Neither East nor Este, it is Levante
PalmAt the Consell de Mallorca, in a fit of misguided modernity, or rather, a blessing, they've decided to name the new hiking route in the Levante region East Mallorca GR 226. It sounds like a joke, but it isn't: East Mallorca. As if the place name 'Levante' had never existed, as if it were something too local, too old, too... Mallorcan. And you don't even have to be a toponymy enthusiast to know that the Levante region is much more than a cardinal point: it's a territory with a name, an identity, a landscape, and pride. Even the King of Spain, who isn't known for being an expert on local culture or for loving Catalan, gave Rafael Nadal the title of Marquis of Levante, not East Mallorca. Or will they now change his marquisate too?
The obsession with giving English names to everything we do goes way back. In the 1960s and 1970s, when tourism began to devour the coast, artificial place names were invented to make them more "international." From this fever of linguistic fantasy, we're left with doyots like Sometimes, to name just a few examples. It seems we haven't learned anything. No, we haven't. In the 21st century, with all the talk about sustainability, identity, and respectful tourism, we're once again using English names as a synonym for prestige or contemporaneity. And we include them both on a route and at cultural events.
Furthermore, this route that runs through the municipalities of the Levant is not intended to be for tourists who come looking for the "sunset". It is understood that it is for everyone and, above all, for the locals, for those who love walking through the mountains and along dry stone paths, for those who still know that the Levante is not a direction but a small country within the island. And if tourists take it, it is assumed that they are those who respect the nature and culture of the place. ~BK_S a name as blessed as East Mallorca. Neither strategically nor touristically was it necessary to do so. the Obra Cultural Balear by stating that it is a "provincial and depersonalizing" decision. And we can add that it is also evidence of a monumental lack of self-esteem. Levante, and that is what the route should be called. It has never been 'East' and neither 'East' It is time for the Consell to back down and put the words back where they belong: in East Mallorca it will remain as one of these blunders.
