[lg policy] News about catalan in La Franja

Tue Nov 3 14:32:44 UTC 2009

 Forwarded  From: Catalan Language News <info at estudinord.com>

  *Catalan Language News 30-Octubre-2009 News about catalan in La
Franja*
*WHO ARE WE?*
 The Catalan Language Observatory was set up in 2004 by cultural
organisations from all the Catalan-speaking lands, with the purpose of
monitoring the Catalan language rigorously and objectively.

 *MEMBERSHIP*
 *The following organisations are members of the Observatory:*
· Acció Cultural del País Valencià <http://www.acpv.net/php/index.php>
· Associació de Juristes per la llengua
<http://www.juristesperlallengua.cat/>
· Casal Jaume I de Fraga <http://www.acpv.net/casals/fraga.html>
· Casal Jaume I de Perpinyà <http://www.acpv.net/casals/perpinya.html>
· Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les
Nacions<http://www.ciemen.cat/>(CIEMEN)
· Centre Unesco de Catalunya <http://www.unescocat.org/en>
· Comitè de Seguiment de la Declaració Universal de Drets
Lingüístics<http://www.linguistic-declaration.org/index-gb.htm>
· Consell de Col·legis d'Advocats de Catalunya <http://www.cicac.org/>
· Culturalnord <http://pro.wanadoo.fr/catnet/Culturalnord.html>
· Fundació Congrés de Cultura Catalana <http://www.fundccc.cat/>
· Institut Linguapax <http://www.linguapax.org/en/homeang.html>
· Obra Cultural Balear <http://www.ocbweb.org/>
· Observatori de la Universitat d'Alacant <http://www.ua.es/spv/observatori>
· Omnium Cultural <http://www.omnium.cat/>
· Omnium Cultural de l'Alguer <http://www.omnium.cat/index.php?cov_ID=22>
· Organització pel Multilingüisme <http://www.om-plural.org/indexeng.html>
· Plataforma per la llengua <http://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/>

*With the support of:*
· Institute of Catalan
Studies<http://www.iec.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=148&languageId=1&contentId=-1>
· Television of Catalonia <http://www.tv3.cat/ptvcatalunya/tvcHome.jsp>
· IJLV <http://www.llengua.info/>- the Joan Lluís Vives Institute -, whose
members are the following universities:
- Abat Oliba CEU University<http://www.uao.es/cream/?site=uao&page=1&idioma=ca>
- Autonomous University of
Barcelona<http://www.uab.es/servlet/Satellite?cid=1101231878924&pagename=UAB%2FPage%2FTemplateHomeUAB>
- International University of Catalonia <http://www.unica.edu/primera.uic>
- Jaume I University <http://www.uji.es/UK/basic>
- Miguel Hernández University <http://www.umh.es/> (Elx)
- Open University of Catalonia <http://www.uoc.edu/web/eng/index.html>
- Pompeu Fabra University <http://www.upf.es/english/web>
- Ramon Llull University <http://www.url.es/en/index.php>
- Rovira i Virgili University <http://www.urv.es/en_index.html>
- Technical University of Catalonia <http://www.upc.edu/eng>
- Technical University of Valencia <http://www.upv.es/menui.html>
- University of Alacant <http://www.ua.es/en/index.html>
- University of Andorra <http://www.uda.ad/index.php>
- University of the Balearic Islands <http://www.uib.es/en>
- University of Barcelona <http://www.ub.edu/homeub/welcome.html>
- University of Girona <http://www.udg.es/>
- University of Lleida <http://www.udl.es/perfils/visitors.html>
- University of Perpinyà <http://www.univ-perp.fr/>
- University of Valencia <http://www.uv.es/~webuv/ingles/index.htm>
- University of Vic <http://www.uvic.cat/en/inici.html>

*With the support of:*

GENERALITAT DE CATALUNYA

INSTITUT RAMON LLULL

 *LINKS TO SITES WITH GENERAL INFORMATION ON CATALAN*
 Generalitat de Catalunya <http://www.gencat.net/index_eng.htm> *Government
of Catalonia*
Govern de les Illes Balears <http://www.caib.es/govern/index.jsp> *Government
of the Balearic Islands*
Generalitat Valenciana<http://http//www.gva.es/jsp/portalgv.jsp?br=1&re=1&co=es&chflash=true&force=si>
*Government of the Valencian Community*
Parlament de Catalunya<http://www.parlament-cat.net/portal/page?_pageid=34,33596&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL>
*Parliament of Catalonia*
IEC <http://www.iec.cat/>
*Institute of Catalan Studies*
institut Ramon Llull <http://www.llull.cat/llull/index.jsp?idioma=en>
*Ramon Llull Institute *

 *CONTACT US*
 *Observatori de la llengua catalana*
C/ de la Diputació, 276, pral.
08009 BARCELONA
info at observatoridelallengua.cat
00 34 93 319 80 50

    *30 OCTOBER 2009*

*Casal Jaume I de Fraga (Jaume I Cultural Centre, Fraga)

News about Catalan in La Franja

By Francesc Ricart*

La Franja is the name of the Catalan-speaking area - home to 50,000 people -
in the part of the region of Aragon that borders Catalonia and Valencia. It
is the only part of Spain where Catalan is spoken that the language does not
have any legal status. Given that Aragon has had a statute of autonomy since
1982 and that, as early as February 1984, seventeen mayors of the main towns
of La Franja signed the Mequinensa Declaration (a document denouncing the
precarious situation of the Catalan language in the counties administered by
the Autonomous Community of Aragon), it is incomprehensible that this
situation persists. After several sets of elections to the regional assembly
and a draft languages law which was unsuccessfully presented in 1997, in
July 2009 the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) - which, along with
the Aragonese Regionalist Party (PAR), comprises a coalition government -
presented a Draft Bill on the Use, Protection, and Promotion of the
Languages of Aragon to the Parliament of Aragon, the intention of which is
to regulate the presence and use of the Catalan and Aragonese languages in
the region.

Now let us see if the proposal is accepted and the gap in current Aragonese
law filled. The political composition of the Parliament of Aragon means,
however, that there is no assurance that the law will be adopted, because
the PSOE still needs to fight for every vote. Izquierda Unida (IU) and
Chunta Aragonesa (CHA) will demand significant changes to the draft bill,
while its partner in government, the Partido Aragonés (PAR), has already
made it known that it will not vote for the bill because it could damage its
relationship with its own supporters, who share strong anti-Catalan
feelings. Finally, the PP (People's Party) will vote against the law and
will attempt to set itself up as the great defender of the purity of the
Aragonese language against the purported Catalanising corruption represented
by recognition of Catalan as an official language in Aragon.

What is included in the PSOE's draft bill?

The text makes it very clear that the only official language of Aragon is
Spanish and that Catalan (and Aragonese, the other minority language of
Aragon covered by the law) is a language that is spoken in certain regions,
"in the linguistic forms that are characteristic of Aragon", a point which
is made throughout the text and is a means of allaying Aragonese suspicions
about Catalan. The draft bill also states that the resulting law will not
regulate obligations and will only recognise the rights of the citizens in
the "areas of historical use".

The law mentions guarantees of teaching in the Catalan language, but there
is no reference to Catalan as a language in which the subjects in the
curriculum are to be taught at their various stages, or to objectives
relating to the learning and mastering of the Catalan language by the
public. Nor does it mention requirements for civil servants to know and
master Catalan. It does, however, clearly set out a plan for a "Higher
Council for Languages" and for the workings of a languages authority to
govern Aragon's languages, meaning that we could find ourselves with an
"Aragonese authority" on the margins of the Institute for Catalan Studies
(IEC) - the recognised authority throughout the Catalan-speaking world -
which will be able to do as it pleases on issues of toponomy, or "devise and
set definitive rules for the standardisation of Aragonese and Catalan". It
makes a point of mentioning that this will be done without detriment to
"respect for the peculiarities of the local lan guages of Aragon".

Despite coming up against a law that attempts to do very little, in the wake
of this summer's announcement of the draft bill the PP has already launched
a campaign in opposition to the local authorities. PP members have already
taken centre stage at a few events, the most significant of which were those
at the town halls of Fraga (La Franja's largest town) and Montsó (a
Spanish-speaking Aragonese town). At both of these, resolutions were
submitted to "guarantee the protection of all of Aragon's language
varieties, onto which they want to impose standard languages", in reference
to Catalan and Aragonese. The PP's spokesperson in Montsó even said that the
law is an "attack on the language varieties recognised by the Statute of
Autonomy of Aragon and the Spanish Constitution itself". The PAR also
reacted, going so far as to announce that it was organising a petition
against the law during the autumn and public events in opposition to
Catalan, such as that which it has announced for 24 October in Fraga.

We will have to wait for the results of the discussion of the draft bill in
the Parliament of Aragon to see whether we end up with a text that could be
used in any way to begin recovering the prestige of the Catalan language in
La Franja, a language that historically has been undervalued and has lacked
support from society, exception for organisations that have been working to
save it for more than twenty years. The Catalan language is now in a very
precarious situation that, make no mistake about it, has been largely caused
by the failure of public authorities to act and by politicians not taking
responsibility for Catalan in La Franja.

      <http://www.cataloniatoday.cat/> <http://www.eurotribune.net/>
<http://www.observatoridelallengua.cat/observatori.php?llengua=en>

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