Yes. I also saw Rafa on Netflix. And I liked it. It's possible that for those who don't know me well, it might seem new that I've devoured this ‘reality from Manacor’ in two sittings. Both for sporting epicness and for gossip epicness, I couldn't miss it. The miniseries focuses on the last year of the Manacor tennis player's physical ordeal, while also taking the opportunity to review the ironclad poor health of the now ex-tennis player, a clear example of how elite sport pushes competitors' bodies to the limit.
The series, with four episodes, delves into the life of Rafel Nadal and his environment. Cameras in the locker rooms, on the training courts of ‘la Rafa’ (as we say it in Manacor), inside cars, and even inside their homes. It's a contained reality, because it's known that both the tennis player and his wife, Maria Francisca Perelló, prefer a low profile when it comes to making certain aspects of their lives public, which, after all, should interest us little.
Rafa, the series, is well made, it's clear it's not a rushed job, that there's money invested, and that some cents must have slipped into the already stuffed pockets of the Nadals. Today, however, we're not here to review movies, but to talk about language.
The documentary's main language, no one doubted it before watching it, is Spanish. On the other hand, it has surprised, more or less, that the conversations in Catalan between its protagonists are present in a habitual and unhidden way.
Although they call each other 'Mery' and 'Rafa', it's no surprise that in their daily lives Rafel Nadal, now forty, and Maria Francisca Perelló speak to each other in the language of Mallorca. It is also, of course, the language they use to speak to their two young children. Or the one Nadal uses to speak to his father and mother. They all speak Mallorcan Catalan. Perhaps that's why Netflix had to hire a young man from Manacor to help them with the subtitles, because there must have been some moments when the clan's idiolect might not have been comprehensible to continental ears not well-versed in linguistic variation.
It is also interesting the difference in linguistic competence shown by the two couples… Rafel Nadal and Maria Francisca Perelló speak Spanish, when addressing the camera, very correctly and without revealing their linguistic origin. Also, in their spontaneous conversations, when not addressing the camera, they incorporate words, or sometimes complete phrases, spoken in Spanish, even though the conversation is in Catalan.
Another thing is 'the old ones'. Uncle Toni, with that affected way of speaking he has, with that strangled voice identical to his father's, the teacher Rafel Nadal, makes significant efforts to kill the Mallorcan accent, and he succeeds with solvency. Aina Maria Parera, the tennis player's mother, also tries to 'speak' Spanish well, she also wants to hide where she comes from… and she doesn't get off so lightly, although she does it quite decently.
On the other hand, the patriarch, the glass businessman Sebastià Nadal, is not at all interested in denying who he is. Not only will you guess that he is Mallorcan, but upon hearing that persistent stuttering you will exclaim: “Uep, this one is from Manacor!”. It seems that the man not only does not hide his accent, but also, moreover, keeps in his mind the entire linguistic and phraseological system of Mallorcan Catalan. “Hasta la última hay conejo”, he says looking at the camera. “Fins a la darrera mata hi ha conills” (Until the last bush there are rabbits), we usually say and think, as Sebastià Nadal Homar says and thinks.
I remember a massive press conference in Manacor, about two decades ago, with numerous audiovisual media outlets that had appeared in the City Hall to take pictures of Rafel Nadal, who began his speech in Spanish. After a while, uncomfortable, he said: “Ho feim en mallorquí, no?” (Shall we do it in Mallorcan, no?), and without waiting for anyone's answer, Nadal spoke in Catalan in front of the media who had arrived from the Madrid metropolis. The tennis player, many readers will remember, was also the one who opened the massive and colorful lipdub Mallorca m’agrada (I like Mallorca) promoted by Obra Cultural Balear about fifteen years ago.
Not long ago, Instagram's algorithm gifted me a conversation between Paula Badosa, Joan Carles Ferrero, and Rafel Nadal himself who, in the stands of a court, were having a pan-Catalan tennis meeting and spoke with total naturalness in the language of the country, of our country, I mean. That's why I shouldn't have been surprised that Nadal's conversations with his entire technical team were also mostly in Catalan. With the physiotherapist, also from Manacor, Rafel Maymó; with his latest coach, Carles Moyà from Palma, and with Carles Costa, the former tennis player who has also accompanied the owner of the Rafa Nadal Academy for so many years.
Netflix also has no problem including fragments of television or radio news in Catalan, likely extracted from IB3. The two languages coexist there with the linguicidal harmony that the Spanish state and all the industry behind it unsubtly seek. The Nadal family's language is the language of the tribe, the language of the clan, the almost Sicilian code in which they communicate, the language of the family, unshakeable in its transmission, indisputable in its preponderance 'within our home', 'within the village'. On the other hand, the language of fame, of money, the one that serves as a vehicle to show us how Rafel Nadal has had to fight against his body for twenty years, the one the international tennis player has always used, is Spanish. This is called linguistic interposition. The language of the tribe is only for the tribe. For communication with the rest of the unknown world (the world is divided into two parts: Mallorca and outside Mallorca), the one we must use, according to the subordinated minds, must be Spanish.
It's very good that Netflix has shown us a glimpse of the daily Catalan-speaking life at the Guixons. If we were a normal country, we could have watched all four episodes entirely in our language.
