Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)MADRID’S Constitutional Court has given new powers of self-rule to the Catalonia region.
The court has declared that Catalonia can now call itself a ‘nation.’
It insisted that the word carries no legal value, but instead should be understood as a historical and cultural term.
One of the most contentious requests, however – that Catalan be recognised over Spanish as the ‘preferred language’ – was not approved.
In response to this, local politicians have called for a day of protests on July 10.
Catalan, which was banned by General Franco in the 1940s, is now the main language taught in the region’s schools.
Castilian Spanish can only be taught up to four hours per week in Catalonia.
I must say that this short article is totally viased, since the term nation is really banned i the pre-sentence, and the spanish language is studied depending on the decision of the teacher, so is not mandatory to teach in catalan.
A 10 million language as Catalan is, wich is persecuted everyday inside spanish state and not official in Euripa coz of spanish persecution, needs some kind of protection, tat now Madrid is not recognizing.
Jaume, a teacher in public schools in Barcelona. Catalonia
Our children were taught one hour a week of Castillian, (four hours of english) in a Catalan public school… they were also told to go-back-home and suffered racist attacks, even though they spoke in Catalan more fluently than their native classmates and even went on to win the JOCSFLORALS (a national poetry competition) and were BOO-ED and HISS-ED on stage by attending parents and grandparents. We moved across Spain as fast as we could afford to.
Andalucia. What freedom. People with open minds.
Barcelona is very pretty, great for tourists, but the nationalistic daily life is claustrophobic.
Sophia, you have to take into account that you are explaining your individual bad experience you had in catalonia. But i’m from Galicia. And i’m very happy to live in Catalonia. So, you shouldn’t generalize so often.