Sergi Belbel, artistic director of the National Theatre of Catalonia (TNC): “To understand Catalans, the first thing is to understand the concepts of ‘seny’ and ‘rauxa’”.
The president of the Institute of Catalan Studies, Salvador Giner, responds, “Catalan is spoken by 10 million people in 4 different countries”.
In order to receive EU funding to subsidise part of the language courses for Erasmus students, the Spanish Government has labelled Valencian Catalan as a different language. Both dialects were considered as the same language in all previous documents to the EU, an opinion shared by all the universities
The project funded by the Institut Ramon Llull –the institute promoting Catalan language and culture abroad– aims to promote the use of Catalan beyond the areas of Romance Language Studies and Philology.
Over 1,600 people have signed a virtual petition for a Catalan translation of twitter. The initiative was started by the Catalan journalist Albert Cuesta.
The linguistic, literary and cultural conference will be held in the Austrian capital from the 23rd to the 26th of September. The colloquium’s theme is ‘The concept of Catalan countries: Language, literature and culture’.
The Catalan Government has passed a decree that sets a minimum requirement for the Catalan language when hiring new university teachers. Visiting lecturers and current teachers are excluded. Universities will have flexibility in certifying the level and will be able to set individual exceptions.
Josep Huguet, the Catalan Minister for Innovation, Universities, and Businesses, said that the Catalan Government is preparing a decree-law that obligates university professors to prove their level of Catalan. Huguet argues that this is a measure of “equilibrium”, to ensure Catalan is used in the university.
The European Parliament, Council and Ombudsman have accused the Spanish Government of not translating legal texts and citizens? communications into and from Catalan. A binding agreement was signed in 2006 obliging Spain to pay for the translations.
Today the Poetry Market of Paris has begun with Catalonia as its special focus. Catalan poets have read their poems in the 28th edition of the most important poetry fair in Europe.
The pressure of Catalan Euro MPs has worked out. The European Commission has changed its initial position to not renew its only Catalan translator. Commissioner Reding has personally engaged in finding a replacement.