I have never heard of Catalan language before moving to Barcelona. No one I know has.  I am American, from the United States, and I lived in Barcelona, and hold Spanish permanent residency, have lived and worked in London, UK for 2 years and lived in Spain 6 years (Barcelona, Cadiz) My vote was to hold Spain together and do not support independence but support linguistic pluralism, to a point. I used to be married to a Spanish women (non Catalan).  I would agree with you in theory but not in reality, as I lived in Spain; excuse me, I mean CATALUNYA. In my direct experience living there for 6 years, The Catalans are overly ethnocentric, and those that are not are over powered by the linguistic agenda of a very small nationalist minority.  As a foreigner, I was excited to live there, was learning Spanish as a second language, and probably one day would have thought to learn Catalan. The more spanish I learned the more problems I had.  However, the abuse, and poor attitude, they communicate in demanding you enter the argument between Madrid and themselves forcing language controls, shows you how insensitive they can be about the effects on others especially us immigrants.  If you study in Univ of Barcelona, for example, in Erasmus, you will be forced to study under Catalan. No option. I was fortunate as I paid for their exceptional Diploma program for Spanish Studies, which is in Spanish. Even the Spanish instructors, not all, always felt knee jerk reactions to try and teach Catalan too.  Sadly, they are their own worst enemies in perpetuating their culture and language as they enforce a language dictatorship in what is supposed to be a pluralistic lingua society. In my opinion, a victim who becomes a victimizer is worse than the original aggressor. I understand the history, but Spanish (Castilian) is the official language in Catalunya too; but, they definitely DO NOT hire people that don’t speak Catalan. I, and most immigrants, feel we are punished for not being interested in both languages equally and any dissent is punished. (see my previous post)  This is discussed in the original article this blog is based on. I made a very high salary in London, and was offered Work Visa and multiple positions but for a fraction of the salary was overlooked in Barcelona.  This reverse language prejudice is worse than not speaking 5 languages in the Senate. It is not a light issue as you should imagine nor is it innocent. It is highly prejudice to all immigrants, even those from UK or US, as you will not be able to get a great job even if you are bilingual in Spanish and English. I as 29 when I went to Barcelona and it was hard at that age to learn my first second language but definitely worthwhile and enjoyable.  They even force other Spanish natives to learn their language if they want a job there! Not only is this silly, and unrealistic, it denies their students and work force a world view perspective, and even a proper perspective of Spain, their own country.  It perpetuates an incestuous knowledge base...  It is one of the most beautiful place in the world, girls, architecture, art, and the very city but I prefer smooth communication through the most shared language, Spanish.  Rajoy, and their political party is correct as the regions are facing budget deficits in excess of 800% increase since 2007!  Economic rationalization demands austerity, efficiency, even more so now, that they may have to request a bailout from the EU soon.  It is not economically efficient to spent $12,000 Euros daily to unnecessarily interpret languages.  As in the states, and in Europe, we can’t afford to play games with our children’s future anymore.  Persistent deficits and economic crisis will lead to greater problems and we need to work together not against each other.  To work together requires clear communication and focusing on what is important over non essentials like this.  As a Spanish residency, I support diverse culture and enjoy regional differences but this is going too far and does not serve Spain’s best interest or the EU or me and my family.
THERE are good reasons to debate what role minority languages should play in the countries where they are found.  There are few reasons to be as snide about the question as Giles Tremlett was in the Guardian a few days ago, when Spain started allowing senators to debate in Basque, Valencian, Catalan and Galician:The upper chamber of Spain's  parliament has caused controversy by allowing senators to debate in  five of the country's languages, with interpreters employed to turn  their words into a tongue they all speak perfectly: Castilian Spanish.