Good afternoon
Since it’s about fighting, I think it’s an important cause to fight for
It is the preservation of the world’s linguistic heritage,
the revitalization of languages
If I believe it, apart from what I think of it,
It is also because currently more than ninety percent
of the tongues in the world are at risk of disappearing
in the course of the 21st century.
When these predictions are made
It is usually said “well that’s what you’re pessimistic”
or “everyone predicts these things later they never end up happening”,
But the fact is that when we talk about this threat
We are based on processes that have already passed and that we see that they are being repeated
for example, more than ten percent of the world’s languages
They only have last speakers
Then there is another forty percent of languages that are no longer transmitting,
that is to say that parents have already left their language
to use the dominant language to address their children
and this in fact is the key point because we all have the experience
What is learning a second language?
and maybe not everyone has it, but we can imagine it
what would be to live in a second language
Therefore, once the language is lost, it is very difficult to recover.
This already leaves us in more than half of the world’s linguistic heritage
That we can hardly save even if we do not give up
but it is difficult.
Then there is another forty percent of languages that show symptoms
of the substitution process.
When I talk about the substitution process
In fact it is the same as saying death of languages
because the languages die because their speakers
stop talking to talk another.
This is a key element to be understood
because if a language disappears because it has previously occurred
A bilingual process that we will comment after.
In any case the symptoms can be very diverse
There are also no exact predictions about time
when it’s in this phase but I insist
They are already more than 40 percent of the world’s languages
among which is Catalan.
And that leaves us between five and ten percent of languages
which in principle will reach the twenty-second without problems.
Perhaps all of this can be summarized in even more forceful data
which is currently ninety-six percent of humanity
speaks four percent of the languages
or vice versa,
Four percent of humanity speaks ninety-six percent of the languages
With this already it is seen that the unbalance is brutal
And we have a lot of work ahead.
Maybe it will also help us to understand the magnitude of the process
to think that if I had told you this about twenty years ago
These figures would be ninety-five and five
that is, the thing is really accelerated
and with a very difficult situation.
So when it comes to solving this
In the fantasy of many, but also many sociolinguists
and also in the sociolinguistic tradition in our country
There are homogeneous societies.
Those who believe that a homogeneous society
It would allow to preserve the language and that it did not disappear
In fact, the history of mankind shows us that a homogeneous society
It is much more vulnerable.
Well, you have already been told that I am a member of the threatened language study group.
We have studied a lot how the languages die
and it is known, because many languages have disappeared,
Think that since Colom was wound up in America until now
the number of existing languages has already been halved
therefore we have a lot of study majors.
But after having studied this, we asked another question
And the question was, the languages that despite having had the same pressures
that those who have disappeared, and have not disappeared,
how come they have not disappeared?
And what we observed is that the languages are better preserved
which are spoken in very multilanguage contexts.
If we look at it, we can look for a rather distant example
in this case in the Pacific where there were a few examples
of those who are the dream of the sociolinguist
Let’s say conventional:
Islands where only one language was spoken, for example Samoa, Tahiti
Hawaii is also one,
Well, the fact is that in these languages that in principle
They were homogeneous societies and it did not seem that there was to be
a risk to the diversity that the colonial language came about
quickly swept the tongue.
And on the other hand there are other islands where there is a lot of diversity,
For example,
It is the place with the index of linguistic diversity
highest in the world
because they have resisitit.
There are other cases of islands but what is observed is this:
islands where only one language was spoken, the language has disappeared,
Islands where many languages are spoken, languages have been maintained.
If we approach a little more
and we arrived in Europe
In Europe in fact, we are already in the end
of the substitution processes
The official languages are practically the same
and the rest of some others,
but in those cases the one that is observed
It’s that languages that are disappearing
or that have disappeared
In general all of them have previously lived through this bilingualization process.
When I say this, I do not mean that Bilingualism is the cause
I am saying that it is the indispensable condition
so that nobody can leave a language if he does not have another one available to talk.
Therefore this is what we observe
But there is another area in Europe with a lot of diversity
which is the area of the Balkans
There are many languages spoken there, there is much contact
Many structural features have been exchanged
but on the other hand, nobody has stopped speaking their language.
Therefore, these examples, I think we should make them ruminant
That maybe when we hope to create a homogeneous society
or let everyone speak a single language
We are wrong in wanting to preserve this language.
Also this approach is very difficult to do at this time
because with globalization
with all the possibilities of communication
this no longer has any meaning.
But in any case it is possible or not
It seems that a homogeneous society is not desirable
because it exposes us much more to extinction.
Then, well, in the case of Catalan
I’ve already told you that Catalan
It is between this group of languages
which show symptoms of the substitution process.
We have found ourselves in recent years
a very important demographic change
that if we are able to take advantage it can help us a lot.
I am talking about the migrations that began to be felt
As of 2000,
which had a peak in 2006, 2007
In those years, people from all over the world have literally arrived
and they have brought a lot of languages.
We started the inventory,
Now, last week we still found a Caucasian language
that we did not have on the list
but finally, we have done the inventory of the languages that are spoken in Catalonia
and for now we have found speakers of more than 300 languages
Therefore, here we have a guarantee that if we know how to take advantage
can you please?
when building a multilingual society
that protects us towards extinction
or to protect us from extinction.
And with that I’m not saying
We all have to learn all these languages
not even that the same speakers have to preserve them
although I think it would be very good to do so
but it is not so much about that
but to be aware that this is a contribution
what these people do
We think the Catalans when we go around the world
we always put Casals Catalans
And here we are very happy
Those who have gone to Buenos Aires or California
Have your Casal Català and keep your language.
Well it’s about seeing this phenomenon the reverse
But it is also that this plays in our favor
Because I insist, diversity seems to be the only guarantee
to favor diversity, to promote the preservation of the language.
So clear, when we talk about diversity
in this context of globalization
There are several questions
one of which is quite disturbing
What role does English play in all this?
I am a linguist, to me all the languages I like
because then they will tell me: it’s a mania to English, no.
Only what you would like to see
is that we are considering another way of homogenization,
In fact, we’re doing it all,
We are even paying to kneel before the empire,
that is to say, they no longer need them, we already want that language
We are experiencing considerable deception in many ways.
A few years ago at the University of Barcelona
A work came out showing
That the fact of starting to learn English from the smallest
It did not mean any relevant difference
if it was started later.
I have an example of a student who is from Madrid
and he did this bilingual teaching that they say,
He did from P3 to high school in English
and was very happy
and very sure that he spoke English
until he went to the USA and realized he did not understand anything
and it took them three months to adapt
That is the same as we need all those who have learned English at the institute.
There is a lot of data in this regard
but I think above all what we should think about
is that with the adoption of English
We are also renouncing our creativity.
In fact we are sorrowing the childhood of our children
so they can learn English,
and not leaving … today we have seen many examples
of possibilities of creation
because we are not letting them develop their creativity
because we previously put this corset
of a language that also learns badly.
In the end you end up seeing in most cases
That when they do subjects in English
Do not learn the subject or learn English.
I want to say that this as a society should also make us think.
I have always said this:
If they want us to do everything in English very well, do it,
but prepare us
because we are improving a change that is very complex
And it’s obvious that we are not leaving it
and I do not know to what extent does inequality do not accentuate
because then we generate some expectations that we may not be able to meet.
Well, and then there is another question
which is in the case of our society
what should be the role of Spanish?
It seems to me that if it were not mandatory
we would already have a lot of money,
in the sense that we could choose all the languages.
And I really insist, what helps us in this diversity
It is to reconsider our relationships, how we manage linguistic diversity,
because we can at the same time preserve diversity
that we contribute with a language
that I have already told you that it is also threatened
And that we also have the responsibility to preserve
because in case we do not do it
We know that this is one of the languages that will disappear
and will disappear forever.
Think of it when you unluck a language
I’ve already told you that the process of the death of a language is the replacement
that is, when a group of speakers leaves the language
this language no longer has any way to recover it.
Even in the cases that say it is done
no longer recover what would have been that language
but it recovers another way
in many ways artificial.
In fact, go, I say it always, when we give up an ancestral language
for another language it is as if we were changing
the pyramids of Egypt, for example, for Port Aventura,
that is, we renounce what humanity has built
for a show of stone cardboard.
This is another of the things
because we know that there is a lot of knowledge in the languages
that if the languages disappear it disappears forever.
Languages are ways to explain the world
each language tells him in his own way
and if I look at it from the point of view of linguistics
It is also obvious that if all these languages disappear
also humans can not take care of us
of what language really is
because we will have lost many possibilities
how are the languages
We know that languages
They are the realization of a universal human capacity.
This is what allows us to say that all are the same
That’s why it does not make much sense
Let one take up the space of others
And let us give up so many things.
And also this loss
it implies us
We already have it very difficult to make creative contributions to humanity
Therefore, the more we want to preserve what we have.
And since we are there since they have put me in the fight in English
(Laughter)
I come from a generation
where the Romance languages were the queens of the fight
If “lot continues” and the fight continues …
In short, there is this perplexity in the title,
in any case, remember:
We have the responsibility to preserve a language
which may disappear
And we also have the responsibility
to be respectful with all the languages
because there is none that is better than others.
Thanks.
(Applause)
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