"They laughed at me for speaking Mallorcan in Mallorca"

Palma"The other day they laughed at me and my friends for speaking in Majorcan". This is how the testimony of Miquel Àngel Suau Morro begins, a young man who reports having suffered a situation of linguistic mockery in Majorca. According to his account, a group of teenagers began to imitate his way of speaking in an exaggerated manner and make derogatory comments when he and his friends were conversing in Majorcan.

The events began when the group of young people passed in front of another group that was sitting on the street and greeted them in Catalan: "Good evening". After continuing to walk, they sat down a little further away. It was then that, as the young man explains in a post on his Instagram profile, one of the young people from the other group began to make comments out loud, expressly exaggerating the Majorcan accent to provoke the laughter of his friends.

The situation went beyond imitation. According to the witness, the young man also asked them if they were "catalufos", in a comment that was nothing more than another insult and mockery of their linguistic identity.

Mockery of one's own language

The complainant asserts that the situation particularly outraged him because it occurred in Mallorca and because, as he explains, the young people participating in the mockery had also been born on the island. Most of them were between 16 and 18 years old.

Faced with the comments, he decided to approach the group to ask for explanations from the young person who had initiated the provocations. "I went towards them to ask if he was finished laughing at us," he explains.

Beyond the specific confrontation, the witness denounces an attitude of contempt towards the native language of Mallorca. He considers that the mockery and jeers for speaking Mallorcan should not be normalized nor should they be treated as a simple joke between young people.

A matter of language and identity

The young man frames the experience within a broader reflection on the situation of the Catalan language in Mallorca and calls for greater collective self-esteem. "We must never allow them to laugh at us, at our language, or at the Majorcans," he defends.

In his testimony, he also criticizes what he considers a historical situation of linguistic and cultural subordination and asks that the defense of the Majorcan dialect not be limited to claiming its use, but that it also involve rejecting the attitudes that present it as a second-class language. He also demands respect both from institutions and from the people who live on the island, regardless of their origin. "It is not just that we speak Majorcan, it is that we are Majorcans," he states.