surprise to find out that they speak perfect Catalan (in their typical accent) but can't speak Spanish, which is normal as they are French citizens. But for us Catalan-speakers of Spain living in Barcelona, meeting a Catalan-speaker who doesn't know a word of Spanish is quite a memorable event.


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## sokol

ivanovic77 said:


> On the other hand, if you tried to get by with only Catalan as you've mentioned, you would most likely be seen as a weirdo, especially being a foreigner, and most people, even Catalan-speakers, would ask you again and again: "Whoa, how can you possibly speak only Catalan and not Spanish?!" (see panjabigator's post in previous pages).



This is what I expected - I would have been surprised would it have been different. (I tried very hard to get an answer like that one, didn't I?)

It's interesting insofar as one would not be _forced _to learn Catalan if moving to Barcelona, Spanish alone would suffice - on the other hand, to fully participate in society it would be beneficial to learn Catalan too.

In German speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, someone who would move there and _would not _learn dialect but only Standard German would be considered a weirdo.

In Québec, on the other hand, it would probably considered rather strange if someone would only speak English.

It's the differences between different language situations thats interesting: it's not the same everywhere in the world.


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## ivanovic77

sokol said:


> In German speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, someone who would move there and _would not _learn dialect but only Standard German would be considered a weirdo.
> 
> In Québec, on the other hand, it would probably considered rather strange if someone would only speak English.
> 
> It's the differences between different language situations thats interesting: it's not the same everywhere in the world.


 
Exactly, there are many factors (political, economic, historical, linguistic, demographic) that come into play when it comes to shape the linguistic attitudes and behaviour in a region.

In Switzerland, I guess one important factor could be that they are an independent sovereign country. They have a proud history and tradition of independence, which encourages Swiss people to demand that foreigners speak Swiss German. As for the French-speaking region of Switzerland, maybe in Geneva or Lausanne you can get by with France French because France French and Swiss French are linguistically closer than the Swiss German dialects and Hochdeutsch? That could be a reason, just guessing though.

Regarding the situation in Quebec, one crucial factor in there could be the mutual *un*intelligibility between English and French. The Catalan situation is quite different, since Spanish and Catalan are mutually intelligible and you can go by smoothly with only Spanish and a passive understanding of Catalan.

Lastly, I would like to add, regarding the situation in Catalonia, that while you can get by with being an only-Spanish-speaker, speaking Catalan is considered socially prestigious. Therefore, for any intelligent foreigner that wished to move here, I would strongly recommend them to learn Catalan, of course. A perfect bilingual person in Catalonia will always get more respect, smiles and prestige than a monolingual one.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

ivanovic77 said:


> Lastly, I would like to add, regarding the situation in Catalonia, that while you can get by with being an only-Spanish-speaker, speaking Catalan is considered socially prestigious. Therefore, for any intelligent foreigner that wished to move here, I would strongly recommend them to learn Catalan, of course. A perfect bilingual person in Catalonia will always get more respect, smiles and prestige than a monolingual one.


 
Amen. 

Thank you, Ivanovic!  Moltes gràcies


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## Chaska Ñawi

ivanovic77 said:


> Regarding the situation in Quebec, one crucial factor in there could be the mutual *un*intelligibility between English and French.



Actually, the languages tend to blur a little in areas of Quebec with a large anglo population, such as Montreal.  The same happens in areas of New Brunswick with a large Acadian population.  English vocabulary creeps into French (je mets un pullover, par example) and vice versa (Quebec anglophones spend a week at the chalet, not the cottage).  In addition, in these areas many people understand much more than they speak of the other language.

The only cases I've seen in Canada where people have moved to another area and still not learned the language are older people.  These people have moved to Canada to be with their children and grandchildren, but sometimes have difficulty mastering the new language.  They typically live with their children, don't get out much because they're worried about their language skills, don't get exposure to English or French, don't improve their language skills, don't go out, and so on and so forth.  In some areas the immigrant community offers everything they need in their own language (there is, for example, a huge Chinese community in Toronto, with its own newspapers and radio stations), so there is even less motivation.


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## sokol

ivanovic77 said:


> They have a proud history and tradition of independence, which encourages Swiss people to demand that foreigners speak Swiss German. As for the French-speaking region of Switzerland, maybe in Geneva or Lausanne you can get by with France French because France French and Swiss French are linguistically closer than the Swiss German dialects and Hochdeutsch?


In fact it's more due to attitudes rather than linguistic difference (though it's true that the latter applies too): Swiss German only was seen as the _true _Swiss German national language with the rise of Hitler. There was no similar need to differentiate themselves from the French.

Since World War II the prestige of Swiss German dialects has increased continuously and it might today even be considered an unloyal act not to try and learn Swiss dialects - that's my guess, probably someone Swiss could comment on that.

In Austria, a similar situation arose but later - only after World War II, and the positive attitude towards Austrian dialects never reached the same level as in Switzerland but still is a factor all over the country, though this positive attitude towards dialects is stronger in some reagions (and weaker especially in the east).
From this follows that in Austria it would be important for foreigners moving there to try and learn first what the attitudes towards dialects in their immediate surroundings are and adapt linguistic behaviour according to their surroundings: this sounds rather complicated and, in fact, *is *rather complicated. ;-)


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## MarX

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> As for Valencians and Majorcans stating that they do not speak Catalan, I'd say this is more of a Valencian thing. Most Majorcans say that they speak Majorcan but are aware it's their way of speaking Catalan.


 
I've heard about this before, but from my personal experience, _all_ Valencian speakers i've met admitted that they speak the same language as Catalan. They just don't call it that way.


Now back to the topic.
When I was in Manado two weeks ago, I realized that *Bahasa Manado* is still spoken everywhere, but more and more Indonesian words are used.
Nevertheless, the non-natives do acquire *Bahasa Manado*, and most start to use it unconsiously in their daily life.


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## Nikola

cuchuflete said:


> I've been following this thread, and thinking about what I would or should do if I were to
> move within my own country, and even within my own small state of Maine.  Near the Canadian border, and within my own state, there are towns where most people speak French.  What doesn't matter at all is that it is not the same French as spoken in Europe, or that it may be significantly different from the Quebecois spoken in Montreal.  For me, it is simply a new language.  It is spoken in the same country that mostly uses the English that is native to me. Putting a label on that particular version of French, be it 'regional' or 'local' or 'dialect' really misses the point.
> 
> I assume I could manage perfectly well using English and nothing else.  This would not be a good idea for two reasons.  First, I would deny my new neighbors the courtesy they deserve.  Second, and perhaps a good deal more important to me, I would deny myself the ability to get to know and to be a part of my new home community.



 In the US French is a regional language. In Louisiana French has been a minority language for centuries. In areas of New  England, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire and a few counties in Michigan there are native speakers of French born in the US.
  Prior to the twentieth century many non French speakers who moved to French speaking areas adopted the language if they moved to a majority French speaking area.
  Especially in Louisiana French became associated with illiteracy since most French monolinguals were illiterate. Children were punished in school if they spoke French.
  So the language was in decline. I want to add that until the 1960 s French was the most widely taught language in the US, currently it is number two after Spanish. Most students who study a language in the US can not really speak it.
  In the 1970s French speakers in Louisiana realized that their language was endangered.
  Most monolinguals were very old and many of the younger generation only spoke English fluently. Language instructors were brought in from France Belgium and Canada to revive the language. Today‘s younger generation has a growing number of speakers, including many who are not of French descent. Of course in addition to the use of the language being useful regionally French is an important language in a global economy so that is also an important factor. In The French speaking areas the population of fluent French speakers ranges from 4% to over 70 percent. The French in the areas I spoke of is as Cuchuflete said different in some ways from other French it is mostly Acadian French originally from Nova Scotia CA. It is related to the French spoken in New Brunswick CA. In the New England states there has also been immigration from Quebec so that has had some influence on the local French. Also the study of French has allowed most people to be able to communicate with international French speakers. The University of  LA offers courses not only in standard French but in the local dialect. The Acadians now have a world congress and Americans and Canadians meet for cultural exchanges. There is a growing interest in these people and their culture in the areas where they live and in their music in other areas. The music is sung in both French and English. In conclusion 
  People of French and non French descent are learning the language in areas where it is spoken, however it is still a minority language in the states where it is spoken even if it is in a majority in some towns and counties.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Here's an additional observation to the one I made a year ago re the Chinese immigrant population in Toronto.  

When I go to Toronto I make a point of stocking up on interesting groceries, something best done in the big Chinese super-groceries.  When I first started to do this 8 years or so ago, the staff conversed among themselves in Cantonese, but could communicate with me in English.  A couple of years ago, I began to encounter monolingual staff, but they were quite willing to communicate by pointing and handsigns.  I've never seen other caucasians in these stores, but was always quite comfortable.

This week was different.  I encountered someone at the fish counter who spoke some very limited English, and who made it obvious that he resented my presence.  He refused to wait on me until there was obviously nobody else he could serve (and I had planted myself in front of him).  As soon as somebody else appeared, he dropped me in mid-order and served them.  When I asked him if there were a bathroom in the mall, he said "No" and turned his back (there was, in fact, a bathroom in the same aisle).

I want to emphasize that he is the only "xenophobe" I've ever met in the huge Chinese population in Toronto.  However, one does wonder if the next step in refusing to learn the regional language, wherever you are, is a growing resentment of people who enter your enclave.  It sounds as if this is also becoming the case in Spain, at least.


----------



## stevea

Orpington said:


> How about a country like Wales, where almost everyone speaks English, but a substantial minority can speak Welsh?


 
I'm 100% Welsh but can't speak the language. We had to try and learn some in school but like any other attempt at learning, you need native speakers for it to be successful. It is a difficult language. In some parts of Wales however it is absolutely necessary to be able to speak it in order to get on. If you find yourself wanting to live in such an area then you'd better think about learning the language - e.g. North West Wales. In vast parts of the country, we wouldn't take it as being rude if foreigners couldn't speak the language.


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## Sepia

Chaska Ñawi said:


> ...
> 
> I want to emphasize that he is the only "xenophobe" I've ever met in the huge Chinese population in Toronto. However, one does wonder if the next step in refusing to learn the regional language, wherever you are, is a growing resentment of people who enter your enclave. It sounds as if this is also becoming the case in Spain, at least.


 
In the coastal regions and on the islands you could actually run into that problem when approaching Germans or British who run businesses there, and you were speaking one of the official languages. 

And it is not that they are all to old or too stupid to learn. A friend of mine - aprox. 30-35 years of age, a GP with a doctor's degree - moved to Mallorca some four years ago, runs a clinic with her German partners; still doesn't speak Spanish. And there are lots and lots of others like her.


----------



## stevea

As far as learning Welsh is concerned, I'm 100% Welsh and have lived there all my life. We had to learn the language up to the age of 14 but without Welsh speakers in the family it was virtually impossible. For about 30 years or so, Welsh schools have sprung up so there are more speakers and bi-lingual facilities are compulsory in most public situations. In many parts of North West Wales you would find Welsh as the first language and if moving there learning Welsh would probably be a good idea. For many other parts, having to learn Welsh would not be an issue. In our part of Wales our accents aren't Welsh either and it has caused a few problems at times. Some years ago a few friends and myself were in Bangor and got some criticism from bar staff because of this. We received our order and replied "Diolch yn fawr iawn" (thank you very much). This was met with "Pardon me?". Apparently the bar staff had the accent but didn't even know basic phrases which made us feel a lot better.


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## Diaspora

US doesn't have an official language de jure because 99% of the population speaks an immigrant tongue. English is the most common one and required in order to function in society. However, driver's license exams are multi-lingual and other languages are often used in court rooms. Newcomers generally learn Standard American English, no emphasis is based on dialects. For example, I speak perfect English since first grade but when in public with my family I speak only Serbo-Croatian.

English spoken in southern states is very distinct and is considered a marker of regional pride. English spoken by African-Americans is also distinct and a sensitive political topic, I personally know immigrants who learned African American English instead of General English because they grew up in black neighborhoods. Some view Black English as wrong and incorrect, but the response is, why is Anglo English more "right"? Is it anglo-racism? There have been recent attempts to equate Anglo with being American.

In some parts of the US, Spanish is a very important regional language and it would be a good idea to learn it. Such places are Puerto Rico, Miami, Southern California, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.


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## Frank78

Diaspora said:


> US doesn't have an official language de jure because 99% of the population speaks an immigrant tongue. English is the most common one and required in order to function in society. However, driver's license exams are multi-lingual and other languages are often used in court rooms. Newcomers generally learn Standard American English, no emphasis is based on dialects. For example, I speak perfect English since first grade but when in public with my family I speak only Serbo-Croatian.
> 
> English spoken in southern states is very distinct and is considered a marker of regional pride. English spoken by African-Americans is also distinct and a sensitive political topic, I personally know immigrants who learned African American English instead of General English because they grew up in black neighborhoods. Some view Black English as wrong and incorrect, but the response is, why is Anglo English more "right"? Is it anglo-racism? There have been recent attempts to equate Anglo with being American.
> 
> In some parts of the US, Spanish is a very important regional language and it would be a good idea to learn it. Such places are Puerto Rico, Miami, Southern California, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.



I´m sorry to disagree, but "offical language" is a states issue in the US, various states have an official language while others don´t have one. I think Texas was the latest state passing a bill that English becomes official language.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...ial_language.svg&filetimestamp=20070630192313

On Federal level there´s just the rule that laws have to be published in English


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## JamesM

Diaspora said:


> US doesn't have an official language de jure because 99% of the population speaks an immigrant tongue.


 
I think this is a pretty wild exaggeration.  According to statistics found here, 83% of the U.S. population reports English as their first language.


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## Diaspora

English is an immigrant tongue from England.


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## mirx

Diaspora said:


> English is an immigrant tongue from England.



On those same grounds the USA is an "invention" of England, so both the State and the language are immigrant.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Moderator note:  Please address the original topic.



> In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
> 
> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?



Thanks for your cooperation.


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## wonderlicious

I think quite a lot of people who aren't native speakers of a certain language imitate the locals when they go there. I know of a French woman who lives in the North of England and tends to pronounce the "u" as a Northerner would. When it comes to completely different languages and dialects, however, it truly depends on the situation.

I've moved to Munich for a few months, and I've started to use some Bavarian terms quite a bit (auf Wiederschaung, Grüß Gott/dich/euch etc). I've noticed that not a huge deal of people speak real Bavarian (as in something more than accented Hochdeutsch with little nuances). Therefore, I've not learnt the regional dialect aside from the odd word or two.

When I was living in Strasbourg, I didn't learn any Alsatian at all, as pretty much everybody spoke French and only that (and I was there to learn French anyway). There didn't appear to be any objection to this, but then again, only 10% of young Alsatians can speak it, and I can't imagine many living in Strassy itself (actually, I don't think I even heard older adults speaking it).

I would probably learn Swiss-German or Catalan were I to move to Switzerland or Catalonia, respectively, since otherwise, I'd get nowhere(my vist to Basel left me like this: ). Equally, I would truly improve my basic knowledge of Dutch if I were to move to the Netherlands or even Flanders out of respect (despite the fact that it seems most people in the Low Countries can speak English fluently).

And aside from perhaps a few little cultural things, I wouldn't go to another part of the Anglosphere and completely change my accent and dialect.


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## brian

I grew up in southern Louisiana, and my stepmother is Cajun. Her grandparents' first language was Cajun French, which they then spoke with their children (her parents). Unfortunately, her parents did not pass the language down to her and her siblings, for various reasons, so she herself does not speak it.

My father met my stepmother when I was still young (under 10), so I've been _around_ Cajun French for most of my life, but I never learned it for one main reason: most of the native Cajun French speakers are in their 50s or 60s or older and tend to speak it *only amongst themselves*, never with anyone younger (hence why their kids never learned it).

For me this created an interesting situation. I grew up thinking that Cajun French was what the "grown-ups" or "old people" spoke, and English was for the younger people (the rest of us). For example, as a kid I would sometimes overhear some of the older people talking in French, and it seemed like something I was not supposed to be a part of.

So to address the topic of this thread: I personally don't know whether it would be well received for a non-Cajun to come here and try to speak Cajun French. To me, it would really seem like this person were overstepping the boundary, trying to cross into a sort of age- and culture-restricted group. Plus, there's a good chance that the person (if he or she is, say 40 years old or younger) won't speak it.

In short, I personally have never tried speaking Cajun French here, and I would almost feel intrusive doing so. BUT it could just be due to my personal upbringing -- there are indeed efforts in many parts of southern Louisiana, e.g. at Louisiana State University, to get people (even non-Cajuns!) to learn the language.


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## MkRoz

According *to your question:*
_if you live in a region *where the language spoken* is different to the rest of the country, would you find it *rude if someone spoke only the country's main language? *_
*******************************************************************************************
In Spain*-In Galicia-*From the village (very traditional) I´m coming from *"Mother side";* When *we see people* that they don´t speak *Galego*, we accept them and we help them; *We consider that* "*It´s ok! you don´t have to learn.. if you are not living here forever or you are not with us*" (just a very *traditional way of thinking!!-to keep and protect our traditions!*)

**********************************************************************************************

*MkRoz*


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## Pedro y La Torre

I responded, briefly, to this thread a few years ago but my attitudes have changed since then, so I will try to offer a more in-depth opinion.



LMorland said:


> I'm glad somebody brought up Ireland, because that's the one minority language I've tried to learn to speak (and failed, up till now). I studied Old Irish for two years and Modern Irish for another two years before going to spend two weeks in the Kerry Gaeltacht (_gaeltacht = Irish Gaelic speaking area)_.
> 
> The problem is that, not unlike the Catalonians in Barcelona, everyone there is bilingual. So if you're in a store and trying to work your way around the grammar (completely unlike that of English) and pronunciation (not easy, as the consonants in words change depending on the words preceding them), it can require a lot of patience on the part of the shopkeeper. Since both of you speak English fluently, there's not much motivation on the part of the locals to suffer through your feeble beginner's efforts.
> 
> The situation is much better in the Donegal Gaeltacht, I'm told, because an excellent summer school has taken place there for decades now, and the locals are habituated to helping out the language learners -- who come from all over Europe, by the way.
> 
> The difference between Ireland and Wales is due to politics, I think. In Wales, it's a renegade act to speak Welsh, because the English in London are in charge; Wales doesn't even have its own parliament. So -- along with other acts of nationalism such as covering over English-language road signs and painting letter boxes green -- learning and speaking Welsh is "cool" and a way of "sticking it to the man".
> 
> It's 180 degrees the opposite in Ireland.  There _the government forces every schoolchild to study the language.  _It's a difficult language, and often badly taught.  Further, if you fail Irish, you won't get a leaving cert.  So the students _hate it -- _until they find themselves on a train in England and want to make fun of the codger in the seat opposite. Or until they marry and want to say things in front of the children that they won't understand. (I've heard both examples many times.)
> 
> So, if you should move to an Irish-speaking area of Ireland, you'll always be an outsider if you don't learn Irish ... but it won't be easy in the beginning!



That is a near-perfect analysis of the situation in Ireland. The language is generally *very* badly taught and imposed from on high, therefore most young people rebel against it and/or refuse to learn it. It must be said the government has made it very easy to at least _pass_ the Irish language exam in the Leaving Cert, thus preventing outright rebellion - if the examiners did their job correctly, I'm sure a huge minority would fail (I know I would have).

That being said, having left school, I feel real regret about my inability to master Irish. It's the same for most Irish people I know, especially those of us living abroad. The Irish language is an essential part of our culture but most of us only realize it when we've left the education system, and by then, it's too late.

A feeling of backwardness and shame also plays into it. In the past, Irish was seen as the language of peasants and poverty. English, on the other hand, was the ticket to America, a good job and all the prosperity that comes with it. These attitudes have changed greatly in the last few years, but vestiges remain. You would really struggle to hear someone speaking Irish in Dublin City, for example. Indeed, there was a television report a few years ago about two people who were speaking Irish on a bus in Dublin city centre and a Dublin-bred philistine, presumably thinking they were conversing in an Eastern European language, told them to "_go back to your own fucking country_"!

In the (Irish-speaking) west of the country, the attitude is somewhat different. There, after a period of huge decline, Irish has come back into fashion and even young people are proud to speak it amongst each other. Indeed, having recently been in Galway, I saw (and heard) Irish in many places, even encountering an old barman who could not speak English! He admittedly lived in a rather lost village in the Connemara Gaeltacht, but I was happy to see such people still exist, without them the last vestiges of native Gaelic culture are gone forever.

In closing, if you are going to live in the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland, it would be highely desirable to learn the language if you wish to integrate - the people there are relatively closed but if you speak the language, you'll be accepted very quickly. Speaking for the rest of Ireland though, especially Dublin, it's probably not worth the hassle, unless of course you are moved to learn it.


----------



## SDLX Master

In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
_The official language in Peru is Spanish and mostly everyone uses it. However, inland in the mountains people speak "Quechua" which is the old language spoken by the first Peruvian civilizations, and up in the jungle, people speak their own dialects, being "Aymara" one of them. If you are ever in need to move to a city or small town, people will speak Spanish, but if you have to move to areas away from towns (especially applicable to missionaires, literacy program volunteers, etc), you will have to do your best to pick up the language, as very few people will speak Spanish. _

Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language? 
_Not at all. Regardless of the linguistic code that is used, the truly important issue here is "communication"._


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## Ritoha

I moved to an area in Spain where we had to learn Spanish, i did not expect people to understand English and always apologised for my poor Spanish.I never encountered problems, people were only too willing to put up with my bad pronunciation or to correct my errors and this I appreciated and still do. Yes, i believe that you should make the effort, you are guest in another country,their is no obligation on their part to speak another language even if they do! Nothing annoys me more than to go somewhere to find a person from the U.K. ranting and raving because he can't make the person understand what he wants. I normally help them out whilst explaining in no uncertain terms that he can't expect to live here without learning, at least, the basics! These people are the first to complain in the U.K. about all the "foreigners" that have lived their for 40 yrs. and still don't speak a word of English!


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## Hulalessar

Orpington said:


> A Catalan friend of mine said many Catalans find it rude that people from Castillian-speaking areas of Spain do not bother to learn Catalan if they move to Catalonia.
> 
> Also, I have family in Wales, and they express the same kind of feeling, although not as strong.
> 
> In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
> 
> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?



In what follows Catalan, Cataluña and Spanish can be replaced by Welsh, Wales and English respectively.

I think that the Catalan-speaking Catalans who are keen to see Spanish immigrants to Cataluña learn Catalan ought to bear in mind the following:

1. In no small measure because in the past Catalan has been discouraged, if not actively suppressed, they see Catalan as an important part, if not the defining part, of their culture. Those who speak “power” languages like Spanish do not look on their language in quite the same way. The fact they have a different attitude does not mean they are unreconstructed falangists who want to destroy Catalan language and culture.

2. It is estimated that to acquire a basic command of a language needs a minimum of 100 hours of instruction and 200 hundred hours of private study. If the language is to be learned in a year that means an average of 6 hours of study a week. That is a lot of time for a working person with a family to commit to learning a language.

3. The incentive to make the effort is not great. The simple fact is that you can survive perfectly well in Cataluña without speaking Catalan. Indeed, is it not the case that a monolingual Catalan speaker would be at rather more of a disadvantage in many fields than a monolingual Spanish speaker?

4. Language is above all about communication. It always has to make sense for two people to talk to each other in a language that will achieve the highest level of understanding. Does it really matter what language people speak?


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## Mishe

Hulalessar said:


> 4. Language is above all about communication. It always has to make sense for two people to talk to each other in a language that will achieve the highest level of understanding. Does it really matter what language people speak?




Hmm, that's a completely different, but very interesting topic. Of course languages were _made _for communication, but a language also means a particular culture and in many instances identity. Every language also carries its particular point of view, if you know what I mean. But in examples like Catalonia, language is a strong indicator of identity.


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## Sepia

Of course it is about communication AND identity. But I know what it feels like to go into a store in my own country only to realize that nobody in the store really cares or are able to speak the one and only official language. No this I consider pure arrogant stupidity on the part of immigrants that will not integrate themselves in our society. I have not had this happen too often. 

But imagine you go into a store, or even has to deal with authorities like tax department or police, and nobody speaks the language you know the best - the language that your parents and grandparents spoke and told you stories in when you were little, the language in which you feel comfortable enough to tell your girlfried you love her. This is all about communication but also about identity. Fine, if you are an immigrant, you'll have to cope with that situation, but imagine you are not an immigrant and all those people who do not understand your language are the ones who moved voluntarily or were send into the region where you live. 

Sure, people who are native català speakers can speak castellano well, but that does not change the situation that this may not be the language he likes to tell jokes in when he has had a few beers at a party, maybe the jokes aren't really funny in castellano - and maybe speaking castellano reminds him to much of work or whatever. And it will be the same for a lot of other people who lives in a region where they speak a different language than they do in the rest of the country. 

So of course I would want to learn also the regional language where I live. To be part of life there.


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## ernest_

Hulalessar said:


> In what follows Catalan, Cataluña and Spanish can be replaced by Welsh, Wales and English respectively.
> 
> I think that the Catalan-speaking Catalans who are keen to see Spanish immigrants to Cataluña learn Catalan ought to bear in mind the following:
> 
> 1. In no small measure because in the past Catalan has been discouraged, if not actively suppressed, they see Catalan as an important part, if not the defining part, of their culture. Those who speak “power” languages like Spanish do not look on their language in quite the same way. The fact they have a different attitude does not mean they are unreconstructed falangists who want to destroy Catalan language and culture.
> 
> 2. It is estimated that to acquire a basic command of a language needs a minimum of 100 hours of instruction and 200 hundred hours of private study. If the language is to be learned in a year that means an average of 6 hours of study a week. That is a lot of time for a working person with a family to commit to learning a language.
> 
> 3. The incentive to make the effort is not great. The simple fact is that you can survive perfectly well in Cataluña without speaking Catalan. Indeed, is it not the case that a monolingual Catalan speaker would be at rather more of a disadvantage in many fields than a monolingual Spanish speaker?
> 
> 4. Language is above all about communication. It always has to make sense for two people to talk to each other in a language that will achieve the highest level of understanding. Does it really matter what language people speak?



Well, we all know that learning a language takes quite a lot of effort. The thing is that it takes the same effort for a Catalan speaker to learn Spanish, than for a Spanish-speaker to learn Catalan. If I make the effort to learn your language I expect you to do the same and learn mine.


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## Hulalessar

ernest_ said:


> Well, we all know that learning a language takes quite a lot of effort. The thing is that it takes the same effort for a Catalan speaker to learn Spanish, than for a Spanish-speaker to learn Catalan.



To be honest I do not think that this is really the case at all. There are few monolingual Catalan speakers. The fact is that native Catalan speakers are just as immersed in Spanish as they are in Catalan and no doubt from an early age. Indeed, I would suggest that it must be difficult not to learn Spanish. Language is easily acquired when you are young. My godson went to Spain when he was nine speaking no Spanish at all but very soon picked it up. After a time many Spanish people could not believe he had not been brought up in Spain. When I asked him how he learned Spanish he said, "I'm not sure really."



ernest_ said:


> If I make the effort to learn your language I expect you to do the same and learn mine.



To the extent you have made the effort it cannot be compared at all with the effort that an incomer needs to make. If you are brought up in Madrid or Seville you have no exposure to Catalan. There may be little incentive if you can manage perfectly well without it and have a lot of other things to worry about. It is a fact of life that necessity is the mother of language learning.

Here is a question for you: if your work took you to Bilbao or Santiago de Compostela and you expected to remain there a while, can you put your hand on your heart and say you would take the trouble to learn Basque or Gallego?


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## Hulalessar

Mishe said:


> But in examples like Catalonia, language is a strong indicator of identity.





Sepia said:


> Of course it is about communication AND identity.



The problem is when it becomes the sole or main indicator of identity. People are in danger of losing a sense of proportion. It is quite possible to have a strong sense of identity not based on language. The part of Spain that can be said to be more different than all the others is Andalucía. The sense of identity there is not based on language.

The history of Spain under Franco is partly a history of the suppression of regional identity and languages (though oddly some essentially Andalusian features such as flamenco were adopted). The reaction against that is perfectly understandable, but it can go to far.

Humans developed language so they could communicate with each other. Communication is its prime function.


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## jmx

Hulalessar said:


> Here is a question for you: if your work took you to Bilbao or Santiago de Compostela and you expected to remain there a while, can you put your hand on your heart and say you would take the trouble to learn Basque or Gallego?


Just as a side note, the language spoken natively in Bilbao is Spanish, not Basque; it has been that way for at least several centuries. Santiago is not a very good example either... it would take long to explain.


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## Miguel Antonio

jmartins said:


> Just as a side note, the language spoken natively in Bilbao is Spanish, not Basque; it has been that way for at least several centuries. Santiago is not a very good example either... it would take long to explain.


It would also take too long to explain why I don't agree totally to the above statement, though I'm curious to learn why you say Santiago is not a good example.

When I was a child, the language you used in Galicia set the difference in social standing, not to say class. But regular non-speakers of Galician where by no means 100% Castilian monolinguals, and viceversa, though speaking Spanish with a strong Galician accent was enough to be ridiculed all over Spain. Long story (starts back in the 16th century)

To put it in a nutshell, the majority of Galicians (to the best of my knowledge, I haven't actually counted them) couldn't care less whether you attempt to learn the language or not. Older generations might find it amusing, and younger ones will certainly appreciate the effort, but no one is going to be discriminated for not speaking or trying to learn Galician.

As has been stated in other posts above, the ultimate purpose is communication, regardless of the language you choose to use.


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## Hulalessar

Miguel Antonio said:


> When I was a child, the language you used in Galicia set the difference in social standing, not to say class.



25 years ago I met a Galician and asked if he spoke Gallego. He laughed and said it was only spoken by peasants and intellectuals.


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## ernest_

> To the extent you have made the effort it cannot be compared at all with the effort that an incomer needs to make. If you are brought up in Madrid or Seville you have no exposure to Catalan. There may be little incentive if you can manage perfectly well without it and have a lot of other things to worry about. It is a fact of life that necessity is the mother of language learning.


Sorry, but no. I didn't magically learn Spanish, as you seem to suggest. And like me, the bulk of Catalan speakers. The fact that I was exposed to Spanish since I was a child made it easier, granted, but I still had to spend a lot of time learning to speak it. Did I do it because it was fun, or because I had incentives? Hardly. How is my situation not comparable to a monolingual Spaniard that comes from other parts of Spain I don't know, unless of course you asume my time is worthless and their's isn't.



> Here is a question for you: if your work took you to Bilbao or Santiago de Compostela and you expected to remain there a while, can you put your hand on your heart and say you would take the trouble to learn Basque or Gallego?


I would learn Basque or Gallician, otherwise I wouldn't move there in the first place.



Hulalessar said:


> The problem is when it becomes the sole or main indicator of identity.



The problem for whom?



> People are in danger of losing a sense of proportion. It is quite possible to have a strong sense of identity not based on language. The part of Spain that can be said to be more different than all the others is Andalucía. The sense of identity there is not based on language.


It's certainly possible.



> The history of Spain under Franco is partly a history of the suppression of regional identity and languages (though oddly some essentially Andalusian features such as flamenco were adopted). The reaction against that is perfectly understandable, but it can go to far.


Can go too far, according to whom?



> Humans developed language so they could communicate with each other. Communication is its prime function.


So is reproduction the main function of sex. Yet I know many people, including my self, that have sex for purposes other than reproduction. Have we lost the sense of proportion? Have we gone too far? Please explain.


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## Hulalessar

ernest_ said:


> Sorry, but no. I didn't magically learn Spanish, as you seem to suggest. And like me, the bulk of Catalan speakers. The fact that I was exposed to Spanish since I was a child made it easier, granted, but I still had to spend a lot of time learning to speak it. Did I do it because it was fun, or because I had incentives? Hardly. How is my situation not comparable to a monolingual Spaniard that comes from other parts of Spain I don't know, unless of course you asume my time is worthless and their's isn't.



Obviously I do not know your personal circumstances, for example whether you were brought up in a small village where all the everyday communications were in Catalan or in a flat overlooking the Ramblas. Whatever your situation, you must have absorbed a huge amount of Spanish spongelike - not like the way you learned English (assuming you learned it at school). Of course you had Spanish lessons at school and it may be that as you became aware of your Catalan identity you resented it. No Madrileño is brought up in circumstances like yours, that is in a bilingual community. It just does not compare.

Let me ask you this question: at what could you have moved to Madrid and not been at a disadvantage language wise?



ernest_ said:


> The problem for whom?
> 
> Can go too far, according to whom?
> 
> So is reproduction the main function of sex. Yet I know many people, including my self, that have sex for purposes other than reproduction. Have we lost the sense of proportion? Have we gone too far? Please explain.



Google "language riots" and you will turn up over 7000 pages. Hitler annexed the Sudetenland just because the majority of the inhabitants spoke German. Languages can cause problems and be used by the unscrupulous for political ends.

30 years ago in Vitoria only one per cent of the population spoke Basque. Now you cannot get a job there in public administration if you do not speak Basque. In some areas of employment in Cataluña Catalan speakers are paid more than non-Catalan speakers who do the same job. This sort of thing is not right. Monolingual Spanish speakers accept it because they do want to be seen to be in conflict with prevailing fashion, which is that minority language rights must be respected. And it is a fashion. Throughout the 19th century and the early part of the 20th liberal thinking, influenced by the Enlightenment, was the opposite of what it is now. It was felt that people were at a disadvantage if they only spoke a regional language. When S. America won its independence only thirty per cent of the population spoke Spanish. It was promoted by the new governments. The colonial authorities never promoted it. Indeed the church actively discouraged it and promoted the indigenous languages.

Do not get me wrong. I do not believe that regional languages should be discouraged. The extent to which they are promoted must be a matter for the people who live in the regions. They must though take care that a "we are the masters now" attitude is not adopted and the rights of those who speak a "power" language are not affected just because it is a power language.

I like your analogy with sex and have much sympathy with it since I am gay! Indeed being gay I know what it is to be part of a minority and you will find me on the barricades defending minority rights. When fighting for minority rights you need to keep a sense of proportion, take people with you slowly, win them over with sound arguments. You need to think things through. Language is important, but not that important compared to the other things we need to worry about. Even if there is one day a monolingual Catalan speaking Cataluña you will still need to put bread on the table.


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## Epilio

Hulalessar said:


> Google "language riots" and you will turn up over 7000 pages. Hitler annexed the Sudetenland just because the majority of the inhabitants spoke German. Languages can cause problems and be used by the unscrupulous for political ends.



Come on... Hitler?.



> 30 years ago in Vitoria only one per cent of the population spoke Basque. Now you cannot get a job there in public administration if you do not speak Basque
> In some areas of employment in Cataluña Catalan speakers are paid more than non-Catalan speakers who do the same job. This sort of thing is not right. Monolingual Spanish speakers accept it because they do want to be seen to be in conflict with prevailing fashion, which is that minority language rights must be respected. And it is a fashion. Throughout the 19th century and the early part of the 20th liberal thinking, influenced by the Enlightenment, was the opposite of what it is now. It was felt that people were at a disadvantage if they only spoke a regional language.


The Catalan Renaixença is an old movement. In fact it was developed in the 19th century and the Basque nationalist movement arose in that era too. I mean, it's not something new and it doesn't seem to be just a fashion. 

Anyway, I agree with the idea that it's a disadvantage to speak just one language, but that's not what happens nowadays and I think not many people wishes it. The Basque Country and Catalonia are bilingual societies (well, I'm lying; in BC Spanish speakers are majority).

Personally I understand Catalans and Basques when they complain about the current state of their languages and their future, but despite of this they're luckier than me. I'm from Asturias, a region where two languages are spoken; Spanish and Asturian. The last one is the native language, developed from the vulgar Latin and spoken there since the Middle Age when was created the first Christian Kingdom in Spain. 

My mother's tongue has been repressed over the centuries, and above all the last century during the Francoist dictatorship. Its situation is dramatic and unfortunately it's still viewed as a farmworkers languages, totally useless in these globalist days. I don't pretend to implement reverse discrimination against Spanish because I'm aware of its usefulness, but I just demand a little respect for a millenarian language that tries to survive in a highly hostile context. It's a dreadful task since I live in a region where the politicians have grown up surrounded by the prejudices against Asturian language, which they extend to the rest of population, with a passive civil society with no interest in its history and culture and with the pressure of the monolingual media. It would be fine if the idea of superior and inferior languages was banished. It's not to hoist the flag of an impervious regionalism, unable of seeing beyond its navel.



> When S. America won its independence only thirty per cent of the population spoke Spanish. It was promoted by the new governments. The colonial authorities never promoted it. Indeed the church actively discouraged it and promoted the indigenous languages.


Well, their Enlightenment was partial. 

The new creoles governments also exterminated many native Americans communities (the conquest of the Patagonia wasn't made with kisses and flowers) and they also damaged the rights of those who survived (including native Americans and Africans slaves; surprisingly the metropolis wanted to grant extend right to the black community and they fought to avoid the creole rulers who needed a docile labor force to perpetuate their socio-economic position). Their promotion of Spanish was miserable, seeking the alienation of the native inhabitants, just as it wasn't promoted when they lived under the Spanish regimen to avoid the possibility of riots. They aren't a good example of good comportment neither for applying liberal ideas. 



> I do not believe that regional languages should be discouraged. The extent to which they are promoted must be a matter for the people who live in the regions. They must though take care that a "we are the masters now" attitude is not adopted and the rights of those who speak a "power" language are not affected just because it is a power language.


That's right. It should be sought a constructive equilibrium, but regarding that in this country the official motto was Si eres español, habla español (if you're Spaniard, speak Spanish), it becomes a complex issue.

Greetings!.


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## cuchuflete

I am enjoying reading this thread and learning from my colleagues, but I wonder if the thread topic is as much an endangered creature as some minority languages.



> *In your culture, if you moved to another part of your own country where a different language was spoken, would you bother to learn it?
> 
> Or, if you live in a region where the language spoken is different to the rest of the country, would you find it rude if someone spoke only the country's main language?*


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## ernest_

Hulalessar said:


> Obviously I do not know your personal circumstances, for example whether you were brought up in a small village where all the everyday communications were in Catalan or in a flat overlooking the Ramblas. Whatever your situation, you must have absorbed a huge amount of Spanish spongelike



Not really. My parents spoke Catalan to me, and my friends all spoke Catalan too. I can guarantee that by the age of four I could not understand spoken Spanish at all. The first time I uttered a word in Spanish, I don't know exactly, but it must have been when I was six or seven. The first book I read, around this time, I didn't understand half the words. That was in Barcelona in the mid 80's. Was I the odd case? Well, many of my friends did speak Spanish because they had a Spanish background, but some of us didn't. I was by no means the only one.



> - not like the way you learned English (assuming you learned it at school). Of course you had Spanish lessons at school and it may be that as you became aware of your Catalan identity you resented it. No Madrileño is brought up in circumstances like yours, that is in a bilingual community. It just does not compare.


I didn't resent being taught Spanish lessons in school. I was just saying this because from your post somebody could get the wrong impression that somehow it's "natural" for every child in Catalonia to know Spanish. It is not. For many, it is a foreign language just like English is and it's got to be learnt. Second, I don't care if Madrileneans are bilinguals or trilinguals or monolinguals. What I say is that if we are meant to have a relationship as people of different cultures I say that such a relationship has got to be based on mutual respect. And mutual respect to me means that if have learnt their language they ought to do the same and learn mine if they move here, or at the very least grasp a basic understanding so that we are not prevented from using our own language in our own country because of their carelessness.



> Google "language riots" and you will turn up over 7000 pages. Hitler annexed the Sudetenland just because the majority of the inhabitants spoke German. Languages can cause problems and be used by the unscrupulous for political ends.


This is ridiculous. Everything can be used for political ends. If you want to talk about annexations open a new thread, I'll be glad to contribute if I can.



> 30 years ago in Vitoria only one per cent of the population spoke Basque. Now you cannot get a job there in public administration if you do not speak Basque. In some areas of employment in Cataluña Catalan speakers are paid more than non-Catalan speakers who do the same job. This sort of thing is not right.


Why it's not right? Why is wrong for the Basque government to require Basque language skills to their employees? 

And what are those "areas of employment" you talk about? Can you give more details? This sounds to me like the typical fabrication by the Spanish media. There is certainly no law requiring employers to pay more or less depending on the mother tongue of the employee.



> Monolingual Spanish speakers accept it because they do want to be seen to be in conflict with prevailing fashion, which is that minority language rights must be respected.


I wonder why monolingual Spaniards do care at all. Do they all feel a sudden urge to work for the Basque or Catalan governments, and feel frustrated because they can speak the local language? How come they don't feel the same way about Gibraltar. I have never heard a Spanish radio host ranting about the linguistic policies in Gibraltar, Portugal, Morocco or elsewhere... which are usually far more draconian than anything you can find in Catalonia or the Basque Country.



> Do not get me wrong. I do not believe that regional languages should be discouraged. The extent to which they are promoted must be a matter for the people who live in the regions. They must though take care that a "we are the masters now" attitude is not adopted and the rights of those who speak a "power" language are not affected just because it is a power language.


Of course, but to talk about "the rights" seems a little vague to me. What rights? I think this is really the issue.


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## Ivonne do Tango

En Argentina no existen dialectos aunque sí diferentes normas de pronunciación y acentos. A pesar de hablar español, en todas sus variantes, lengua hablada en la mayoría de los países de latinoamérica (exceptuando apenas Brasil) el argentino suele tener mucha noción de otros idiomas y en contraposición a este hecho que podría indicar una apertura cultural significativa, particularmente percibo que aquel que fue a vivir a otro país hispanoparlante, como España, le resulta muy rudo que por ejemplo en Catalunya los carteles de la calle, en la televisión, etc. se hable catalán. Lo mismo en Euskadi con el euskera. 

El idioma es un instrumento de identidad por excelencia y debieran ser muy respetados los elementos intervinientes en la preservación cultural, en la que el idioma juega un papel de conservación infalible.


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## Mate

Hello, foreros.

This thread has been very interesting to follow. However, in order to remain open, posts must include more cultural insight/perspective than has been the case lately. 

Almost all the recent posts have focussed more on personal opinion and even some personal anecdotes about a never-ending issue (Spanish, Catalan, other languages that are spoken in Spain) without shedding much light on the original topic.  

The thread derailed and I'm afraid that it is now time to close it.

Thank you to all who contributed to this thread and thank you also for your understanding.

*Thread closed*.


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