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.

The Balearic Government has launched the Catalan Language Training Plan 2026, which offers more than 1,000 places in courses and workshops for public employees in the Islands. The initiative, organized through the Balearic School of Public Administration (EBAP), has a budget of 117,851.86 euros.

Joan Pons Torres, the gonella councilor of Culture, Education, Youth and Sport to the Council of Menorca from the PP who outside of politics promoted insular variants of Catalan against the standard, now driven by the Consell de Menorca, that Menorcan and the article 'salat' be declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Menorca (BICIM). He assures that “young people are already too influenced by central Catalan,” that “they say 'soc' and not, 'som'” and that attention must be paid to the statute, which defends the need to "promote our linguistic varieties". "Menorcan unites and identifies us and we cannot lose it," he adds.

Have you ever heard of the inchoative increment? If it doesn't ring a bell, neither do false inchoative verbs... But if you have ever heard in Central Catalan a construction similar to 'No 'I know this boy' and the verbal conjugation has sounded strange to you, it’s a very good sign: implicitly you know that something is creaking (because the conjugation admitted by the regulations is precisely the one shared by all dialects: ‘conec’).

The association Fem-ho en Català has accused the Consell de Menorca of eliminating the requirement of knowledge of the Catalan language to access the professional career. The entity dedicated to the defense of Catalan has presented allegations against the initial approval of the new regulation of the horizontal professional career of the island institution.

Since the eighties and, one could say, since the nineties, island rock had not been as young as it is now. It had aged. Adolescent bands that had not yet reached their twenties were either nonexistent or anecdotal.

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?

There are moments when the data speak with a clarity that no political discourse can deny, and this is one of them. In Mallorca, 81.85% of families have chosen Catalan as the primary language of instruction for their children, in 4th grade of early childhood education, or in other words, four out of every five families have opted for Catalan. This is not just another piece of data; it is a political and social message of enormous significance and, above all, a resounding refutation of the narrative that the Government of the Balearic Islands has attempted to construct around language and schooling.

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.

The majority of families in the Balearic Islands continue to choose Catalan as the primary language of instruction for children starting the fourth year of Early Childhood Education (3 years old) next academic year. However, the percentage has dropped for the second consecutive year. According to data released this Thursday by the Ministry of Education and Universities, 78.5% of families who have formalized their enrollment in public centers have chosen Catalan, while 21.4% have opted for Spanish. (83% in the 2024-2025 academic year and 80% in the 2025-2026 academic year). These results need to be contextualized.

Xanguito has just released Batecs, a new EP of five songs with which the group opens a riskier, more intimate and mature stage in its trajectory. After almost a decade on stage, the Mallorcan band reaffirms its identity with a work that focuses on intensity and attention to every detail.

Some time ago I went to a party full of people from Manacor with a friend from out of town. A guy who wanted to meet her asked her to repeat “What color is Saint James’ white horse?” This apparently harmless phrase is a shibboleth, a formula that characterizes members of a linguistic group because it repeats a sound unknown to speakers of another language or dialect. Curiously, the word ‘xibòlet’ comes from the Bible, from the book of Judges, in which it is explained how forty-two thousand Ephraimites died for not being able to pronounce like our ‘x’ the initial consonant of the word, which they emitted as an ‘s’, which differentiated them from the rest of the Hebrews.

“Everyone who comes to Mallorca and wants to take a typical souvenir: let them take a cyclist, there are many... To a whore's house, the bicycle!”. This is how Lluc Aparicio (@parisioproductions) ironically states in an Instagram video that has over 26,700 likes and nearly 10,000 shares. The publication accumulates hundreds of comments, some very harsh. “There are always people who get angry, but I don't want to pay attention to them. They criticize me if I talk about tourist saturation and also if I speak Catalan, but they are people who don't understand that I'm doing humor,” he explains.

Llucia Serra Ferre (Eivissa, 1992) has just won the Ciutat de Manacor poetry prize with Et dibuix un portal in media something (i tu t’hi ajoques). Living in Mallorca since her adolescence, she is a philologist, a high school teacher in Son Servera, and runs a board game publishing company in Catalan, Dino Ludens. So that the reader can get an idea of her writing, in Et dibuix un portal..., she quotes and paraphrases a poem by Antonina Canyelles that says: “You can say my boat, but the sails are always the wind’s”. Llucia Serra’s version is as follows: “You can say my house / but the lands / are always the bank’s”. The poem is titled ‘Idealista’.

I never thought it would happen, but this year I've become a Barça fan (and a big one!). I've followed them all season and celebrated the League title like any other culer. At home, everyone had to watch the Super Cup and Champions League matches. I even dragged a friend to Barcelona to watch the last League match. It was the first time – and also the last – that we were able to see Alexia Putellas play for Barça and, even though the League was already more than won, the blaugranes played a very good match. I don't want to detract from Hansi Flick's team in any way, but the ones who, at 24 years old, have made me a Barça follower are Cata, Patri, Mapi, Pina, Kika, and Alexia. For me, and for many others, 'Barça' is the Women's team, without the adjective, by default; it's the unmarked form, even if it goes against the norm.

Those of us who grew up with Indiana Jones films often fantasized as youngsters about treasure chambers, golden idol heads, and endless questions that were never answered. How did he know so many languages? How did he get into that chamber? In which other film was his research on that shown? Indiana Jones was always surrounded by ancient papyri, medieval books, stone inscriptions, which made young people's imaginations soar.