¡Parlem Valenciá! Speak the local Valencian language; it’s an exhortation seen on plenty of walls in the Valencian Community. Pinoso, of course, is in Alicante and Alicante is in the Valencian Community. Lots of people around here speak Valenciano as their first language.
The language that most people call Spanish is, more accurately, the language of Castile. It’s Castilian that is the home language for 20 countries of the World with the largest concentration of Castilian speakers being in the United States of America. Castilian is the third most popular mother tongue in the World after Chinese and Hindhi (or it may be the second and Hindhi third depending on which source you believe) though English is still miles in front, numberwise, when additional language speakers are taken into account. Nonetheless, Spanish, the Castillian variety, is a world language.
There are four main languages in Spain, all of which are Spanish: Galician, Basque, Catalan and Castilian. There are three variants on Catalan – Catalan itself, Mallorquin (from Mallorca and with other variants in the Balearics) and Valencian. Mind you radical Valencians or Mallorcans would argue that their’s is a language not a dialect. Nearly everyone who speaks Catalan, Basque or Galician also speaks Castillian.
During the dictatorship all the languages except Castillian were supressed. Consequently, as soon as democracy was re-introduced there was a mad dash to reclaim local identity amongst the Catalans and Basques in particular. Now I’m all for that. Roots are a good thing, knowing where you belong and hanging onto the individualism of communities seems very positive. But these things are easy to radicalise and it is now difficult to find a Castilian sign in Cataluña. Whilst the Catalans used to only give grief to their rivals from Madrid about speaking Castilian I’ve noticed the last couple of times that I’ve been in Barcelona a reluctance amongst Catalans to speak to me, a foreigner, in Castillian. I get the idea that Castillian is being identified with the “enemy.” I have to be honest and say that the last time we were in Cataluña, near Lerida/Lleida, I noticed none of this language differentiation. Maybe the people of Barcelona are just fed up with tourists or maybe I simply ran into stroppy people. There is, of course, a big independence movement amongst Catalans and the use of the language is just one part of that.
The local magazine in Pinoso is called El Cabeço. The title is Valenciano of course and refers to the big salt dome hill that is a symbol of the town. Recently more and more articles in the magazine have been in Valenciano. Sometimes tourist publicity and the “what’s on” on the Pinoso Town Hall website is also in Valenciano. It’s usually possible to get the gist of the content from a flawed knowledge of Castillian but I often wonder if the Town Hall considers what this use of Valenciano may be doing to its tourist industry. After all lots of potential customers in Murcia (just 3kms away), never mind most of the rest of Spain, don’t speak Valenciano. I also wonder how much of the use of Valenciano is a political rather than a cultural statement
For government workers throughout Spain there are tests a bit like the UK Civil Service exams. In Valencia part of those tests include being able to read and write in Valencian. Until recently Valenciano was very much a spoken, rather than written, language with significant grammatical and word variations between towns and districts. Even first langauge Valencian speakers often have to cram for their tests. For workers from outside the area, for instance a teacher or librarian, with qualifications obtained in Madrid or Toledo or Seville they have to pass the Valencian language test before they can work at the same job in the Valencian Community.
So, when you wander around Pinoso don’t be too surprised if you think that maybe you weren’t paying close enough attention at the local Spanish evening class because you can’t understand a word of what people are saying. The language you’re listening to isn’t the one you learned.
Much more like this at my own blogs Life in Culebrón