Barcelona, capital of Catalan?

Ton and Marta ---I use fictitious names to prevent my friends from cutting me off when they discover I'm talking about them in this article--- live in Gràcia and have two children. We'll call them Pau and Llorenç. Pau will turn twelve and Llorenç, I think, is ten. Ton is a lifelong Barcelonian and Marta, like myself, comes from Osona, but has lived in the city for over twenty years. My friends have always spoken Catalan among themselves and with almost everyone, have raised their children in this language, and do everything possible to use it also when they shop at the market, have drinks in the neighborhood, or do any administrative procedure, at the risk of being considered impertinent or finicky. We could say that Ton, Marta, and their two offspring constitute a model or exemplary Catalan-speaking family. A bit like those fake families from 90s TV3 series where the adults always appeared reading the Avui and the little ones, Massagran's adventures, when they weren't doing puzzles of the map of the Països Catalans.

For some time now, however, when Ton and Marta put their ear to the children's bedroom door to check that they are not fighting, they hear Pau and Llorenç often speaking to each other in Spanish. First, they thought it was a kind of children's game, but as the months have passed, they have discovered that it is not, let's say, a passing vice, but that their children speak more and more in Spanish. In class, they study in Catalan, of course, but they mostly interact with their classmates in Spanish. That's how it is. They switch languages with the same ease with which they use their parents' tablet, although when switching from Spanish to Catalan they omit some weak pronouns and much of that more genuine lexicon ---imported from the village and which in Barcelona often sounds alien--- that Marta strives to transmit to them with manifestly little success.

Pau and Llorenç are not an isolated case. I have other friends who are very militant about this language issue and who helplessly witness this same phenomenon: their children are becoming Spanish speakers. These are children who have received tons of Club Súper 3 merchandise, who have been subscribed to Cavall Fort since before they could reason; children who have listened on repeat in their parents' car radio to the greatest hits of Xiula and El Pot Petit even though their parents detested them, but not even that helped. At a certain age, they have ended up surrendering to the enormous power of seduction of Spanish: the language of online video games, of the most viral YouTube videos, of the coolest influencers, of trendy series, of Tinder, of the cashier at the grocery store downstairs, of university students who come to do an Erasmus with a desire to party...

These are children who have received tons of Club Súper 3 merchandise, who have been subscribed to Cavall Fort since before they could reason; children who have listened on repeat in their parents' car radio to the greatest hits of Xiula and El Pot Petit even though their parents detested them, but not even that helped

The data confirms this: only one in four young people in Barcelona has Catalan as their usual language, even though half claim to have a good knowledge of the language, according to data from the Barcelona City Council's Youth Survey. The situation is not only serious, but it is getting worse. Currently, 28% of respondents speak it regularly, while five years ago 35% did.The Barcelona survey also reveals ---oh, surprise--- that the social use of Castilian is increasing in this group: it has gone from being the everyday language of 56% of the city's young people to being that of 62%.

I don't think it's exaggerated or alarmist to state unequivocally that Catalan is disappearing at an accelerated pace from the streets of Barcelona. We have powerful media in Catalan and an administration that operates primarily in this language. We have a citizenry capable of understanding it and apparently using it, but which does so less and less every day. Go out into the street and listen. Turn on the Telenotícies and you will see how when the voice of the street appears ---testimonies of anonymous citizens who give their opinion on any topic--- it is mostly expressed in Castilian.

One might think that this only happens in Barcelona and that, fortunately, the country is much more than its capital. And it is true, just as it is true that the future of the language does not look good if Barcelona does not act as the capital of Catalan. I don't know what should be done ---there are people much smarter than me, some on the administration's payroll, who I imagine must be thinking about the matter---, but it is urgent that the situation be reversed before reaching a point of no return.

One might think that this only happens in Barcelona and that, fortunately, the country is much more than its capital. And it is true, just as it is true that the future of the language does not look good if Barcelona does not act as the capital of Catalan.

Neither the sea nor the Olympic legacy nor even modernism, if anything makes Barcelona unique in the world it is its condition as the capital of Catalan. Therefore, it cannot be that it often seems that having one's own language is a hindrance.