Linguapax

This represents a big drawback in terms of the public regular life of Catalan, whose vitality has been so far so inspiring for many linguistic revitalization projects all over the world.

DECLARATION

As directors and members of the Linguapax Advisory Board, an international nongovernmental organisation that promotes the protection of linguistic diversity, and aware of the sentence passed by the Constitutional Court of the Spanish State which declared as unconstitutional article 6.1 of the Statute of
Catalonia, which recognised Catalan as Catalonia's own language and ensured its preferential use in Public Administration bodies and teaching, we declare that:

1. Weakening the legal state of the Catalan language is an error. If Catalan is not considered Catalonia's own language, its use will continue to give
way to the Spanish language, which benefits from hundreds of legal regulations.

2. The Spanish State could be considered an example of protecting linguistic diversity, but, instead, is becoming part of the group of States that maintain a
hierarchy between languages and accept linguistic substitution processes that favour the languages which are most protected.

3. Catalan society was going through a process, in a peaceful way, to recover its language that was persecuted during the years of dictatorship.
Catalan society is a victim of an artificially provoked attack which will make difficult linguistic coexistence that until now had been an international
example of best practice.

As a result, we declare our wish for this error to be solved with deep respect to the democratic will of the people of Catalonia.

Barcelona, June 29, 2010

If you wish to pledge your support to this declaration please send an email to: (Necessites javascript per veure aquest correu-e)

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Linguapax declaration in reaction to the sentence passed by the Spanish Constitutional Court substantially weakening the legal recognition of the Catalan language

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