February 2005

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AGREEMENT ON THE UNITY OF THE CATALAN LANGUAGE

February 2005 — The official language institution in País Valencià (Valencian Country), the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (Valencian Language Academy, AVL), may have solved the Catalan / Valencian language unity issue. On 9th February, AVL issued a “Statement on the principles and criteria for the defence of the denomination and the entity of the Valencian language” which brings to an end the language division and confrontation, encouraged by the Valencian PP government and which actually infringes Article 7.1.b of the European Charter for Regional Minority Languages, as denounced by the Observatory of the Catalan Language.

The aim of presenting the different modality of Catalan spoken in the País Valencià, and indirectly named as “Valencian” in Article 7 of the Statute of the Valencian Autonomous Community, as a language which is different from Catalan, has been accepted and encouraged by certain political sectors without any scientific basis. Recently, with the debate on the languages of the EU Constitution, Spain even intended to make Basque, Galician, Catalan and also Valencian EU official languages: the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, stated that the reason for the differentiation of Catalan/Valencian was strictly legal, as he said he just abided to the name mentioned in the Valencian Statute of Autonomy.

Now, after the talks between the presidents of the Valencian and Catalan autonomous communities, an agreement has been reached. The agreement establishes that the different linguistic modalities (Catalan and Valencian) constitute one language. It also sets that there are two legal denominations for the same language: Catalan and Valencian. Moreover, it includes that “Valencian” can refer either to the language itself or to the specific idiomatic modality; the agreement defends that both denominations (Catalan and Valencian) have been co-existing. Finally, it also makes clear that the historic language of Valencian people is, from the philological point of view, the same as that of Catalonia and Balearic Islands.

More information can be found in the upcoming Mercator-Legislation’s Working Paper n.18 to be published in March 2005.