LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

Like her family, my mother spoke valenciano as a native speaker, but she lacked a deep-rooted knowledge of the language. Her command was hearsay—oral, instinctive—and she never learned to read or write it. The dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera (1870–1930) had banned schooling in any language other than Spanish. At home and in the street: valenciano ; at school: Spanish. This explains why, for "lizard," I have always used sangrantana —only to discover, after so many years, that it is a metaplasm of the formal word sargantana . The same goes for gavinet , the colloquial form of ganivet ("knife") in standard Valencian. Why mention this? To show that all languages are cut from the same cloth, cojean del mismo pie —they limp from the same foot. And that if we truly wish to master a language, we must read it. Seeing is believing. 

Several languages and dialects are spoken in Spain. The main ones and their figures are Catalan (Mayorquín, valenciano): 9,000, 000 speakers. Gallego: 2,500,000 speakers. Aranés: 5,000 speakers Basque: 700,000 speakers. Spanish: 47,000,000 speakers.   

Like the rest of Europe, Spain is the home of several languages. Spanish is spoken by one hundred percent of the population and the rest, which we could label "regional" languages, Aranés, Gallego, Catalan, Basque, and Valenciano, have varied percentages of native speakers, all of whom, as I have already said, have a good command of Castilian, with different accents, intonations, and phraseology, also comparable to different accents, intonation, and phraseology in German, French, Italian and other continental languages. This is nothing to write home about except that, until a few weeks ago, Spanish was the only means of parliamentary communication in Congress since the advent of democracy after the Dictator´death, 1975. Unfortunately, the Socialist government decided to use languages as political weapons, approving a law permitting regional languages to be used in parliamentary procedure, with simultaneous translations into and from Spanish, forcing Aitor Esteban to address ...

  Se habla mucho de los falsos amigos y lo traidores que son, pero yo no lo creo así, por lo menos en los idiomas.  Por ejemplo: "La cama" es en valenciano "el llit". "La pierna" es en valenciano "la cama". "Acercarse" es en valenciano "acostarse" y "acostarse" en castellano es "gitarse" en valenciano. Y todo esto parece un lío, pero no lo es porque el cerebro sabe perfectamente, por el contexto y la pronunciación, de qué va la palabra. ¡Qué maravilla es el cerebro! Algún día se descubrirá cómo funciona. Por cierto que... Ja s´acosta Sant Josep!

  Mi bisabuelo Bartolomé Carbonell Sirera hablaba valenciano con sus hijos, y mi abuelo Vicente hacía lo mismo con sus hermanos. En casa de mi madre no se hablaba otra cosa, hasta el punto de que su padre Julián, y su hermano Pepe, se veían en un aprieto para desenvolverse en castellano. Yo les oía a todos hablar el valenciano, entre ellos, con el fontanero que venía a casa, con el "llanterner" de enfrente de casa, con el "femater" que devolvía mi tortuga que se metía en la basura... pero nadie se dirigía a mi en esa lengua. Todos me hablaban en castellano. Varias veces le pregunté a mi madre por qué, Y no supo nunca contestarme. Pero teniéndolo tan crudo, con tan poca ayuda externa, sin ningún interés de la familia, habiédnome desvinculado de ese entorno a los 11 años ... lo hablo. No tan bien como debiera, pero lo hablo. Y lo pronuncio muy bien. S´han fotut tots! S´han fotut perque encara hui puc parlar eixa llengua que jo trove tan bonica. Assi que, com día ma ma...

Verbally I dwell in a two-story linguistic house. Let us say that on the ground floor I have placed my Spanish language where I keep the traditions, feelings, attitudes, fears, hatred, love, and memorized poetry that I have been hoarding all my life. Upstairs, I have the English language and tradition, the history, literature, feelings, and likes and dislikes, and also the poetry I have committed to memory, that this tongue has fostered during my life.  And I go up and down often, running away or hiding in either one of them. When I become angry with Spaniards for whatever reason, I take refuge and solace upstairs, and vice versa, of course. I might even have a linguistic split personality, who knows. But I even have a garret where I have stored linguistic odds and ends: French, Velenciano, bits of German and Latin, a smattering of Portuguese. Sometimes I visit the attic and dust these languages and brush them up a bit and lament the lack of time to really bring them up to date. To...