Benvolguts socis,
Us enviem aquesta declaració de la Societat Catalana de Sociolingüística
sobre les ofensives contra la llengua catalana.
Salutacions,
Edgar
Dear all,
I am the president of the Catalan Society of Sociolinguistics (
http://blogs.iec.cat/socs/ ). Our executive board has felt it necessary to inform
linguists and social scientists around the globe about developments in Spain
in relation to language policies. We denounce the renewed persecution of
the Catalan language by Spanish authorities, and we attach a declaration
providing the details of the matter.
You are probably aware that Spain outlawed the use of Catalan for many
centuries up until 1980 in a bid to create cultural uniformity within the
country. The memory of General Franco’s dictatorship is still fresh amongst
most Catalan adults. And there are good reasons to believe that the current
authorities may seek to achieve the same goals through less violent means
by taking advantage of the fact that Catalan speakers are demographically in
the minority. During the last few years, Spanish authorities have
conducted a sustained strategy to decrease education in Catalan, prevent media
circulation and broadcasting and even create ad hoc regional standards to
divide the community. Such behavior is not deemed acceptable by the
international community and is in contravention of UNESCO’s fundamental principles as
well as the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, all of which
Spain has signed.
We would be thankful if you could do everything in your power to
disseminate our declaration and/or its contents. There are a number of ways in which
we would appreciate your help:
Publish the declaration in your journal or e-mail list.
Send a letter to UNESCO or the Council of Europe expressing your concern
(a letter template is attached)
Forward the declaration to colleagues you believe may be especially
interested in this issue. We hope this letter provides an early warning before
the situation in Spain deteriorates and develops in loss of cultural and human
rights in a way that may send a poor signal to all the countries and
organizations that are working for a future of peace, prosperity and equality.
Yours sincerely,
Joan Pujolar
President
Societat Catalana de Sociolingüística
Institut d’Estudis Catalans
C./ Carme 47
08001 Barcelona
—
Joan Pujolar Cos
Professor de llengua i literatura catalanes
Estudis d’Arts i Humanitats
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
93 254 (2121) | jpujolar@uoc.edu
Tibidabo 2 (Av. Tibidabo 39-43 C.P.08035)
Curriculum Vitae:
http://www.uoc.edu/webs/jpujolar/CA/curriculum/index.html
Grup de Recerca IdentiCat: http://blogs1.uoc.es/identicat/