Speakers know that words are rarely innocent. We are fully aware that we use them loaded with social values and connotations that we have learned throughout our experience as members of a linguistic community. For many of us, the word ‘estaca’ no longer solely designates a stake driven into the ground and has become, with Lluís Llach's song, a symbol of the collective will to overcome oppression. The social and emotional meaning of the word ‘estaca’ therefore goes far beyond its strictly literal meaning.

In discussing linguistic landscape, we refer to the language –or languages– present on street signs, shop windows, restaurant menus displayed outside, or ephemeral signage, such as announcements of cultural events or papers stuck on street furniture offering domestic services. The study of the linguistic landscape was inaugurated in 1997 with the English article by Landry and Bourhis, which in Catalan would be Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. These authors use the term to analyze the visibility and relevance of languages in shops and advertisements, based on the observation of written linguistic uses in the public space of Quebec. Their fundamental contribution was to consider geographical space as another domain of linguistic use, that is, as a platform for the sociolinguistic study of languages. Subsequently, the study of the physical landscape was joined by the sound linguistic landscape, which expands the concept to encompass everything that is heard in urban centers. Who among us has not stopped to listen, walking through the streets of Palma or our town, to notice which languages are spoken there? Sometimes, you smile inwardly with joy when you hear young people speaking good Catalan on Sant Miquel street.

Do you remember that song by La Trinca whose chorus went, "What a mess, I'm telling you! It's just how language works"? Released in 1979, the piece perfectly reflected the discursive structure characteristic of the group's compositions. La Trinca used satire as a stylistic device to question, denounce, and expose the attitudes, behaviors, and ideologies of late Francoist society.

A few days ago it was reported in the press – and also announced by the InfoCatólica website – that Pope Leo XIV had approved two normative texts: the General Regulations of the Roman Curia and the General Regulations for the Personnel of the Roman Curia. These documents establish the Vatican's new organizational and linguistic framework and, among other changes, deprive Latin of the central role it had held for centuries. It is stipulated that departments of ecclesiastical and administrative affairs must write their acts in Latin or another language, a formulation that leaves Latin unprotected against any modern language. At the same time, the requirement of "good knowledge of Latin" for Vatican employees is eliminated, and an administrative model is adopted that prioritizes Italian and other contemporary languages. However, the traditional Office of Latin Letters within the Secretariat of State is maintained, tasked with drafting and translating all kinds of documents into Latin, including the Pope's tweets.

In 1972, the singer Nina Mazzini and the actor Alberto Lupo sang, as a duet and in Italian, the famous song Words, words, adapted into Catalan by the wonderful Núria Feliu. The plot revolves around a classic story of heartbreak. She no longer trusts his sugary words.Parole, parole, parole, parole, parole, soltanto parole"This last sentence of the song was translated into Catalan as "words, words, words... Your words, to me, are nothing." In the French adaptation, popularized by actors Alain Delon and Dalida, the final verse incorporated a different addition: "Paroles et paroles you paroles you paroles you paroles. I encore the paroles that you send to the wind. In it "let go of words", that is, "only words," the French version added: "and more words that you sow to the wind," a literal translation. Despite these slight variations, the three sentences remind us that words are not what the dictionary says, but rather that their meanings change with each act of speech. It is an essential condition for understanding that the sender and the receiver share a common cognitive universe. In the dialogue between the two lovers, the term "word" moves away from the meaning "to give one's word" or to make a firm commitment. It comes to denote precisely the opposite: a lack of commitment and a sense of emptiness.