The treasure of language, very close to us

PalmaThose of us who grew up with Indiana Jones films often fantasized as youngsters about treasure chambers, golden idol heads, and endless questions that were never answered. How did he know so many languages? How did he get into that chamber? In which other film was his research on that shown? Indiana Jones was always surrounded by ancient papyri, medieval books, stone inscriptions, which made young people's imaginations soar.

Years and decades later, studies, final exams, or vocational training arrive, and life leaves us little time to think about unknown languages, or to discover ancient graffiti, and much less to go read medieval books. Everything gets wrapped in a kind of dreamlike veil, made of sleep and childhood fantasy. Where will we find texts like these, that seem like they're from a movie? Until a few years ago, essentially we had to go to archives. Now all of this is easier, because museums, foundations, and town halls are making a great effort to digitize all their documents. This facilitates access and greatly improves preservation: much easier to obtain and fewer people handle them directly.

Recently, I had the good fortune to come into contact with it through the Centre de Digitalització Documental (CDD) and the unit of Digitalització i Preservació Digital (DPD) of the UIB, a center specialized in the digitization and preservation of documents. They organize them, classify them, digitize them with impressive scanners, and upload the images to a server so they are preserved forever. Afterwards, anyone who wants to consult these documents can do so online through the platform of historical archives of the Balearic Islands (PAHIB). I was able to see how the history of the Majorcans, written by hand, with pen and ink, passed before me. The words are written by different hands, from different centuries, and the languages combine or give way to each other. You can see documentation in medieval Latin, which little by little is transforming more and more into Catalan, to then have centuries and centuries of documentation solely in Catalan, and more recently, Spanish appears.

The CDD collaborates with the Monastery of La Real, in Palma, near Son Espases. This monastery is one of the centers of our soul as a people, as it houses books and documents from the 13th century. PAHIB is a platform that allows us to travel a little through time. Let's see. One of the documents that have recently been digitized begins like this: "Don Ferrando by the grace of God King of Castile of Aragon..." and so a long list of titles precede the rest of the text, in a clear Catalan understandable to Catalan speakers of the 21st century (except for some abbreviated word). It was written in the month of June of "one thousand four hundred and ninety-one", one year before Christopher Columbus's voyage to America. Technology makes it possible to consult and read texts in our language through time, without having to touch them (with the risks that would entail for the document). And all this from our home, so to speak.

The Catalan language alternates with Spanish in most of the letters that now come from the court in Madrid. For example, in the letter from Charles II to Count of Formiguera Ramon Burgués de Zaforteza i Fuster, royal procurator (in Mallorca we know him as Count Mal, about whom there are legends and songs) written in 1685, in which it is ordered that two brigantines and money be sent for the defense of Oran (Algeria).

In 1714 the city of Barcelona fell into the hands of Bourbon troops. In 1715, the city of Mallorca. From here, the abrupt change is noticeable due to the decree of Nova Planta. The words we had read in Catalan until now change language. We can perfectly see a document from Santa Margalida of April 29, 1844, which explains that the "number of neighbors" is 568, but the "number of souls" is 2,353, and we see the exact quantities of the town's agricultural production, although now fava beans are "habas", chickpeas have become "garbanzos", etc. But it was not always like this, since we discover that there are documents that, for whatever reasons, evaded this prohibition. For example, the Book of payment for the guards on the shores of Pollença 1802 written by hand in Catalan. It is true that it is no longer a homogeneous Catalan like the one written centuries ago, but it can be read without many problems.

We have at our disposal, a couple of clicks away, a temporal bridge that connects us to the language of all these centuries. It is as if thousands of voices were speaking at once. Now the dilemma is to choose one. Do we want to read the words (even imagine how they might have sounded) of Ferdinand the Catholic, or perhaps continue reading about the "Germanies"? Do we want to continue deciphering the text by Antoni Figuerola Calafat about Campanet?

The human team of the CDD and the DPD digitizes around 130,000 and 150,000 pages and images each year. More than I can read as an individual. But this is not the case as a collective, as a people. Certainly, free access to this amount of information becomes an avalanche for one person, but, on the other hand, it is a fabulous quarry for our society: not only historians, philologists, and philosophers have the chambers of our treasure open, century after century. This also applies to anyone interested in our history, in the texts that with their words recorded it centuries ago. Also those who have studied other sciences, such as chemistry or medicine, and want to do a historical study of manuals and scholars from the past who dealt with topics related to the so-called natural sciences.

The digitization of documents has ensured that the greatest treasure of language we possess is very close to us, and I believe it is worth taking a look at and valuing it.