Spain: About Spain - Part 2
From ExecutivePlanet.com
Regionalism and nationalism
Spain has two unresolved local 'colonial' disputes. The first concerns the contested sovereignty of Gibraltar, which remains a dependency of the British Crown; the second concerns the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and three small islands off the coast of North Africa, which are all claimed by Morocco. These are sensitive subjects.
In terms of internal variation and/or conflict there are two main problems and both are founded in regionalism or nationalism. Catalonia [Cataluña [Spanish] or Catalunya [Catalan] is an autonomous community whose capital is Spain's second largest city, Barcelona, and whose own language, Catalan [català], is closer to Occitan [the old language of southern France] than to Castilian or standard Spanish [castellano]. Some of the tension between Catalonia and the capital goes back to the civil war when the Mediterranean province supported the losing Republican cause against Franco's Nationalists. Today, the independent-mindedness of the Catalans manifests itself primarily in a fierce pride in their language, spoken by 17% of the total Spanish population of 40m and an official language in Catalonia, and the hostile rivalry that endures on the football pitch between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid who are perceived as the representatives of central authority.
If it is inadvisable to try to speak Castilian to a staunch Catalan regionalist, it is doubly unwise to address a Basque nationalist in Spanish. The Basque Country [Euskadi or Euskal Herri [Basque] or País Vasco [Spanish]] consists of three provinces in northern Spain centred on the cities of San Sebastián [Donostia in Basque] and Bilbao [Bilbo]. It has been an independent-minded area for centuries and, today, the Basque separatist group [ETA] carries out acts of terrorism across Spain in pursuit of their goal of full independence from Madrid. Only 15% of the local population support the aims of ETA but perhaps a third speak some Basque [a unique and ancient non-Indo-European language]. For the most part, however, the visitor will be aware of a distinct Basque culture only from the use of the Basque language [euskara] on signs and the ubiquitous presence of the frontón [the court for playing traditional Basque sports, notably pelota [Spanish] or jai-alai [Basque]] in even the smallest village.
Galicia in northwest Spain also has its own language, which is closely related to Portuguese, but the visitor is most unlikely to encounter gallego in a business context.
Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician are the four lenguas cooficiales, official languages that enjoy equal legal status in Spain. There are almost many pronounced dialects of which valencià in the Levant Region around Valencia and mallorquín in the Balearic Islands are perhaps the most distinctive.
Submit a Comment on this Article
