Carey Camel
A LINGUISTIC revolution in Catalunya has sparked a furious backlash among parents.
Public schools in the region have taught most subjects in Catalan for years, and there are now some 10 million Catalan speakers – putting it on a par with Swedish and Greek.
But the success of the language’s revival – the result of Catalunya’s fierce battle for independence from Spain – has sparked outrage among parents, who feel their children are not learning enough Spanish, the world’s second most-spoken language.
Parents – whose children receive as little as three hours of Spanish lessons a week – now have the backing of Madrid.
Central government has passed a law forcing Catalan schools to provide more hours of Spanish lessons if parents demand it.
Franco imposed Spanish-only teaching across Spain during his dictatorship but, since the end of his regime in 1975, the Catalan language has been making a determined comeback.
my children were taught 2 hours Castillian, 8 hours english and the rest in Catalan, per week. The only advantage being that when we moved to Andalusia they all excelled in French as it is so similar.
Understand the value of being multi-lingual Paco, but what was the advantage of being fluent in French when you moved to Andalucia? Further to this subject, although Catalan, Welsh, Euskadi, etc. are valuable markers and uniters of community, surely the world would be a better place if everyone could understand everyone else? A la Esperanto, a sadly neglected and almost abandoned experiment. In ancient Biblical myth, the felling of the tower of Babel and the subsequent chaos of different languages, was seen as a great punishment, not a blessing.
We live opposite North africa
so fluent in French English and Spanish is an advantage Stefanjo
They don’t remember the Catalan so much anymore.