Talk:Catalonia
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An event mentioned in this article is a September 11 selected anniversary.
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Aranese
- According to their place of origin, it is significant to note that those born outside Spain outnumber Spaniards born outside Aran and Catalonia in the active use of Aranese (17% of non-Spaniards can write Aranese, while the percentage for Spaniards, excluding Catalans is 10%)
Who are those foreigners? French Gascons? -- Error 00:05, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I have no idea, my guess is that they must be people who attend or have attended school in Aran, so they must be necessarily in the younger age groups. They could well be students from Luchon who go to school in Bossòst or Vielha, I know there are a number of them, but I ignore whether their number is significant, and in any case, the source I quote being a poll conducted by telephone, most likely they wouldn't have been included.
Reverts
Can the user "Peter Wye" explain exactly why did he unconsideratily revert last night's changes without bothering to discuss any issues he might have in the Talk page first? If this happens again, I'll stick an NPOV banner on this page, as this page is in need of some serious work.
I have restored my version, and anyone wishing to improve it please leave your argumentations on this page first.
From Peter Wye,
- We've had this discussion before, please see above.
I've read everything on this page.
- I feel that it is correct to use the title of the government and region in both languages.
Please see my previous entry, where I pointed to the Linguistic Policy Act, which states that the only official name of Catalan institutions is the Catalan one. That is because Catalan linguistic policy (which is modelled after Quebec's) practises positive discrimination towards Catalan and Aranese, unlike that of, e.g., the Basque Country. Catalan names are also what we use in the expat community.
In addition, you should be aware that the use of Spanish forms for certain Catalan names (such as those of Catalan institutions and politicians) is considered by Catalonians and many Spaniards as a form of Spanish chauvinism, which is why they are not generally used even in the Spanish-speaking media, and part of what makes this article POV in its current form.
- I agree with some of the changes made by this anonymous user. However, I feel other changes highlight Catalan-nationalist tendencies...
Please point out exactly which ones and why, and how that affects NPOV.
- ...that seek to ignore the current, neutral reality that Catalonia is part of the Spanish state.
I shall note that we are writing an article about Catalonia, rather than Catalonia in the context of the Spanish State. We should branch this out into "Catalonia" and "Catalonia (Autonomous Community)", following the example of the entries for the Basque Country.
- As a general comment, I toned down this article (by adding Spanish names), so as to make it more neutral.
In light of what I've indicated above, regarding the official and social use of those names, as well as the custom in the English-speaking community, I shall remove those again. Please don't reinsert them unless you've got an irrefutable argument in favour of doing so.
Lastly, please be careful when making edits (says me who just forgot to save this), you've wiped out quite a bit of useful stuff added by user Error last night. I'll simply revert back to his version because that leaves me happy for the moment. Please advise if any of the other text you dragged back in was intentional (such as the rather verbose explanation of what the Generalitat is, which I had replaced by a short sentence and a link to Generalitat de Catalunya)
Lots more work to do on this article. Next day I'll copy it to a temporary subpage under Talk, which will be used as the basis for the "Catalonia (Autonomous Community)" entry (which is mostly what the current one deals with anyway).
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- OK, you can't complain that I "unconsideratily" (sic)(I think the word you are looking for in English is "inconsiderably") reverted an edit without justification and then do it yourself.
Grr! I forgot to save my changes to this Talk page and had to retype them again, that's why the changes to the article went in first.
- I left essentially everything the same as the edits made by this anonymous user, but added the name of the region and government in Spanish. I believe that I have provided sufficient justification for doing so.
OK, now that I've finally provided the reasoning for my changes here, I'll revert one back, assuming your revert was due to this unintended absence of agumentation on my part. Once again, pls. careful with those changes, you managed to erase Error's contributions a second time.
And now that you know that introducing the name in Spanish is considered as much of a political statement as is, in your view, not having it, I trust we can move onto more useful work.
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Update from 10:25, 12 Oct 2004: Added Italian and Arabic to the list of names of the country in various languages. Rationale is that Italy has a (tiny) Catalan-speaking minority, and Arabic is the 1st or 2nd language of a significant part of Catalans.
- I deleted these references. This part of Italy never has been considered Catalonia, and Arabic (Berber is more spoken) is not considered a language of there, by both Catalan and Arabic people. ~~
- These languages are not needed. Chameleon 16:17, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I knew they weren't going to last long. The reason why I introduced the Arabic form was because I thought it might be of help to speakers of Arabic (also Farsi and Hurdu) to know the correct spelling of the name in the Arabic alphabet (the first a is short and thus unwritten). Being unconvinced by the arguments for deletion, I might make an attempt to surreptitiously reintroduce it in the course of future edits. Ideally, of course, one would translate the whole article into Arabic, but I'm not volunteering :)
Modifications on 2004-10-29
Corrected a couple of misspellings, and rewrote the paragraph about the governing coallition ("Maragall's government will thus be an uncomfortable alliance between...") to correct a factual inaccuracy and eliminate its POV tone by removing assertions not backed by independent references and the accuracy of which was debatable.
More work remains to be done on this section. To start with, could someone please provide references to support the paragraph that starts "One of the keys to Catalan politics is the fact that Barcelona..." Seems very unclear to me whether any of the affirmations made there are anything else but the author's personal impression. And what is that paragraph trying to say, anyway?
As for the passage that goes "Despite his radical background, Pujol..." What is meant by Pujol's radical background? Apart from the use of an emotionally charged word, this is the first time I hear someone label Pujol a "radical", and I'm curious as to the reasons why? :)
And now on to the second sentence on the same paragraph. What is it trying to say by saying that "nationalist factions became increasingly dissatisfied with his rule"? Whose rule? Pujol's in Catalonia or Aznar's in Madrid? And what is a "nationalist faction"? The 47.3% of parliamentary representation from the fully autoctonous parties CiU and ERC, or the 85.8% of seats occupied by parties defining themselves or their programmes as "catalanist", or something else? So, was CiU dissatisfied with their own representative's (Pujol) rule, or is CiU not a "nationalist" party, or were these "factions" (including the "faction" governing Catalonia) in fact dissatisfied with Aznar's Spanish government, or exactly what?
In order to improve the above, both from an accuracy, balance, and literary point of view, I suggest that contributions (especially on volatile topics such as politics) be solidly based on (and preferably limited to) factual data, and free of any kind of interpretative comment. Personally, I think a minimal familiarity with the subject would also be beneficial, in order to lessen the risk of the author misinterpreting the data.
Occitan
From the article: "...this small region of 7,000 is the only place where Occitan (majoritarily spoken in France and some Italian valleys) has full official status." What can this possibly mean? Certainly Occitan is not a majority language in France. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:46, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
- They must have meant "mainly". Chameleon 09:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Ah, so "...spoken mainly in France and..." wrong word, wrong placement, no wonder I got confused. I'll fix it if no one already has. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:55, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
The "comarques" of Vallespir, Conflent, Fenolleda, Capcir, Alta Cerdanya and Rosselló make up the "Département" of Pyrénées-Orientales and not the "Région" of Languedoc Roussillon, which comprises the Départements of Aude (11), Gard (30), Hérault, Lozère (48) and Pyrénées-Orientales (66). I have therefore rectified this point. (26/11/2004)
Recently added link
- Recently and anonymously added external link Free Catalonia (forum) (http://www.freecatalonia.ghostchild.com) seems to be a brand new web site. Not sure if its inclusion here is appropriate. Whether it is kept or dropped right now, someone should check it again in a month when it has some content to see if it is shaping up as the sort of thing we'd want to link to. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:29, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
- We have talked earlier on this discussion page (see the archives) about this link. It is not a NPOV. It advocates an opinion that is not only in direct conflict with what the majority of residents of this autonomous region think, it advocates separatist sentiment. This link should be located in a page describing secessionist sentiments espoused by a minority of Catalans who are hardline nationalists, not in a page describing the current reality of Catalonia as a Spanish autonomous region. Peter Wye December 5, 2004
- I would like to bring to the readers' attention the emotionally charged and unfounded assertions that user Peter Wye has made above. In view of the predominantly political nature of the user's contributions (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Peter_Wye) and certain rather immature comments (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:80.58.50.42&oldid=8187202) he has made, denoting hostility towards Catalonia, I urge readers and editors to treat his edits on anything Catalan-related with caution. 80.58.43.42 02:11, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Bilingualism, Spanish language (castellano)
Someone inserted the following into the discussion of language: "and Spanish (48%-52%)". I've cut it, but only because it was so terse that it was unclear in its meaning. We should further discuss the status of the Spanish language in Catalonia besides the fact that it is co-official. We have meticulous numbers on how many people in Catalonia understand Catalan and even Aranese, but nothing on the fact that close to 100% understand Spanish at an effectively native level and nothing about the percentage who consider Spanish their first language. This should be an additional section in the article, covered at the same level we cover Catalan and Aranese. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:30, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
- From my impressionistic POV, it is not uncommon to find Catalan people in the Internet who mistakenly use Catalan spellings when typing Spanish (i instead of y is a giveaway). I interpret that there are lots of young people for whom Spanish is mostly listened rather than written or read. --Error 04:59, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Joe, there is no data reflecting the use of Spanish is Catalonia being collected on a regular basis of which I am aware. The reason for that is that the Spanish language is not the responsibility of the Catalan government, and there are no specific policies regarding its use in Catalonia (other than a mention in the Estatut of Autonomia, by reference to the Spanish Constitution, of it having official status). Based on anecdotical and personal evidence, I would tend to agree with Error in that Spanish is mostly a spoken, or at most passively practiced, language in Catalonia. --80.58.43.42 02:18, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not disagreeing with Error (or this anon). The point is, though, that if we are going to talk about language in Catalonia, we should not give Spanish short shrift. I would say that anything about a nationally official language lacking official status in a region would be highly notable. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:32, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
Change 24/12/2004 Ivan. It was said that Catalonia is an autonomous region, but that does not make any sense if you don´t tell to which country it belongs. Knowing the implications of the words country and state in Catalonia i just used the name Spain.
How similar are the Catalan and the Spanish? An answer to this question would make the data about the numbers who understand both languages easier to interpret. For example, some Slavic languages are so similar that the mutual understanding is close to 100%. --Georgius 13:19, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Not very similar. I'd say subjectively that they are farther apart than Spanish and Italian, although I gather that linguists consider them more closely related. My own estimation is that anyone who knows one could become a reasonably competent reader of the other in a matter of a few months, but conversing, writing, and even tru reading fluency would take longer. This is real bilingualism. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:15, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. Maybe I am not the only one who does not know that the two Romance languages are not so similar as e.g. Czech and Slovak or Serbian and Croatien. Perhaps it could be explained in the article?--Georgius 17:56, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Harshness of Article
I feel that this article is being unduly critical of Catalonia. While I personally do not agree with the separatist pretensions that often filter through this article, the edits that have occurred have in my opinion presented Catalonia in a negative light that it does not deserve.
These edits must be discussed.
Peter Wye 00:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) Sunday January 2, 2005
I tend to agree, but I will admit that the article is not a priority for me right now. Do you have specific edits to propose? -- Jmabel | Talk 03:39, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
Present Autonomous Community vs. historical Catalonia
- I believe it would help to split the article into two, one dedicated to the Catalan Autonomous Community and another for Catalonia as a national and historical entity, following the example of the articles Basque Country and Basque Country (autonomous community). That should provide some degree of distinction between things being discussed in a Spanish context and independently of it. 80.58.43.42 02:11, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I think that's a reasonable idea. Does someone want to take on this somewhat laborious task? Probably step one would be to set up a temporary redirect to the present article from Catalonia (autonomous community) and get everything linking where it should before splitting the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:08, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
- There's already an article on the Catalan countries. I'd have to say, though, that when a particular political entity has the same name and a fairly obvious historical continuity with a historical political entity, it's fairly odd to have the historical one be the main referent. It's not as if Nova Scotia refers to the original Scottish colony, with the modern province at Nova Scotia (modern province). -- Montrealais
- Please note that Catalan Countries and Catalonia are not synonyms in any sense. The former refers either to the set of territories that have Catalan as a common language and share a number of other cultural traits, or to a political project to achieve some sort of unification of those countries along with independence from Spain and France. From my personal experience as a ten year resident, Catalonia itself is perhaps best described as a nation without a state. --80.58.43.42 01:59, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Barcelona as the "national" Catalan side
I think the following needs to be substantiated: "The major football club FC Barcelona is "more than a club" and acts as an unofficial "national" team for Catalonia."
I have never heard any Catalan speak of Barça in this light. It is true that it represents the pro-Cataluña side of the divide, but no more than that.
- That's a thorny subject. It depens on which side of the divide are you on. For a lot of pro-Catalonia people, Barça is really "more than a club", a real symbol of Catalonia. A triumph of Barcelona, it's a triumph for Catalonia. The other First Division team, RCD Espanyol, it's not seen that way, more like the contrary.
- It was more in the Franco era, when Real Madrid was perceived as el equipo del gobierno by some.
- http://www.barcelonaconnection.net/docs/barca.html Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
- En certa històrica ocasió, un president del Club de Futbol Barcelona va dir que el Barça era "...més que un club". Ho va dir durant el franquisme, en un moment en què a Espanya tot era més del que era: els escriptors eren quelcom més que escriptors, els silencis quelcom més que silencis, la memòria quelcom més que memòria, la impotèncis quelcom més que impotència. Tot el que no fos combregar amb la veritat oficial i absoluta del Franquisme es convertia en un fet d'oposició objectiva, i l'equip de futbol del Barcelona polaritzava les ànsies nacionalistes dels Catalans, com si fos l'exèrcit desarmat d'un país amb la identitat aixafada pel vencedor en la guerra civil.
- --Error 03:20, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- It hasn't changed that much, in fact. The attitude of the previous PP government brought back a lot of these feelings, that still remain. This year's league championship was a big triumph not only because of the cup itself, but because it was won against Real Madrid.
- It's not a simple issue and certainly is debatable.