A Linguistically Divided Country

Although Mallorca is administratively a part of Spain, I did find some differences – differences that as an ignorant 18-year old I was not aware of before moving there. Not least the local dialect, or language, as some would call it.

Mallorquín (my-yor-keen) is very similar to Catalan, the language spoken in the region of Cataluña in the south-east of Spain, and Valenciano (ba-len-thee-ano) spoken in and around Valencia. All three dialects, with other slight variations on the islands of Formentera, Menorca and Ibiza always sound to me like a peculiar mixture of Spanish with a touch of French, and although the majority of the island’s residents also speak Castellano (cas-tay-yano – Castilian Spanish) some elderly people can still only converse fluently in Mallorquín.

This is not an unusual state of affairs in Spain. There are similar situations to be found in the harsh north-western regions of Galicia – and to a lesser extent, Asturias – where a hybrid of Spanish and Portuguese, Gallego (ga-yay-go), is spoken.

The most controversial of these regional tongues – and the one that is indisputably a language as opposed to a dialect, bearing as it does, no resemblance whatsoever to Castilian Spanish – is Euskera.

Spoken in the Guipúzcoa and Navarra regions of the Basque country (Euskadi) in the very north of Spain (and the adjoining southernmost parts of France) it is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Its roots are not Latin, Greek or Germanic but instead Indo-European – although the exact linguistic origins of the language and the geographical origins of its speakers are still under investigation and debate.

So although I was in Spain, I wasn’t in Spain – it really all depended on who I was talking to at the time. A Mallorquín would call himself a Mallorquín first and foremost, and grudgingly a Spaniard after if pressed, and he would make a concerted effort to ensure that his local language held precedence wherever and whenever possible.

(Luckily for me, most Mallorquíns took pity on my foreignness, and only attempted to converse with me in Castellano.)

But should I address a Spaniard from the typically Andalucian immigrant population on the topic, he would be adamant that we were very much in Spain; compounding his point by denying the local residents the right to speak their dialect wherever and whenever possible.

Funny how one of the most basic human instincts the world over seems to be to establish Us and Them barriers.

What is it all about, I wonder…