How many of you have started a conversation in Catalan and, after a short while, ended up speaking in Spanish? Perhaps the other person had answered you in Spanish but understood you perfectly. Perhaps you didn't know if they spoke Catalan. Perhaps it was someone you had just met and didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable, or perhaps, quite simply, it just came out that way.

Imagine you are on a terrace, with the heat sticking to your skin, a glass with ice in front of you, and you ask your companions if they want to go for a swim. One of them replies: “No, thank you. Consequently, I will proceed to leave the establishment.” You will probably look at them strangely, not because you haven't understood the sentence or because there's any problem with the syntax, but because it's hard to imagine someone speaking like that in that situation. The most probable thing would have been for them to say “No, I’m going home” or simply “I’m leaving”.

A few weeks ago there was a historic demonstration in Palma against tourist saturation. Beyond the slogans and demands, there was an underlying idea that I believe almost no one disputes: there are too many tourists in the Balearic Islands. Or, at least, that's what most Majorcans would say. However, what if someone claimed there are too many tourists? Should we understand that they are mistaken?

Why do we say ‘abe[j]a’ and ‘ore[j]a’ if we write ‘abella’ and ‘orella’? The most intuitive answer would be to say that, in some dialects, ‘ll’ is pronounced like an ‘i’ (which, in this article, we will represent with [j]). The explanation seems convincing, but it collapses as soon as we look into it a little.

A pear is a pear, or at least that's how it seems. The fruit is the same whether you buy it at the market in Inca, order it at a greengrocer's in Valencia, or at a stall in La Boqueria. The word is also spelled the same everywhere. However, it's enough to hear how it's pronounced for something to change. If you buy it in Inca, they will probably ask if you want it very ripe and you'll hear a 'p[ə]ra' (neutral 'e'). If you are in Valencia, it will be a 'p[é]ra' (closed 'e'), and in Barcelona, no one will hesitate to offer you a 'p[è]ra' (open 'e'). Now comes the question you might be asking yourselves in light of this: how is it possible that such a common word sounds in three ways? And, above all, which one is the original?

There are verses that go in one ear and out the other. And there are those that, on any given day, make you stop. The other day, stuck in one of the usual traffic jams on the Mallorcan motorways, I noticed a line from Tobogan, by Zoo: “He had to work it out”. I noticed it because the same group, in Vull, sings: “If someone has to cry, let them cry”. It’s not that the line grated on me, nor was it (obviously!) the first time I had heard it. However, it made me think about the hesitation that still exists today in one of the most emblematic constructions of syntactic grammar.

For years we have been returning to the same examples: the neutral ‘lo’’, direct complements with ‘a’, prepositions that appear before ‘que’ when grammars insist they shouldn't be there, etc. The examples are well-known and the arguments too. Sometimes, in fact, it gives the impression that the Catalan linguistic conversation is trapped in a kind of loop in which we always end up discussing the same things.

If you were asked where Mallorca ends and Menorca begins, you probably wouldn't hesitate much. There is an evident physical separation, with a lot of water in between, a clear geographical border and a certain feeling that one thing is on one side and another on the other. The same would happen if the question were a little smaller and you were asked where Baix Camp ends and Baix Ebre begins. Perhaps the exact limit wouldn't be so present (those from Baix Camp and Baix Ebre certainly would, of course), but somehow we have assumed that territories can be divided: there is a point from which we leave a space behind and enter another.

Given the magnitude of the housing crisis, the growing concern it generates, and the feeling that the policies applied so far have not addressed the problem with the necessary ambition, it is essential to start focusing also on possible solutions. It is a matter too serious to resign ourselves to repeating well-known diagnoses. The housing crisis is today a great social crisis, because it directly affects people's right to develop a life project with dignity.

What would happen if, within a word, not all vowels were equally autonomous? If one decided how the others should sound? If we listen carefully to how some speakers in the Valencian Country pronounce words like ‘dona’ or ‘cosa’, or ‘conill’ or ‘sortir’ in certain areas of Mallorca or the Ebre Lands, something shifts with respect to what we would expect. On the one hand, where we would expect an 'a' at the end, we can hear a vowel that approaches the stressed vowel: ‘c[o]v[o]’ instead of ‘c[o]v[a]’. On the other hand, a vowel that we would expect to be more open closes due to the influence of another: ‘c[u]nill’ instead of ‘c[o]nill’.

Among the most frequent verbs in the Catalan language is, without a doubt, 'hacer' and ''Give'. Both have full and clear uses, such as 'to do a job' (in which the verb 'to do' means "to carry out") or 'to give a book' (in which the verb 'to give' has the full meaning of "to transfer to another"), but they also participate in many expressions where the main meaning lies in the accompanying noun. When we say, for example, that we want to 'ask someone a question', the core of the action is 'question'. The same occurs in ''to pay a visit,' 'to do work,' or 'to do an analysis.' The verb 'to do' provides the verbal structure of the sentence (it marks the tense, person, and agreement), but the main semantic content (that is, the meaning) is provided by the noun.

How many times have you heard, thought, or even said, "Yes, Catalan is all well and good, but what's it really good for?" How many times has the conversation ended with a count of speakers, a comparison with English, or a list of supposed career paths? The question seems innocent, but it isn't. It implies a very specific way of understanding the world: only what has an immediate, quantifiable, exportable, and tangible return is valuable. Everything that doesn't fit into that logic is viewed with suspicion. Meanwhile, more than 2,600 kilometers from Palma, at Masaryk University in Brno, there is a full degree program in Catalan Language and Literature that is celebrating its tenth anniversary this academic year, 2025-2026. Ten years. It marked the occasion with a commemorative academic ceremony held on Wednesday, March 4th, with established faculty and graduating classes who have already entered the professional world.

Have you ever stopped to think why, before a performance begins, they ask us "Turn off your mobile phones"Do we really need to specify that the phones are ours? Is there any real possibility that, at that moment, someone will understand that they should turn off the phone of a stranger sitting three rows behind them? The formula is neither strange nor ''Incorrect,' of course. Now, does the possessive add any information that isn't already obvious?

How is language organized in the human brain? What makes it possible for a child to acquire a language in just a few years, for this ability to be maintained throughout life, or for the system to find ways to reorganize itself after an injury? These questions, which linguists, psychologists, physicians, and neuroscientists have been trying to answer for many years, are not just for academics: they are relevant to anyone interested in understanding how one of the most basic and, at the same time, most complex abilities of the human species works.

Let me ask you a question: how many times have you started, or resumed, learning a language with the feeling that, this time, you'd finally get it right? Perhaps you've turned to a new app, an intensive course, online videos, or a method that supposedly would allow you to learn it in three months "effortlessly." But after a while, a question you've asked yourself before resurfaces: "Is what I'm doing really working?"

At the beginning of the year, lists proliferate: lists of things we will do, lists of things we will start, or lists of things we will, this time for sure, stick to. However, these lists can also include things we won't do: for example, we won't be late again, we won't repeat certain habits, we won't accept certain routines, or we will simply learn to say no to proposals that aren't right for us.

Catalan grammatical tradition has been quite consistent in describing these verbs. Thus, 'desayunar' (to have breakfast), 'desayuno' (breakfast), 'comida' (lunch), 'merienda' (snack), and 'cena' (dinner) have been classified as intransitive verbs, that is, verbs that do not take a direct object. To give concrete examples: according to this description, in Catalan we don't 'dinam canelons' (we eat cannelloni) or 'sopam pez' (we eat fish); what we do is 'comer canelones para comer' (to eat cannelloni for lunch) or 'comer pescado para cena' (to eat fish for dinner). The verb that introduces the food is 'comida' (food), while the verb 'de comida' (food) serves to indicate the time or type of food. In Mallorca, this structure also coexists with another very common solution: 'dinam de canelons' (I eat cannelloni), 'sopam de pescado' (I eat fish), with a complement introduced by the preposition 'de' (of). This construction allows us to specify the contents of the meal without it being a direct object, which also fits with the traditional classification of these verbs as intransitive. Contemporary grammatical norms maintain this line. The Catalan Language Grammar of the IEC (2016), in fact, states that these verbs "do not admit this transitive use under any circumstances." However, any speaker knows that real language does not always follow the boundaries drawn by grammars. In everyday conversation—and also in written texts—they can appear as 'What have you eaten?' or 'We had rice for dinner yesterday.' These are not isolated errors or slips of the tongue: they are part of the living use of the language. Transitive use

This transitive usage is, in fact, explicitly included in the Valencian Normative Dictionary, with examples such as 'Hoy comemos arroz al horno' (Today we're having baked rice). Given this, the interesting question is not whether these constructions exist (of course they do), but what real weight they carry within the Catalan system and how they can be explained from a descriptive point of view.

]]>

If someone had told Paleolithic humans that one day we would send messages with yellow faces, the reaction would surely have been one of bewilderment. However, the mechanism itself wouldn't have seemed entirely foreign to them. The paintings of Altamira or Lascaux, with their animals and hunting scenes, weren't texts, but rather a form of visual communication shared within the group. This is, according to some, the oldest antecedent of writing: not because there was a written language, but because there were signs with intentionality. This visual communication became more complex with the first cities of Mesopotamia. Clay tablets were used to record sacks of grain, animals, wages, or taxes. Initially, pictograms were used—that is, signs that represented objects. However, the administration of a state required distinguishing nuances (actions, quantities, functions), and pictograms were transformed into ideograms. The need to go further finally led to the appearance of phonograms, which represented sounds and were an essential step toward being able to write real languages.

]]>

Even if we speak the same way, we aren't always heard the same way. Tone, words, and attitude can change how we are perceived, and gender plays a significant role. Although we are often unaware of it, the way we speak—and how what we say is interpreted—is not neutral. Social norms, expectations, and even prejudices also influence what we say.

]]>