The Correllengua Agermanat was an undeniable success, a new demonstration of the appreciation of the people of the Balearic Islands for their language and culture, and of the defense –energetic, festive, unrenounceable– that Mallorcan society, especially (and this is more than important, it is decisive) young people, carries out. The Plaza de España in Palma was packed to the brim, just as the Plaza Mayor was two years ago, with thousands of people who shouted a civic, inclusive, hopeful, and, above all, massive ‘Yes to the language’.So massive that the very next day the Government spokesperson, Sebastià Sagreras, with his particular oratory, was struggling to avoid being completely left behind. After congratulating the organizers of the Correllengua Agermanat (there were reasons to do so, even more so after the institutions governed by them had turned their backs on them), he said: “The PP of the Balearic Islands is the father and protector of the Linguistic Normalization Law”, Sagreras stated improperly, because the Linguistic Normalization Law was approved with a PP government, yes (they wouldn't do it today), but in no way can it claim a paternity that was much broader, nor a protection that, over these forty years, civil society has too often had to provide. And he added, in Peixet, referring to this same law: “Throughout the entire legislature we have defended it, supported it, and marked it as a red line in all negotiations, despite the left's intentions to use our language to confront us with the citizenry”.This is what Sagreras said on Monday. The following day, Tuesday, in the Parliament, the PP supported a series of amendments by Vox to the law on strategic projects, the sieve law. The approved amendments eliminate the Catalan requirement for teachers and professors from outside who occupy “difficult to fill” positions, without any obligation or subsequent deadline to prove knowledge of the language. They also exempted “temporary” students, who reside for a limited time in the Balearic Islands, from the Catalan subject. In other words: for the umpteenth time, an attack against the own language of the Balearic Islands (and also of the PP leaders, such as Sagreras himself, or Prohens, or Vera) perpetrated by the Government. An attack, incidentally, which constitutes a serious violation of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and also of the Statute. The PP does this to please the obsessions and hatreds of its Vox partners. Among the measures, it was also approved that local police officers can carry taser guns, and pigeon shooting was legalized: weapons, and killing animals, are things that the right also tends to like very much.Proclaiming oneself one day as the father and protector of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and the next day getting rid of it without any qualms in the company of fascism and Spanish ultranationalism, is no longer just cynicism: it is a strange dysfunction that indicates an extremely weak government, without leaders capable of negotiating anything, without principles and without dignity, completely surrendered to the far-right and with no other course than to exhaust the legislature with the strategic project of giving the green light to all the speculators who happen to come by. There is something curious about Sagreras's little speech about the PP's paternity and protection of the Linguistic Normalization Law, and that is that he says they have defended it “during the entire legislature”, and they have barely (not yet) been in office for two years. It is known that it feels long to him: imagine the rest of us.

40 years ago, the Balearic Parliament approved the Law of Linguistic Normalization. Forty years later, while it is true that the situation of Catalan as the native and co-official language of the Islands has not been normalized, it is also true that too often abnormality is accompanied by apocalyptic diagnoses. There are reasons for concern: Catalan is losing presence in many areas and young people, especially in informal relationships, are increasingly communicating in Spanish. However, if we only look at the glass half empty, we fail to see a part of the reality that is equally significant.

40 years after the approval of the Linguistic Normalization Law (LNL), we can affirm that the Catalan language in the Balearic Islands does not suffer from a lack of laws, but from a lack of political will. This is the central idea that emerges when we analyze the trajectory of a tool that, at the time, was essential. That norm established the legal framework necessary to make the official status of Catalan effective and allowed for undeniable advances in areas such as administration, education, and the media. But, above all, it was born from a unanimous political consensus that today, four decades later, seems almost a miracle. A political consensus that was accompanied by a civic movement, led by the OCB, which called for a legal framework for the regulation and protection of the Catalan language, which other territories and other languages of the Spanish state already had. 

This April marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Balearic Islands' Law on Linguistic Normalization, modeled after similar laws passed a few years earlier (1983) in Catalonia and Valencia (the latter known as the 'Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian'). It seemed a major step forward in promoting the islands' own language, Catalan, as the language of normal use in all areas of society, after more than two centuries of marginalization and 40 years of fierce political persecution. Indeed, the law's approval fostered this hope among all sectors of society concerned about the issue, who expected that from that moment on, the attitude of institutions and society in general towards the language would change. We had a Statute of Autonomy that allowed for decisive and sustained action in favor of the language, if the will was there, and we now had the legal tool to do so. Forty years after the law's enactment, however, utter disillusionment has replaced the initial enthusiasm: the Catalan language has not only failed to become normalized, but has actually declined in social standing and presence, losing its proportional use among the population and becoming a source of constant conflict, not in and of itself, but due to the contempt with which it is viewed by many in other places—nearby or far—and by those born here who do not consider it their own. What has happened to make this once-promising law so ineffective?

The Institute of Ibizan Studies (IEE) has filed an appeal against the terms and conditions of the municipal tender to renew the road signs in Ibiza. The organization demands that all signs be written exclusively in Catalan, as stipulated by the Law on Linguistic Normalization and the Statute of Autonomy.

The Institute of Ibizan Studies (IEE) has expressed its displeasure over the "repeated failure" by the Ibiza Council to comply with the Language Standardization Law, particularly in the official labeling of place names on the island's bus service lines.