The legislature has been a "black four-year period" for the language and culture of the Balearic Islands. This is the assessment made by the president of the Obra Cultural Balear, Antoni Llabrés, after attending the third and final general policy debate of the term, which, according to the entity, has confirmed the bad omens it had at the beginning of the legislature.

Has it ever happened to you that, when someone told you they had greeted ‘a la veïna’ [the neighbor] or that on the radio they had interviewed ‘a aquella escriptora tan famosa’ [that famous writer], you wondered if that ‘a’ should be there? The question is quite common and, if we only take the regulations into account, the answer is simple: no. We should say ‘he saludat la veïna’ or ‘han entrevistat aquella escriptora’. In Spanish, however, the preposition would indeed be necessary: it would be appropriate to say ‘he saludado a mi vecina’ or ‘han entrevistado a la escritora’, and that is why it is easy to think that, when we use it in Catalan, we have let ourselves be carried away by the neighboring language.

Vilafranca de Bonany, together with three other municipalities such as Vilafranca (els Ports), Vilafranca de Conflent, and Vilafranca del Penedès, have officially resumed their inter-municipal collaboration ties. This has taken place in the year that coincides with the twentieth anniversary of a first meeting promoted in 2006: "The four Catalan-speaking Vilafranques are getting back in touch" with the firm will to "recover the bonds that unite them and explore new forms of cooperation".

The slingers of the Balearic Islands will have to prove their aim once again, but this time on a game board. Foners: Herois de la Mediterrània is the new proposal from Roqueta Lúdica, a family cooperative game in Catalan that turns these historical figures into protagonists of a fantastic adventure to defend the coast against the arrival of different types of enemies.

Plataforma per la Llengua has reported a violation of the right to be served in Catalan of a user of the Home Help Service (SAD) in Mallorca. The organization has provided legal advice to the beneficiary, who receives assistance from the company T'Ajuda, after she was assigned a professional who neither speaks nor understands Catalan. According to the organization, this situation makes it difficult for the user to express her needs normally and receive effective care in her own language.

Surely everyone has said or heard at some point a sentence like this: “The construction of the building lasted two years”. If we look at it, this sentence has something curious: there is a noun, ‘construction’, that does something that, at first, we wouldn't expect from a noun: it has a duration. We can say how long the construction lasted, we can say it was fast or slow and even that it was constant. On the other hand, if we say that “the construction at the end of the street is new”, we are no longer talking about the process of building, but about the result: the building that has been built. The word is exactly the same, but what it designates is quite different.

The linguistic assertiveness courses by Plataforma per la Llengua offer resources to gain confidence and avoid the automatic switch to Spanish in everyday conversations.

New case of linguistic discrimination at a hospital center in the Balearic Islands. On this occasion, the Policlínica Miramar has been the scene of a new episode of violation of patients' linguistic rights, accompanied, even, by threats.

The Government has approved the bases that will allow for the exceptional filling of job positions with people who do not have the required level of Catalan when there are not enough candidates who meet this requirement. The resolution of the Ministry of Labor, Public Function and Social Dialogue establishes the conditions for being able to resort to this procedure, provided for in the modification of the regulations on the requirement of Catalan language knowledge for access to the public service approved this year.

‘Catalan’ is the scientific name of the language spoken in the Balearic Islands. This is established by the Statute of Autonomy, although, colloquially, the demonym of each island is used, and ‘pagès’ in Formentera. However, over the centuries, many denominations have been used to refer to it: ‘our language’, ‘vernacular’, ‘mother tongue’, ‘own’, ‘regional’, etc. Often, so as not to have to say ‘Catalan’, because it was understood –and is still understood– that whoever speaks Catalan might be Catalan, and some did not want –do not want– to fall into this identification. We remember the range of synonyms when the European Day of Languages (September 26) is celebrated.

A tongue twister is a sentence that is difficult to pronounce. Usually, tongue twisters are used as games, especially to entertain children with little more than words. We have all tried to say, as quickly as possible, tongue twisters like ‘Setze jutges d’un jutjat mengen fetge d’un penjat, si el penjat fos despenjat es menjaria els setze fetges dels setze jutges del jutjat’ (Sixteen judges of a court eat the liver of a hanged man, if the hanged man were unhanged he would eat the sixteen livers of the sixteen judges of the court), and ‘Un plat pla blanc ple de pebre negre està’ (A flat white plate full of black pepper is). If we look at the characteristics of these sentences, we will find a shared element: the repetition of a sound. The repetition of a sound is a stylistic device that we call alliteration and which also occurs in poetry, as in that verse by Josep Maria de Sagarra, “Vinyes verdes vora el mar” (Green vineyards by the sea). But unlike alliteration, a tongue twister consists of the repetition, usually at high speed, of alternating sound sequences. With this system, the difficulty arises when a different but similar sound appears. If we think about ‘Un plat pla blanc ple de pebre negre està’, the mistake we usually fall into is reaching ‘pebre negre’ and pronouncing ‘peble negle’ or, if we want to prevent it, pronouncing ‘pre’ and not ‘ple’. In these cases, the ‘l’ and the ‘r’ are consonants that are pronounced by placing the tongue at the same point in the mouth, before the upper teeth. In a tongue twister like ‘De genollons collia codonys, de genollons codonys collia’ (Kneeling he picked quinces, kneeling he picked quinces) the change in the order of the word ‘codonys’ and the similarity of the first syllable with the word ‘collia’ can cause us to say “de genollons codonys codia’” or, due to the similarity of the last syllable of ‘genollons’ and ‘codonys’, to say “de genollons collons collia”. The second one will surely be the one that will make the person who challenged us to pronounce the tongue twister laugh.

The Obra Cultural Balear (OCB) has announced the 40th edition of the 31st of December awards, awards that recognize individual and collective initiatives linked to the promotion and use of the Catalan language and the defense of the identity of the Balearic Islands.

Antoni Vera faces the final year of the legislative term at the head of the Department of Education and Universities with a track record marked by the boost to subsidized private schools, attempts to accelerate educational infrastructure, and the emergence of private universities in the Balearic Islands. Born in Palma in 1973, the minister reaches the final stretch of his mandate with some of the main educational debates still open and with the desire to highlight the work done during these three years.

After last week's newtons and greengage plums, we can continue searching for proper names hidden within everyday vocabulary. Once again, we just need to look around a little. We can put on some sneakers to go for a run or some hiking boots to go on an excursion. If during these activities we catch a bit of a cold and get a headache, we might have to take an aspirin. And, if the headache goes away and we decide to go out for dinner, we might use mascara to dress ourselves up a bit more.

In an overcrowded territory that annually breaks records for tourist arrivals, it is not news that a group of 28 students comes to spend two weeks there. However, things change when the reason for their stay is known: they have come to learn Catalan. During these two weeks, Palma has hosted nearly thirty university students of Catalan from various countries around the world. They have come from the United Kingdom, Serbia, Romania, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and Poland to immerse themselves and learn firsthand about our language, culture, and territory.

Just two days before the return to the classrooms, Ibiza faces the start of the school year with 15 Catalan teacher positions still unfilled: 13 in the island's 11 high schools (IES) and 2 at the only Official School of Languages (EOI). The lack of teachers affects the 12 public Secondary and language teaching centers on the island. The Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, acknowledges the magnitude of the problem: "We are aware of the shortage of Catalan teachers in Ibiza".

The Obra Cultural Balear has invited the new German consul in Mallorca, Angelika Saake, to promote the integration of her compatriots on the island through, among other things, learning Catalan. The entity has proposed in a statement to the diplomat that she hold a meeting with them to "share reflections on language, culture, coexistence, and integration" and to learn about her vision of the relations between Germany and Mallorca.

The stubbornness of the councilor gonella Joan Pons Torres to declare menorquí and the salted article as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Menorca (BICIM), and thus protect it from the 'threat' of standard Catalan, is about to explode in his hands. The legal subterfuges he has sought in order to impose his initiative against the official linguistic and academic criteria of entities and institutions have backfired.

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.

The Obra Cultural Balear denounces that the Espai Salut website and application, the digital platform of the public health system of the Balearic Islands, do not currently guarantee citizens' right to manage their health data and services in Catalan. According to the entity's findings, part of the platform's content is only presented in Spanish and the default initial language is also Spanish.