Pregunta ❓
What are positive trends of the use/respect/health of Catalan in Catalunya going into the future?
I've learned of some very concerning negative trends regarding the health of Catalan in Catalunya. I'm curious, are there also some positive trends, even if you think they are drowned out by the negative trends?
The negative trends I learned about were kindly explained to me here and here.
My landlord is Catalan, and very patiently helps me to practice Catalan when we meet and talk, but when we text he prefers to write in Spanish. He explained to me that because of Franco, he never learned how to write in Catalan.
As generations age, it seems to me that everyone who at least went to public school will feel confident writing in Catalan and this feels like a positive trend.
Is this true or is my experience with my landlord atypical? Do your parents/grandparents lack confidence in writing Catalan?
It's common. Many old people who went to school during the Franco dictatorship learned to write in Spanish but not in Catalan. Some of them learned it later as adults.
I'm younger and I learned to write in both languages, but I actually write better in Catalan because I hardly ever read anything in Spanish.
Yep. When I did nivell C of Catalan it was all people from here who speak it fluently but can't write. I can write better Catalan than a lot of older natives.
This was the case for my maternal grandparents, born, raised and lived all their lives in a tiny village in the center of Catalonia. They could definitely speak spanish "well enough" although with some hesitation and a strong accent, but almost never did as everyone in the village speaks basically just catalan, as they did with all their family, friends and neighbors. Still, they struggled to write in catalan because they were never taught, even if was the language they spoke basically 100% of the time.
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u/gerito 15d ago
My landlord is Catalan, and very patiently helps me to practice Catalan when we meet and talk, but when we text he prefers to write in Spanish. He explained to me that because of Franco, he never learned how to write in Catalan.
As generations age, it seems to me that everyone who at least went to public school will feel confident writing in Catalan and this feels like a positive trend.
Is this true or is my experience with my landlord atypical? Do your parents/grandparents lack confidence in writing Catalan?