Parliament will stop translating Vox's questions into Catalan

PalmThe Parliament's governing board has granted the request from the Vox parliamentary group not to translate any of its initiatives into Catalan, neither on the agenda nor on the plenary screen. The request passed with votes from the PP and Vox, while the PSIB voted against it. With this move, the far right takes another step towards introducing Spanish into the Parliament.

Vox had also requested that none of the speeches "made in Mallorcan (or any of the varieties of the Balearic language) be translated into standard Catalan." In this request, which ARA Baleares has obtained, the party of the Speaker of Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, insists on denying – against the opinion of experts – the unity of the Catalan language. In this regard, the governing board has agreed to request a report from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) for its opinion.

However, as sources from the Bureau report, both parties have encountered the fact that the UIB had already advocated for the unity of the language in a report submitted to Parliament in 1984. The report emphasized the need for "cultivated" language in formal registers. It also highlighted that most parliaments opt for a standard form of their language and considered "the use of a parliamentary record with linguistic forms typical of a popular-colloquial type of language entirely inappropriate." Nevertheless, and out of fidelity to the message conveyed by the parliamentarians, it recommended that the exact words they used be maintained, avoiding synonyms or translations, even when they were Castilianisms, which are transcribed in italics.

Defense of the article "salted"

The text promoted by Vox sets out a series of reasons for requesting a new ruling from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). It demands a reassessment of the situation, taking into account the new Grammar of the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) and Article 3.3 of the Spanish Constitution, which states that "the richness of the different linguistic varieties of Spain is a cultural heritage that shall be the object of special respect and protection." Furthermore, it cites the Statute of Autonomy, which calls for "protection" of the island varieties of Catalan. With this in mind, the Bureau asks the UIB whether "in cases where members of parliament or government choose to use the definite article," this should be respected in the transcription.