Conflict between Valencian and Catalan:

Is Valencian a language of its own or a variety of Catalan?

Gerhard EDELMANN

University of Vienna
(gerhard.edelmann@univie.ac.at)

Keywords: Catalan/Valencian, sociolinguistic status, conflict, linguistic and sociopolitical criteria.

In my contribution I will discuss the sociolinguistic status of Valencian, in particular, the dis- puted question whether it is a language of its own or a variety of Catalan. In the latter case, we can ask ourselves whether Catalan can be considered as a pluricentric language, whether it is possible to speak of dominant and non-dominant varieties of Catalan and which type of variety Valencian may be.

In linguistic terms, Catalan is split into the major varieties Eastern and Western Catalan, which, however, do not coincide with the political frontiers of the above-mentioned Autono- mous Communities. There is rather a dialect continuum with clear mutual intelligibility be- tween Valencian and the other varieties of Catalan.

The degree of standardization of Catalan is high, but there are two codification and normali- zing centers: The Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) in Catalonia and the Academia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL) in Valencia. The IEC claims to be competent for all Catalan-speaking territories, whereas the AVL maintains its competence for Valencia.

However, when it comes to determine the status of a language in practical terms, linguistic criteria such as mutual intelligibility and standardization are not the sole means to determine the status of a language. As we can see from the examples of other languages, like Hindi and Urdu, Serbian and Croatian, other criteria, such as sociopolitical ideology, social identifica- tion of the speakers play an important role.

That's why, besides linguistic criteria, I will discuss important sociopolitical aspects and iden- tities, for example the name of the language, which has become an instrument of national lan- guage policy, and the important concept of “Pai'sos Catalans” the main goal of which is to create a Catalan identity. One has to bear in mind that in today's Spain the question of the status of the languages which, together with Castilian, are official languages in certain Auton- omous Communities has an important political dimension. This is especially true with regard to Catalonia. Not only linguistic institutions, like the above-mentioned Academia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL), take part in defining the status of a language, there are also political bodies involved, as for example the “Consejo de las Lenguas Oficiales en la Administration General del Estado”, which recently was requested by a Madrid Court to clarify whether Catalan and Valencian are two different languages.

In my contribution I will describe the present status of the conflict, present the relevant lin- guistic and political criteria and propose an evaluation.