In recent days, there has been much talk in the media about the co-official languages of Spain, and this is largely due to the political will recently shown by the Spanish government to actively promote these languages, both nationally and internationally.
In this sense, the Government’s action has been directed in two main directions: on the one hand, the approval of the use of the co-official languages in the Congress of Deputies, and, on the other hand, the recognition of the official status of these languages in European institutions.
But how many official languages are there in Spain? Well, these measures would only include Catalan, Basque and Galician. So what happens with the ‘unofficial’ ones? Are Catalan and Valencian different languages? In this short article we will solve these questions.
Spain: a multilingual reality
Linguistic diversity is a manifest reality in Spain, where different languages and their respective dialects are spoken. Almost half of the country’s population resides in regions where more than one language is spoken, which is a good example of this plurality.
While it is true that Spanish is the official language, which all Spaniards have the duty to know and the right to use, the Constitution establishes that the other Spanish languages will also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their Statutes. These languages are referred to as ‘co-official’.
Currently, according to the Ministry of Education, there are four co-official languages of the Autonomous Communities in Spain: Catalan, Valencian, Basque and Galician.
However, they are not the only ones; we also find other languages that, because of their lesser presence, do not have official status, as in the case of Asturian or Aragonese.
Aranese, which is a variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Spanish region of the Aran Valley, has co-official status in the region of Catalonia.
Language and dialect
The question of the difference between language and dialect has given rise to innumerable debates, as the criteria for defining the two categories can be ambiguous and vary over time. Without going any further, the Spanish language was a dialect derived from Latin before becoming a language in its own right, as is the case with the rest of the Romance languages.
However, in general terms, we can define language as a linguistic system used by a speaking community that is characterized by being strongly differentiated, possessing a high degree of leveling, being the vehicle of an important literary tradition and, on occasions, by having imposed itself on linguistic systems of the same origin.
Dialect, on the other hand, is usually considered a subcategory within the language, that is, a variety of a language that does not reach the social category of language and, generally, with a specific geographic limitation.
In the case of Spanish or Castilian, we find an enormous dialect variety, since it is a language spread over an immense geographical area. However, if we refer only to the dialects of Castilian in Spain, we would find the northern dialects, closer to an original or «standard» variety of the language, and the southern dialects, among which are Manchego, Extremaduran, Andalusian or Canarian (among others).
In the case of Catalan, unlike Spanish, we follow an East-West classification, so we would have an eastern block, which includes the dialects spoken in most of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and a western block, which would include the westernmost part of Catalonia and the Valencian Community.
However, there is no general consensus on what name should be given to the common throne that encompasses the different dialects of Catalan, since Valencian is considered an official language with its own identity in the Valencian Community.
Institutional use of co-official languages
Despite this appreciable linguistic variety in Spain, the fact is that the use of these languages has not always been allowed in the public sphere, which has inexorably led to a decrease in the number of speakers.
The hegemony of Castilian in Spain responds to fundamentally political reasons, whose origin should be sought in the Middle Ages, in the so-called ‘Reconquest’ process. However, it was from the 19th century onwards when the public authorities expressed a clear desire to banish the use of languages other than Spanish, since linguistic plurality was seen as a threat to national unity. This tendency was even more accentuated during the second half of the 20th century, when Franco’s regime totally prohibited the use of regional languages in public life.
However, the current legal system highlights the value of Spain’s linguistic heritage and the need to promote and protect it. For this reason, the use of the co-official languages is actively promoted by the regional institutions and administration.
At a national level, the Senate, which is the upper house of the Spanish Parliament, has allowed the use of the co-official languages since 2011, as it is considered a chamber of territorial representation. The Senate has a network of twenty-five external interpreters who are called upon when necessary, i.e., they are not part of the chamber’s personnel. For each session in the Senate, seven interpreters are required, who translate simultaneously from each of the co-official languages.
In the Congress of Deputies, on the other hand, Spanish has been the only language allowed until very recently, since the reform of the chamber’s regulations that allows the use of the co-official languages came into force this very month of September. This reform requires the use of a system of translators and interpreters similar to that already used in the Senate.
And what about Europe?
There are currently 24 official languages in the European Union: German, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, English, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Swedish. As a general rule, these languages are official in each of the member states of the organization.
The current president of the Spanish government has pledged to promote the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European Union, with the intention that they could become official languages of the organization.
However, several member countries have expressed some reticence towards this initiative, since, in addition to the financial cost it would entail, other countries may wish to propose similar measures. For the time being, Brussels has postponed the decision on the official status of these languages.
Carlos Sánchez Luis