I was thinking of writing something about the draft of the new Catalan constitution (L’Estatut) that was approved in the Catalan Parliament last week and has been submitted to the Spanish parliament for “rejection”. I say rejection because the Spanish nationalists have already started a campaign against not only against the new Catalan Constitution but also calling for a boycott against Catalan products as a reprisal (there is several websites giving the name of Catalan companies and asking people to boycott them).
The document is a beautiful piece of legislation, very progressive, with the highest levels of human right protection. There are, however, two areas that the Spanish nationalists cannot swallow (especially those of the right wing Popular Party). The first one is that the document describes Catalonia as a nation, the second is that the task of raising all taxes is given to the Catalan government that will hand over to the Spanish government an amount to be agreed upon (now everything goes to the big pot in Madrid and Catalonia gets whatever the Spanish government wants).
That’s why, to my despair, I am convinced that the Catalan Constitution will never be approved. Last time we tried something similar, in the thirties, there was a military “coup” that lasted 40 years. I hope this time we can handle it better, but anyway we need the funds to become a leading nation. My benchmark is The Netherlands and that’s a tough goal if you cannot manage your finances.
However today I do not want to talk about the draft constitution (L’Estatut), I want to share with you that the organism that regulates the new terms that can be used in Catalan language (Termcat) has accepted two new terms: “bloc” (for blog) and “blocaire” (for blogger) that substitute the previously accepted forms that would translate as “personal interactive diary”. I have to congratulate Termcat for its flexibility to adopt new words. That makes Catalan a language that is much more dynamic than Spanish, where it is very difficult to get neologisms accepted and sometimes they sound so ridiculous that no one uses them, like “cajeta” for cassette/tape or güisqui for whisky.
So yes guys, I am a “blocaire” and you are reading my “bloc”.
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6 comments:
What’s wrong with blog? or blogger? every catalan I know knows and uses those words. It seems kind of ridiculous to change letters around for the sake of the integrity of the language.
Pronouncements like these, I think, give rise to the derisive attitude people have towards Catalan and I don’t really see their worth. and what about the new media favorites “bullying” and “mobbing” – why don’t they get changed?
thanks for the link to the estatut, btw. it’s on my to read list
gonna go drink my carajillo de güisqui now
When I am really into teasing a Spanish guy about linguistics I usually say the difference between Portuguese and Spanish languages is that our evolves.
When you look to ancient Spanish and ancient Portuguese they are just about the same. If you then put ancient Spanish near modern Spanish the difference is very little. If you do the same exercise with Portuguese the difference is enormous. What about the ancient forms of Catalan? This dinamic you refer can be seen in a big evolution over time too or does it apply only to recent neologisms?
I think that those managing the evolution of languages need to be smart and introduce new concepts quickly still preserving the integrity of the language. If they do not do it, in 25 years, 30% of the words in all languages would be pure English bacause English is the language used to drive global innovation and USA is the technology leader. "Bloc" is a good alternative for the English word blog. "Bloc" means notebook (the paper one), so the analogy sounds pretty good to me. The ending "-aire" means the person who does or uses something repeatedly (like "xerraire" a person who talks a lot). So I am happy with those choices.
In the last 30 years, Catalan has almost fully recovered from the difficult situation where it was, as a result of Franco's pressure to eliminate all signs of Catalan identity, and has become a flexible, adaptive and dynamic language.
Also the English language is probably the easiest one to learn as a second language, due to its grammar simplicity.
dcver you're probably right ... no genders, less verb tenses, plus the assimilation of lots of different languages. and it's everywhere. i'm amazed at how well most europeans speak and write it
i was corrected once in italy for saying "fine settimana" because apparently now its just simply
"il weekend"
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