Noticias
Valencian-Catalan: market factor
It has taken more than fifteen years and thirty court decisions for the autonomous government of Valencia to recognise that a university level degree in Catalan Philology accredits fluency in Valencian in the competitive exams that all primary and secondary teachers must successfully pass to secure a permanent position. The more optimistic members of the community celebrated the event as a victory since in their opinion the decision sanctions the "unity of the language". The tenacity of Acció Cultural del País Valencià and the Sindicat de Treballadors de l'Ensenyament is indeed admirable. Their persistence in pursuing perfectly legitimate complaints paid off. Without these organisations legal recognition would never have been accorded.
What stands out the most to this observer is that for fifteen years the justice system took no action against the authorities in question who disregarded one court judgement after another. It makes no sense to wait for decision number thirty for the public powers to require citizens, or in this case other official agencies (the autonomous administration no less!) to comply with regulations and court rulings. Pardon the redundancy, but a justice system that takes fifteen years to uphold its rulings does not seem very just. It would be logical to think that in a nation governed by the rule of law a single final judgement should be enough to ensure a decision is enforced, and if not the full extent of the law should force any dissenting pubic officials to step down post haste. From this perspective, the decision being addressed here sets a troubling precedent. The delay in responsibilities fosters arbitrariness in the use of power and supports the alleged delinquents' belief that the law has nothing to do with them and is merely instrument to serve their own purposes.
Nonetheless, this observer does consider that recognising the validity of the university degree is a building block on which to develop a minimum awareness of belonging to a single language market -another a type of market. Territories (borders), flags and languages are surely the most emblematic and emblematised elements of nations and markets both here and elsewhere. Language also contains infinite and intrinsic possibilities for particular symbolisation which reduce or expand these markets at their own convenience. Unfortunately, we Valencians know a lot about this. The name, spelling and grammar rules of a language tend to be a source of semiotic ritualisation and, as a result, a source of sentimental attachment and loyalties -which can be manipulated to meet symbolic as well as economic and socio-cultural objectives. The Galicians also give us several samples of this merchandise. The fact that all of this is often used as a smokescreen or sedative to dull more serious and definitive social conflicts for linguistic communities is an old tactic, as self-serving as it is recurring.
Finally, if in this case the observer applies the principal of the optimism of will recommended to us by A. Gramsci in our childhood reading, he or she will find a much more important reason to celebrate the ruling. Applying secessionism of the Valencian language from the rest of the Catalan linguistic community is a strategy of breaking up a shared market in which the interior borders -administrative or otherwise- dilute the flow of communication and, in consequence, the capacity of supply and demand. Moldavian is another example (Romanian spoken in Moldavia) of a clear awareness of being different from the Romanian spoken strictly in Romania. So is the case of Portuguese spoken in Galicia, often treated as a different language from the Portuguese spoken in the neighbouring country. Serbo-Croatian is perhaps the most flagrant case of in our area. It is in this regard -and only this regard- that we celebrate the legal recognition cited at the beginning of the article. The legal distinction between Valencian and Catalan, for example, kept education professionals in the two communities from having access to the territorial market. What was at stake was not our national essence, but the isolation of a certain critical mass of teachers, writers and cultural industries from Valencia that have made Catalan their language of creation and work. Thank goodness for the decision, even if has come fifteen years late.
Toni Mollá
Journalist and author of the book Manual de sociolingüística
