Joan Veny: "The islanders love Mallorcan, the Catalan of Mallorca, and we are proud of our peculiarity"

PalmaThe linguist Joan Veny i Clar (Campos, 1932) has received the highest academic and civil distinctions. Among other recognitions, he is Doctor Honoris Causa by the universities of Valencia and the Balearic Islands; he has received the Medal of Honor from the Xarxa Vives d’Universitats, the Creu de Sant Jordi, the prize of Honor of Catalan Letters, the Pompeu Fabra prize, the Gold Medal of the Balearic Islands. He is also an Illustrious Son of Campos (where the Infant and Primary school also bears his name). Now that the great work for the Catalan language, the Linguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain, has been completed, the dialectologist has received the Special ARA Balears prize.

What significance does it have that a work in linguistics, such as yours, receives such widespread consideration?

— I confess that I have been fortunate for the recognition that our society has given to my work, coming from the various areas of our linguistic domain, especially from institutions in Mallorca, the island that saw the dawn of my life; an eloquent sign that the seeds scattered in the field have found fertile ground for the cultivation, defense, and illustration of our own language, maintained with fidelity for eight centuries.

You recently presented the Linguistic Atlas of the Catalan Domain, which you directed together with Lídia Pons and which you continued from the work of Badia i Margarit. What does it mean to you to have culminated a work of this magnitude and what would you like it to be for Catalan philology and Romance studies?

— When we began the dialectal surveys for this work, after the first one in Sant Pere de Ribes, Dr. Badia, its initiator, told me: “Courage, Joan, we only have 199 left!” (he was referring to the 200 planned populations, later reduced to 190). Little did he think that, 14 years later, with the help of a competent team of collaborators, we would triumphantly crown that Everest of geolinguistics. The work, carried out with modern methodology, both for the collection of materials, between 1965 and 1978, and for its publication, in print and online, has received praise from international Romance studies for its novelty and rigor: 2,400 questionnaire questions, with magnetic recording (the first of its kind in the Iberian Peninsula) of responses and comments, two researchers in a team, phonetic transcription in situ, online publication, collection of ethnotexts, fieldwork chronicles, images of popular culture.

Some of your books, like Els parlars catalans (1978), are a reference for generations of philologists and for many people interested in the dialectal variation of Catalan. Are you aware of the influence you have exerted?

— I believe it is my best-known and best-selling book (13 successively expanded editions) because at that time there was no synthesis of dialectology and it was included in the Baccalaureate program. My teaching experience at the university (where it was part of the curriculum) and the fieldwork for the Linguistic Atlas facilitated its writing, which was done in about a month.

You have dedicated many years to university teaching. Regarding the native language, how do you assess the current moment of the university in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands? At the UIB, only 26% of the total number of subjects are taught entirely in Catalan.

— I was a professor at the University of Barcelona for almost fifty years (assistant, associate, full professor, emeritus professor) and I can say that I always enjoyed teaching classes that involved keeping up with philological progress with constant enrichment favored by the questions and concerns of the students, who were numerous (up to a hundred per class) and of varied geographical origin, which fostered their motivation with the initiative of dialectal monographic studies. On the other hand, the decreasing presence of Catalan in classrooms is a reflection of what is happening in society, to which other factors are added, such as the growing number of Erasmus students, students from the rest of Spain, and the momentum of English. Regarding Catalan, the decline in interest in historical subjects should be noted. Even a professorship in the History of the Language at the University of Barcelona remained vacant due to a lack of candidates.

There is social concern about the situation of Catalan, especially regarding its social use and its future as the native language of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Country. Also, in Northern Catalonia, Alghero, and Andorra. Recently, there have been relevant mobilizations in Mallorca in defense of Catalan and public schools in Catalan, such as the Correllengua Agermanat and the collective singing of La Balanguera. What is your assessment of the situation? What prognosis would you make about the future of Catalan?

— The alarming decline in the social use of Catalan throughout the linguistic area, favored by the current sociolinguistic situation, is evident. If we compare the health of Occitan or Breton with that of Catalan, we will breathe a certain optimism, strengthened by the mobilizations you mention in defense of Catalan and public schools and, in addition to the daily action of radio and television, by the prodigious flourishing of poets, writers, and singers faithful to our language. Also, if we review our history, we have gone through strong storms (central supremacy, dictatorships) that we have overcome with courage and persistence and we have come out of them.

Your main subject of study, dialectal variation, is one of those that always attract the most attention from speakers. Sometimes it is said, jokingly, that we Catalan speakers each carry a philologist inside. Is this true?

— The islanders love Mallorcan, the Catalan of Mallorca, and we are proud of our peculiarity, even of the differences between the speakers of each town: here, for ‘llardons’ they say ‘grescos’ and there they say ‘refús’, but we are aware of sharing 99% of traits. The interest of speakers in our variety is evident in the metalinguistic attitudes towards some of its characteristics, whether it is a language or a dialect, whether such a word is well said, whether to use the literary or the salty article, etc., an concern that is often reflected in letters to the editor of a newspaper.

What is your assessment of the evolution in the use of dialectal varieties? Do you think that singularities are being lost in favor of standardization?

— Every language has two faces, two codes: on the one hand, the historical language, spoken variety, tending towards differentiation, a product of geography, history, society, generational change; on the other, the standard language, normative, often written, tending towards unity, which favors communication between speakers of various dialects, through school, radio, television, literature. The two language modalities usually coexist and are used according to each sociolinguistic situation: at home, in the street we speak Mallorcan, which we have learned from our parents or from those who have wanted to integrate into our linguistic system through social contact. It happens, however, that this modality tends to approach the standard, due to its prestige as a cultured, written model; even in languages where it has a long tradition, it can come to replace it, as for example in French, which was based on a dialect of the langue d'oïl, the French which, having become standard, prioritized, years ago, for example ‘abeille’ ‘abella’ and pushed aside ‘èp’, ‘ès’’, etc. from other dialects.

What is the role of the school in the conservation and promotion of dialectal varieties?

— Despite the tendency we have pointed out for the school's leveling role, a language like ours, which has opted for a participatory language model, where dialects have a strong presence and speaker adherence, strives to incorporate, selectively (by validity of use, extent, expressiveness) some dialectal elements into its standard system. And this is where the school, especially in peripheral areas like Mallorca, can play a relevant role. The teacher must know the colloquial variety of the population where they practice their career and make students understand that some of its components can be part of the regional linguistic model; if, for example, a Balearic student writes ‘jo trob’ instead of ‘jo trobo’, that form blessed by generations of speakers since the 13th century must be respected.

Dialectal varieties have often been used for political confrontation, both in the Valencian Country and in the Balearic Islands. Why do you think these varieties have been, and are, the weapon that is used?

— Some hostile attitudes towards our language do not have a scientific basis but are strictly political or ideological, centered mainly on the entity of Balearic – or Valencian – whether it is part of Catalan or a different language. An example of a distorting attitude is the irrational proposal of the so-called Academi de sa llengo baleà (sic!), which, with the obsession of separating the Balearic dialect from 'Catalan', argues that the salty article of our variety ('es cavall’, 'sa cadira’) was exported from the Islands to the peninsular coastal area when it is widely known that it happened the other way around; and when interpreting the origin of words like ‘cavar’ it leans towards Phoenician (!) and ‘caparrot’ towards Hebrew (!), completely ignoring that both are of Latin origin. Ridiculous incompetence disguised as cheap science! On the other hand, on some occasions, the regional authorities have unfortunately not favored the protection of the native language when, for example, they have withdrawn subsidies from the Obra Cultural Balear.

You have finished a new book: In the shadow of words. How does one stay, in the shadow of words?

— It is evident that it is good, in the middle of summer, in the shade of a fig tree; similarly we can say that words, by using them, are like trees that do us an undeniable benefit: they help us to express our thoughts and feelings, we enjoy their beauty (mother, love, freedom) or expressiveness, we strive to uncover their original meaning, we savor their richness, we are proud of their originality. How good it is to be in the shade of words!