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Comment by gpvos | Hacker News Reader

Actually, only slightly less than 50% wants independence. They are very vocal though. Also, since education in Catalonia is entirely in Catalonian (also they have their own history books), and use of Spanish in public is heavily discouraged, children will grow up in a mostly Catalonian environment, which makes it likely that that percentage will grow over time.

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What do you mean by discouraged?

I'm from the US and my wife is from Barcelona. Her family all speaks Catalan between each other but they are perfectly happy speaking Spanish with me (as are all of their family's friends and associates).

Between my wife and her friends, they speak probably a 50/50 mix of Catalan/Spanish.

I have never heard or seen anyone in all of Catalunya be discouraging or negative in relation to speaking Spanish.

When I was first in Spain, the calls for independence were few and far between compared to now, but the situation hasn't improved so they continue to grow.

But the basis of those calls, from what I've seen, is primarily rooted in real, economic/political issues. They aren't calling for independence because they have a different language, but because Spain is not providing them with the fair share of resources they need to succeed and grow as a region.

I can think of a few examples myself, such as fines for business daring to exposing public banners in Spanish [1] or the impossibility to study with Spanish as a vehicular language [2].

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/www.lavanguardia.com/politica/201...

[2] https://www.google.com/amp/www.elconfidencialautonomico.com/...

Spanish is studied alongside with catalan. Out of 10 tv channels, 9 are in spanish. School is mostly taught in Catalan, so what? It's not a commodity, but you are abogating extinguishing a language for commodity?

However I just see for the first time your [1], and as a totally pro-independentist person that I am, I totally condemnd that. Thats blatant catalan fuckup, that is unacceptable and that is not what my independentist rationale claim for.

Well, the region grows better than almost any Spanish region (except maybe the metropolitan area of Madrid) and they saved their banks when the crisis hit them first ;-)

What the... You've never been in Catalonia, am I right?

1. It's false that the education in Catalonia is entirely in catalan. I've had tons of classes in spanish.

2. It's false that the use of spanish in public is discouraged. If you go to Barcelona I'd say that you're going to hear 50/50 spanish and catalan in public.

3. It's not clear if the percentage of people who defend an independent country are above or below 50%. It'd be great to verify it with a real referendum allowed by the spanish government ;)

It's OK to express an opinion, but please, don't propagate these kind of lies. They do no good to anybody.

> 2. It's false that the use of spanish in public is discouraged. If you go to Barcelona I'd say that you're going to hear 50/50 spanish and catalan in public.

Despite the efforts of the Catalan government, it will be much closer to 100% Catalan in the environments where they can dictate what language may be used. Do you hear 50/50 Spanish and Catalan in the media controlled by the Catalan government, for example? They push the usage of Catalan over Spanish as hard as they can, going beyond what is legally possible in some cases (see http://blogs.ua.es/sevila1/2016/05/30/nulidad-de-parte-del-p...).

I was not really expressing an opinion, but providing a counterpoint to the parent comment, which was really not based on enough data. I could have been a bit more detailed, sorry about that, and I wholly agree with your #3.

I've been to Barcelona for a few days around five years ago, keeping mostly to the touristic areas. Had to skip it last year on an Interrail trip due to lack of time, sadly.

The best "measure" we have right now for the percentage of independentists (and the one I assume you're implicitly citing) were the last Catalan elections the 27th of september of 2015. There are two problems with that measure:

- That was two years ago

- Even then, that was a parlamentary election, not a referendum.

This <50% metric has been widely cited by the media, but it is flawed IMO.

I think it is reasonable to demand a proper referendum, whether you want independence or not.

I'm not disputing at all that it's reasonable to have a referendum, and I understand that a huge majority there wants that, if, for some, only to vote against independence.

> and use of Spanish in public is heavily discouraged

Would help to know (for non Catalans, specially) what you hint at. My parents talk in Spanish everywhere and to anyone they want to with no problems. Have done so for all her life for my mother and more than 40 years for my father.

I assume you mean that public offices and positions require knowing and using Catalan?

I'm not from there, my information comes mostly from Dutch and English media. But I've read that all public schools are all-Catalan except for the Spanish language lessons, and shops with Spanish-only signs are fined.

For shops, that’s the language equality law. Not sure about the justification, but it’s not that hard to have dual signs (and written Catalan is easy to grasp for Spanish speakers). This law was introduced some 10 years ago.

For classes, IIRC it’s not mandatory (or wasn’t 15 years ago), just common. My chemistry teacher spoke only Spanish, and it was fine.

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