At the market, in the street or at school, your Catalan plays its part
The use of Catalan in the city is in decline, as shown by various studies in recent years. One in four people living in the city only speak Spanish, and 27% use very little Catalan. The campaign “El teu català suma” has been presented with the goal of people re-establishing emotional bonds with the language and of stimulating its use. The campaign forms part of a plan with 68 measures to foster the use of Catalan in the city of Barcelona.
Catalan has multiple accents and the most important thing is to speak it, regardless of one’s level or how it sounds. Through a “C+” represented in different ways, the campaign “El teu català suma” [your Catalan plays its part] aims to reflect this great variety, not just in terms of dialects, but offered by the way people in Barcelona speak, and encourage people to use the language free of any complexes in their daily life, when having fun, shopping, at school, at work or on social media.
68 steps to promote Catalan
The campaign forms part of a plan with 68 actions to foster the use of Catalan in the city of Barcelona, the municipal contribution to the National Language Pact by the Government of Catalonia.
The proposals set out in the 68 actions to promote the use of Catalan are structured into twelve areas: the internal management of the City Council in the political and institutional sphere, communication with the public, citizen support, education, sport, the economy, culture, the science and university sphere, health, youth and leisure.
Notable measures include the creation of a Catalan language day in Barcelona; efforts to make Catalan the default language in public by the Mayor and by councillors; also in institutional publicity and information channels operated by the City Council; the promotion of a digital content creation competition in Catalan, and the creation of the Catalan Language Office.
Catalan wanes in the city
The Survey on linguistic use among the population (2018) reveals that only 29.3% of people in Barcelona usually speak Catalan. That percentage is lower among young people (28.4%) according to the Survey of young people in Barcelona (2020), a drop of more than 7% compared to 2015.
