The fact is that you call yourself Carlos and not Carles and that says it all to me."
I have to tell you that I am as Catalan as you and that my parents are from Extremadura, and so my name is Carlos. I am sure that you are an intelligent person and you have studied a lot, but I fear that your sectarism is quite strong so as to judge the people by their name. Perhaps to you people who were born in Catalonia whose name is Ahmed or Yao are actually as despicable as I
Perhaps you think at the same way as Pasqual Maragall, who fined a retailer 600 Euros because he did not put a label in Catalan, but in Spanish. Is that democracy? Why does not La Generalitat fine shops which label in English or French? I fear that who has already politicized the language has been La Generalitat.
I have no MA degree in English Translation, but I can manage to write this one in English.
Bye
There is brewing in Spain.
There is a war brewing in Spain.
Juan,
Why is there a war brewing in Spain?
Carlos:
Touché my friend but you've got to admit you made three languages out of Catalan and you didn't make a different language of the Extramaduran dialects of your forebears which are quite different, specially in the country side, to Standard Spanish. I remember a trip to Extremadura where it was quite difficult for me to understand the locals with my standard Spanish but that doesn't make it a different language. Or does it? Imagine someone decided that English-speaking people from some southern American states didn't speak English. As I told you my Valencian parents didn't have to learn a new language when they moved to Barcelona the same way Extremadurans don't have to learn a new language when they move to Madrid. And still you insisted that they were different languages when I had explained at length my own situation.
Since you write such perfect Catalan --with an archaic "hom" proving you know more and you are much more learned than you say-- you have been taught in school that Valencian and Balearic are Catalan dialects the same way as Barcelona, Lleida or Girona. So I assumed you had some special interest in making the Spanish speaking territory bigger and the Catalan speaking territory smaller and split up. I imagine you agree that all the Ahmed and Carlos who live in Catalonia should learn Catalan otherwise it's called linguistic imperialism since the Catalan territory has a language of its own and we can all speak fluent Spanish; although I never heard a word of Spanish in my home. Spanish isn't the native tongue of Catalans and immigration cannot be used to wipe out the culture and language of a country by an interested third party. We could, of course, make Arabic official in Barcelona but do you think they would go behind us in this issue in Madrid? Of course not.
I don't agree with fines although endangered languages have to defend themselves. I would really love to speak to the Spanish State --not the provincial Generalitat government-- in my native Catalan tongue spoken by several million people in Spain since the 10th century at least. It would seem that at least 10% of the population of Madrid also speaks some form of Catalan, and more if you consider Basque and Galician residents in that city, and these languages aren't official in the capital city of the state. Why is that? Aren't we all the same or are some better than the rest? There are many Spaniards who think that "Catalan" should be our second tongue but we don't agree. I would imagine a shop in Catalan in Madrid wouldn't last more than 24 hours --nobody would be mad enough to do that over there-- and I've seen plenty of shops in Madrid in all kinds of languages. I will not speak of the situation of Catalan in the Valencian Country or the Balearic islands -where the Spanish rightist nationalis party rules-- since the desire to break the Catalan language is only a small part of a greater and wider plot.
Juan, I don't think we're bewing anything else but beer for the summer months in Spain. We love it iced cold. I think other Spaniards must learn that we're only defending the future of our language and culture and it's up to the Catalans, such as Carlos and myself, to decide which future we want to have.
I've just answered to make these points clear to Carlos. In "normal" situations the children of people from other countries adopt the name of the country's language. Some people decide to keep their native name but that isn't what is considered usual for someone born in a country. It's your privilege but, whether you like it or not, Jordi or Carles have much more Catalan tradition than Jorge o Carlos and the latter have a great Castilian Spanish tradition. The day Catalan, Galician or Basque are official all over Spain, the way Castilian Spanish is, we shall all be citizens with the same rights.
"nationalist", "brewing" and please forgive me if you find any other editing mistake.