Catalonia votes today

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Reminder: there's an election in Catalonia today that could play an important role in the future European linguistic and geopolitical map. Looking at a linguistic map of Europe shows how overextended Spanish is compared to Portuguese, which is in the opposite situation with a language (or very close fraternal language) extending beyond the border whereas Spanish is not quite dominant even within Spain itself.


Redrawing the borders along strict linguistic lines would make Spain look fairly awkward compared to today, with a country called Portugaliza all along the west side, Euskadi shrinking the coast on the north side, and Catalonia on the east shrinking the Mediterranean coast.


Not being involved with the area, I have no opinion on Spanish vs. Catalan and who should separate from or be united with whom, besides a bit of affection for Catalan and Occitan as languages that more closely resemble a lot of pan-Romance IALs than Spanish and French. I've often wondered what would have happened if France's official language had been Occitan instead of French and Catalan in Spain instead of Castillan. Then we would have had a much more mutually comprehensible region stretching from France to Spain and down into Italy.


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