Catalan Language in Europe
Catalan - 15.06.2004 20:12
Memorandum for the official acknowledgment of Catalan in the Treaty establishing the European Constitution.
PPCC
We address to you as European citizens when it is impeding the aprovation of the Treaty that establish a European Constitution, and with the purpose to do an essential reflection and an important petitions that only search justice, peace and stability in the project that all we are starting.
All languages are means of expression and comunication of the people that speak it in the course of time. So, Catalan has accompanied our ancestors and it is by the Catalan language that we have been transfering and transforming our culture. Our particular way of see things and explain them finds in Catalan the most fine and beloved tool.
Catalan was one of the languages appeared after the collapse of the most well-known globalization of the ancient times, Roman Empire. Now, in the beginning of a new globalization, we do not want to dissapear as a simple and unimportant historical parenthesis.
Catalan, related in its origins with the Occitan language, shares the culture of Païs d'Òc. It cultivated a culture heir of the ancient civilizations of Romans and Greeks, and others, in the darkness of the High Middle Ages. Occitania was the land of trouvadors and trouvadoritzs, the land of love to knowledge and refination.
The counties vertebrates by the Pyrenees were in those time a bridge between cultures through which the knowledge of the Arab and Greek worlds penetrate in our continent. A bridge, surely, shooked by the wars, as Europe has been shaken till very recent times. For this same reason, perhaps, the desires of peace and welfare, of dialog and entente, find between Europeans a fruitful soil.
This feeling against the destructions carried by wars began to be expressed by laws with the so called Assemblees de Pau i Treva,Assemblies of Peace and Truce, that the abbey Oliba (985-1065) institued and accompished. Thirty-tree years ago, anothe Catalan, Pau Casals (1876-1973) remind this to the United Nations Assembly when he received the Peace Medal and he played the Cant dels ocells, a Catalan traditional song that now is an anthem of peace.
And History proceeds in her slow writing. And the would-be great nation of the Pyrenees had no success: the Païs d'Òc was absorbed by the North and the Catalan power should expand to the South and to the Mediterranean Sea, and thus birthing to the territories that nowadays constitute the geographical sphere of our language and culture.
Great nations were forming in those days, also the Catalan nation, which has no posibility to expand and try to grow through commercial routes—the trade, motor of progress in every period. A code was made, the Llibre del Consolat de Mar, law treaty for navegation and transnational trade, used till the very apparition of the modern trade compilations.
And the power of merchants smooth the power of monarchs. And Usatges were established. The Catalan Corts date as far as English Parliament. And the new countries added to the realm of Catalan princes were not submitted to the yoke but elevated to the rank of confederated kingdoms. Could we see in this confederation, in spite of the differences, a tiny European Community?
And in the next page History wrote, we find the Catalan countries under foreigner monarchs that do not made their the democratic talant of Catalan people. In spite of that, and with good and bad episodes, Catalan countries keep a tradition of medieval democracy till the very triumph of absolutism.
In this milieu, in Catalan language, people like Ramon Llull (1232-1316), Arnau de Vilanova (1238-1311), Bernat Metge (1340-1413), Ausiàs Marc (1397-1459), Joanot Martorell (1413 o 1414-1468), Isabel de Villena (1430-1490), Joan Lluís Vives (1492-1540) flourish... Men and women that were still a bridge between cultures and that fed the European knowledgment that had fed themselves. Great figures that produce an important printing in the contemporany thinking and with an strong influence in further generations.
But in the last, so far, of the paragraphs of History, the Catalan people, the Catalan kingdoms and the Catalan language were submitted to the newborn stated of absolutism. Tools did not triumph over swords. And so, the Catalan nation were esquartered between the more powerful neighbour states.
But Catalan people and Catalan language manage to survive. They suffer the beat but fire was kept enough warm to be relieved. In this Renaissance the mankind assisted to the nouns and works of Víctor Balaguer (1824-1901), Marià Aguiló (1825-1897), Teodor Llorente (1836-1911), Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer (1845-1902), Miquel Costa i Llobera (1854-1922), Antoni Maria Alcover (1862-1932), etc. Or to the further nouns of Catalan literates of the 20th Century: Josep Carner (1884-1970), Carles Riba (1893-1959), Josep Pla (1897-1981), Mercè Rodoreda (1909-1983), Lorenç Villalonga, Salvador Espriu (1913-1985), Joan Fuster (1922-1992), J.V.Foix (1893-1987), between a larger list. A culture that was rebirth and that was interested again by the world cultures, as was demonstrated by the Catalan translations of Homer and Sophocles by Carles Riba, of Tolstoi by Andreu Nin (1892-1937), of Joyce by Joaquim Mallafré (1941-); a culture able to give figures in the realm of phyology (Pompeu Fabra, Francesc de Borja Moll, Joan Coromines, Manuel Sanchis Guarner), of arts (Antoni Gaudí, Puig i Cadafal, Sert, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Antoni Tàpies, Arístides Maillol, Miquel Barceló), of literary studies such the late Pare Miquel Batllori, of experimental sciences (Joan Oró, Giner Sorolla, Doctor Orfila), of natural history (Pius Font i Quer, Josep del Hoyo), of medicine (Josep Trueta, Valentí Fuster), of music (Pau Casals, Enric Granados, Xavier Monsalvatge, Frederic Monpou).
But our language was menaiced by an even worst challenge: an authoritarian and expansionist regime decided to marginize it.
But we manage to survive.
Now when History is writting a new chapter for all European people. And we Catalan-speaking people have the illusion and the will of participate in this writting with our language and our culture. It is from this point of view that we demmand the inclusion of Catalan as a language of the Union in the terms described in the next doccument. We cannot leave it unkwnoledged or divided. The EU is the umbrella that protects us: «Unity in diversity», as our European divise states. Catalan language must live under the protection of the Union. It is not a privilege, it is simply a return of those things we were deprived: a claim of a people that exists but it is not perceived, a claim of a people that want to be here.
As a human beings we want to appeal to your conscience to make a proper reflection of those things exposed. We do not urge or plain, we simply ask; because we have the responsability to fight, even in the worst condition, for a just claiming. And we cannot abandon. We cannot.
QUOTED ANNEX
For those things exposed, the present momment of aprovation of the Treaty that establish an European Constitutions, now is decisive time:
- For fidelity to the previous generations and to fulfill our duty to the future generations, to traspass them language, culture and civilization;
- In order to avoid any social breakdown and to share with the newly settled people and to establish a bridge of communication with all the other languages and cultures,
WE, European Citizens, to the COUNCIL of the European Union, EXPOSE the following facts:
FACTS
1) HISTORY. We have exposed in the preamble a generic vision of the history of Catalanity in order to remark the universal character of Catalan culture and language. Catalan is a written language from 12th Century to nowaday with no interruption. We have refered to the prohibition, exclusion or magination in the public and private life, both in institutions and schools. Presently, our main risks are the extinction of our identity and the danger of social breakdown between people from different ascents. This breakdown can only be avoided with a strong effort from all citizens, such our recent past tell us.
2) NOWADAYS the situation can be explained on four axis:
a) The presence of Catalan and its vitality. We are the seventh language community of Union in demographic terms (and the greatest without state structures). There are Parliaments, public institutions, schools and universities, radio, television, newspapers, journals, original books and translations, an important presence in the world wide web, professionals, enterprises and organizations that express themselves normally in Catalan (with a different qualitative and quantitative presence in the different territories).
b) Norm. Catalan is a language with a fully developed normative, with grammatic, lexicographic, historic studies, etc., with a level comparable to the Latin languages more diffused and consolidated.
c) The politic fragmentation of Catalan language community. Catalan area is divided by state and sub-state borders, with different degrees of recognition according to the different territories (from officiality recognition to any kind of recognition). And in spite of being a demographic, cultural and socioeconomic power inside the Union, this division makes us a minority community without an effective tool of protection in the modern times.
d) Globalization. Perhaps this is the more important phenomenon in sociolinguistic issues. Globalization tends to promote the first use of English and secondly to the so-called supra-national languages (German, French, Spanish...) and only in a last place to the mother tongue (Catalan). If this situation menaces even the most spoken languages, you can think in the menace to Catalan. For this reason now we have an unprecedented situation in history: or we face to extinction or we face to normality in the European frame.
HAVING CONSIDERED
1) That the European Union is defined as a Union of Stated, but nevertheless it generates the notion of «European citizenship», subject of rights and duties and agent in the European construction and that the welfare of citizens is the «ultima ratio» of the existence of the European Union.
2) That the collective of the European citizens of Catalan language and culture is divided by the borders of four different states, with different degrees of recognition and protection, and with inhomogeneities in vitality in the different territories, without any public structure that empare all of us.
3) That the members of the Catalan language and culture community do not share anything but the Catalanity and the European condition.
4) That, being the EU the only political common structure for the most part of Catalan people, the Union has the main responsability to offer protection to our cultural needs, and specially when they are asked in a double conditions: institucionally and as European citizens.
5) That the language communities with no enough competences to establish a language and culture presence in the public sphere, were faced to huge difficulties to survive in the new world context.
6) That the European union has its essence in the will of assist in this case, as it it stated in the Draft Treaty:
6a) “Convinced that, thus "united in its diversity", Europe offers them the best chance of pursuing, with due regard for the rights of each individual and in awareness of their responsibilities towards future generations and the Earth, the great venture which makes of it a special area of human hope,”(Preamble)
6b) “The Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.”(Art 3.1.)
6c) “The Union shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.”(Art 3.3 in fine)
6d) 1. The Union shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
2. Action by the Union shall be aimed at encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, supporting and complementing their action in the following areas:
(a) improvement of the knowledge and dissemination of the culture and history of the European people;
(b) conservation and safeguarding of cultural heritage of European significance;
(c) non-commercial cultural exchanges;
(d) artistic and literary creation, including in the audiovisual sector.
3. The Union and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent international organisations in the sphere of culture, in particular the Council of Europe.
4. The Union shall take cultural aspects into account in its action under other provisions of the Constitution, in particular in order to respect and to promote the diversity of its cultures.
5. In order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in this Article:
(a) European laws or framework laws shall establish incentive actions, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States. They shall be adopted after consultation of the Committee of the Regions;
(b) the Council of Ministers, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt recommendations.” (Art. III-181)
7) That the European Parliament acknowledged expressly the Catalan language (through the ressolution A3-0169/90 in the session of 11/12/1990 –nearly fourteen years ago).
In that spirit, based in these facts and attending to the previous considerations, those who sign, independently and complementary to the different petitions of several states, to the COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
WE DEMMAND
1) That Catalan language should be included in the relation of European languages from IV-10 article of the European Constitution:
“Languagues. The Treaty establishing the Constitution, drawn up in a single original in the Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak and Slovenian languages, the texts in each of these languages being equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the Italian Republic, which will transmit a certified copy to each of the governments of the other signatory States.” (Art. IV-10)
2) And, consequently, that Catalan people have the same rights recognized in the last paragraph of article II-8.2:
“Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights and be subject to the duties provided for in the Constitution. They shall have:
(...)
- the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to address the Institutions and advisory bodies of the Union in any of the Constitution's languages and to obtain a reply in the same language.(...)” (Art.II-8.2 in fine)
3) And it would be of application for Catalan language the article 12 of Title III:
“The languages in which every citizen of the Union has the right to address the institutions or advisory bodies under Article I-8, and to have an answer, are those listed in Article IV. The institutions and advisory bodies referred to in this Article are those listed in Articles I-18(2), I-30 and I-31 and also the European Ombudsman.” (Art. III-12)
4) And of course the application to Catalan language of all the normative in a régime of equality to the other recognized European languages.
5) Access to Catalan language of every program and action with European funds in the spheres of education, culture, audiovisual, language engineering, etc.
We have the convincement that the EU will empare this sollicitude.
- for vocation to be the common house of all European people,
- for obligation as the only common political structure that covert the most part of Catalan speaking territories)
-and because an hypothetical negative from Union to the more reasonably aspiration of Catalan officiality
will suppose a popular refuse to the constituent process in a people such Catalan that have ever kept a pro-European will, and
will imply that the supra-state cultural recognitions are not possible in the frame of Union, and that modification of state borders are an obbligate condition to these recognitions.
Barcelona, May 31 2004
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