Gràcies!

No, that’s not a typo.

Gràcies, not gracias.

Barcelona is located in Catalonia, and the language of this autonomous region is Catalan, not Spanish. As the largest city in the Mediterranean, Barcelona is home to many non-Catalan speakers and Spanish is more widely used here than in the surrounding cities and towns. However, it’s spoken by about 60% of the population and is the language for all government transactions and public services.

Catalan is, in fact, older than Spanish, and has a long literary history; the first book in the Iberian Peninsula that was produced in movable type was in Catalan. It is also spoken in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera), Andorra, and Alghero, Sardinia.

It is not, as is sometimes mistakenly believed, a dialect of Spanish.

Under the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), the use of Catalan was banned and penalties were imposed on those who didn’t obey. Many wealthy Catalonians who were sympathetic to the fascist regime rejected the use of the language, while increased migration from other parts of Spain in the mid-20th century, as well as from abroad, to Barcelona meant that the population of non-Catalan speakers here increased.

All of this, in addition to the Catalan independence movement, is the backdrop for the current political controversy over the use of Catalan, particularly in schools. In May of 2022, a court decision mandated that all public schools be taught 25% of the time in Spanish, a subject of recent protests. Schools in Barcelona, where 82% of the population supports the current system that teaches in Catalan except during Spanish (literature) classes, have been ignoring the 25% ruling. Pretty much all children in Barcelona are 100% bilingual in Spanish and Catalan without it.

Gràcies per llegir!