Freedom for Catalonia?

Shoud Catalonia be independent?

  • Yes, and they should annex Andorra.

    Votes: 16 16.7%
  • Yes, and they shouldn't annex Andorra.

    Votes: 15 15.6%
  • No.

    Votes: 58 60.4%
  • Other.

    Votes: 7 7.3%

  • Total voters
    96
stat01.jpg

A really misleading illustration. Arguably only Mandarin of all the languages in the world has more native speakers than "Hindustani", which is often broken down into separate languages (Urdu and Hindi particularly), but is actually mutually comprehensible in contrast to Mandarin and Cantonese, which are not mutually comprehensible.
 
There's also no way that many people speak French, unless we're counting ESL and EFL and fake magical people who don't exist.
 
Sorry for getting somewhat off-topic here, but here's a question I been thinking about: are there any monolingual Catalans left (or at least non-Castilian speaking)? I know that, except for some old people and young children, there are no non-Castilian speaking, bilingual Basques.

I'm guessing there is not, but that might be more of a function of the in-migration of Castilian speakers and the closeness of the languages than Franco's repressive measures (which where obviously bad and didn't help).
 
There's also no way that many people speak French, unless we're counting ESL and EFL and fake magical people who don't exist.
Seems to be based on the population figures of all countries that have made French one of their official languages, or something.:scan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language

Which includes places like Canada, so I'm sure some poster will go positively ape.;)

Other assessments of native or adopted regular and fluent French language speakers puts that figure at 128 million. Of these 77 are then first language speakers.

http://french.about.com/od/francophonie/ss/whatisfrench.htm
 
Babbler: It's not very likely outside of young children and the very old... maybe in the hinterland of the Balearics or up in the Pyrenees*? It's far more common, I think, that there are Catalans who only speak rather bad and imperfect Castillian.

The thing to remember with Basque is that it only has about 30% or 40% penetration in Spanish Euskadi, even the father of Basque nationalism, Sabino Arana, had to learn the language in adulthood, and within early Basque nationalist circles there was a serious debate about whether to abandon the language in favour of Castillian or revive Basque in the urban communities where it had been displaced. A Basque-speaking polity has always been more dream than reality, and although it's doing better these days, it's not as successful as the Catalan project.

I would be willing to bet, however, that there are still monolingual Galicians in some villages in Galicia, because Galician is more universally spoken than Basque or Catalan in their respective homelands and the place is, frankly, far less modern and developed. Gallego has something like 90% spread in Galicia's Autonomous Community, versus something like 60% spoken fluency in Catalonia and 30% Basque in the Basque Country.

*There's even people whose first language is Aragonese in their part of the Pyrenees. Shame their language didn't become the peninsular standard - its orthography is even simpler than Castellano.
 
@ Winner, this can happen without increasing the number of "countries", as they are already countries. And if less states is what you want, then Bohemia should go back under German rule; strike that, we can cut the number of European countries even further by giving all the generic Slav countries to Mother Russia. :p

Oh gosh, aren't we in a trolly mood? :pat: Do you really think that pathetic rants like this impress me?

Catalonia isn't a country - it's an autonomous part of Spain. The same goes to other would-be separatist regions.
 
Oh gosh, aren't we in a trolly mood? :pat: Do you really think that pathetic rants like this impress me?

Pathetic rants? :lol:

Catalonia isn't a country - it's an autonomous part of Spain. The same goes to other would-be separatist regions.

Actually, grap a dictionary, and you'll discover the English word "country" (and "nation" indeed) can be used irrespective of political status.
 
Pathetic rants? :lol:

Yes. And also completely unrelated to the matter at hand.

Actually, grap a dictionary, and you'll discover the English word "country" (and "nation" indeed) can be used irrespective of political status.

Can be, perhaps, but they usually aren't and they're certainly not in the sense I used the word.

I wonder why you're so irritated - aren't you from one of these separatist non-countries, perhaps? That would explain it...
 
I dont know the reason...sometimes copy twice post
 
I feel really pretty pathetic that people make ABSOLUTELY FALSE graphics to argue ... Here is the official website used by the EU and the English wikipedia, where it clearly says that Spanish is the second most spoken language (but also specifies that data are rounded, and really can be considered the first most spoken language, and has approximately number of speakers as Mandarin Chinese).

http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/help/top-100-languages-by-population.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language#Geographical_distribution

Catalonia is a nation and set in the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Catalonia. Spain is a union of nations, nationalities and different historical regions. And indeed, the word separatist in Spain is considered extremely offensive, please ask that you use the words of catalanist, nationalist, or federalist, as appropriate.

And finally ... please do not compare Catalonia and California ... Catalonia has existed for little more than a thousand years, we have endured 300 years of prohibition of the language and traditions, the bombing of the Spanish Fascists, Germans and Italians, the French invasions and looting of Castile, and even today after 40 years of dictatorship, torture and murder with impunity, we remain committed to our language and our identity ... The conflict of California is an economic broached.

Visca Catalunya! Visquin els Païssos Catalans!
 
Yes. And also completely unrelated to the matter at hand.

It seems to be a fair response that if someone argues there are already too many [independent] countries in Europe, to point out that the best way to solve that is to merge all the generic made-up Slav countries. I said Russia, but all we really need is Russia, Poland and some greater Yugoslavia. And I mean, if Moravians can be Bohemians, then surely both can be Poles? :p Or maybe some northern Yugoslavia ... we could call it "Germanophile Russia", since essentially all Poles and Bohemians are are Russians who've wanted to be German. :mischief:

Can be, perhaps, but they usually aren't and they're certainly not in the sense I used the word.

I don't know, it's fairly usual to describe all Ireland, Wales and Scotland as "countries", and the inhabitants of such places would find it extremely odd not to be described as such just because they are in a political union.

I wonder why you're so irritated - aren't you from one of these separatist non-countries, perhaps? That would explain it...

Hey man, not irritated at all. You're the one losing temper ... ;)
 
It's easy to say that nationalism is poison if your nation is independent ... we who live in nations within states that do not respect our identity? In 1939 the Spanish state executed the president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, for the sole reason of being the President of Catalonia, even today, Spain has not aborted the trial which sentenced him to die.
 
It's easy to say that nationalism is poison if your nation is independent ... we who live in nations within states that do not respect our identity? In 1939 the Spanish state executed the president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, for the sole reason of being the President of Catalonia, even today, Spain has not aborted the trial which sentenced him to die.

Well, boo hoo. How does it affect the life of people living in Catalonia today?
 
I swear, Winner's like the - atheistic/secular of course - Messiah of Common Sense. :D

He has a point though, Edelbroy. Should you blame the son for the sins of the father? What sorts of atrocities are being committed in Catalonia today to justify secession?

History's fun and all, but it's supposed to give you lessons about the present and how to shape the future. It's not supposed to shape the future itself. After all, if Catalonia gets independence for it's x amount of years of being independent, then we surely must do the same for all of the French states, all of the German states, the Italian states, etc.

And I'm afraid I'm not too fond of letting that happen. For the sake of progress, humans must unite, not divide.
 
History's fun and all, but it's supposed to give you lessons about the present and how to shape the future. It's not supposed to shape the future itself. After all, if Catalonia gets independence for it's x amount of years of being independent, then we surely must do the same for all of the French states, all of the German states, the Italian states, etc.

There are some parallels with "French states", esp. if you're talking about distinct communities like New Caledonia and Corsica, which no serious outside observer would describe as "French". The only Italian parallels would be Sicily and Sardinia, the former being credibly described as "Italian" the latter not Italian in the slightest. Can't see any real parallel with the German states. Germany, though shrunken now, has existed as a linguistic and national concept since the 10th century, and all credible national alternatives are effectively dead now, most current German "states" being modern bureaucratic concoctions.

Spain on the other hand is an arbitrary collection of lands accumulated by the Castilian crown and its successors. There's no reason it should include Catalunya, but not Portugal. Catalunya has evolved a distinct linguistic national identity, one that is decidedly more credible than many independent European countries (like Austria, Bosnia, Macedonia, and so on). I'm not saying it shouldn't be independent, but it takes a lot of nonsensical thinking to try to discredit its claims to nationhood while upholding many others.
 
Visca Catalunya! Visquin els Païssos Catalans!

Learn some orthography and grammar too.

Oh jeez, nationalism is such a poison, almost as bad as religion.

Oh! So you just can't stand that a catalan complains about 40 years of fascist dictatorship but we have to stand every day the complaints of all eastern europeans for being in the commie block?
 
Oh! So you just can't stand that a catalan complains about 40 years of fascist dictatorship but we have to stand every day the complaints of all eastern europeans for being in the commie block?

Who's complaining? And about what? If you want to take a jab at me with some analogy, try harder.

Provided that the oppression is gone and the people are free, I don't really see a reason to endlessly argue about some historical injustices, it's silly. And it applies to all nations; I am just as irritated when the Poles do it(or Slovaks or Czechs or whoever else).
 
Oh jeez, nationalism is such a poison, almost as bad as religion.

Is it really that bad Winner? I mean, do you have alot of Jehovah Witnesses or something?
 
Back
Top Bottom