Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and the language of Catalonia is Catalan. It is the 88th most spoken language on the planet. It is an ancient language coming from vulgate (or Latin at the end and just after the Roman Empire - it belongs to the romance family of languages along with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and others). It has though unlike its cousins been without doubt a persecuted language. There are 3 periods where attempts were made by a centralised Spanish state to kill off the language which today is spoken by approximately 10 million people in one form (or dialect) or another.
About 300 years ago Europeans were doing one of the things they are very good at - having a war. That time it was called the war of the Spanish succession and officially it was about which European billionaire dynasty would get the throne of Spain. The mainly French Bourbon family or the Austrian Hapsburg family. The war lasted quite a while and its effects are still with us. The British got Gibraltar. The Scottish lost another part of their independence. The Bourbon family won. The Catalans had been betrayed by their allies the British and the war finally ended on the 11th of September 1714. Catalans consider the 11th of September to be their national day. In recent years especially since the 300th anniversary it has become a pro-Indepedence day. The new Bourbon dynasty punished the Catalans by taking away some of their “ancient rights” or “sovreignty”. They also moved to outlaw the Catalan language. In the 20th century Spain suffered two dictatorships. The first was a peroid of military junta rule although the king nominally stayed on the throne. Primo de Rivera launched a military coup in 1923 and continued ruling until 1930. During his dictarship the Spanish state was centralised and Catalan was again outlawed. The short lived Spanish Republic in the 1930s fell to General Franco who started the civil war with his allies Mussolini and Hitler. From his victory in 1939 until his death in 1975 Catalan was illegal in public life. Language policies of Francoist Spain - Wikipedia
Children were punished at school for speaking the language of their parents.
They were often beaten and were instructed by the state to tell the children being beaten : habla en cristiano! = Speak christian (Spanish)
Parents who defied the authorities often saw their children taken away from them.
There are many people alive today who lived through those 40 years of fascist dictatorship during which their language was illegal and their culture repressed. It is only natural once the dictatorship ended that the children of those who had survived the dictatorship feel their language is central and vital to their identity whether or not they feel that identity is as Catalan and only Catalan or Spanish and Catalan. Whether or not they consider Catalonia to be country, within Spain or one which would be better be an independent republic or simply a region of Spain.
Every day I speak Castilian Spanish, Catalan and English. Some days such as today I get to speak French as well. Yesterday I got to speak Italian. Last week I spoke German. My wife/girlfriend works in her languages of Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. Every day I watch the Irish Gaelic language broadcast on RTE the state TV of Ireland. I, We are Europeans. We speak and/or understand various languages. We are enriched by our languages. There are truly some things and ideas which are better expressed or more pithily said in one language or another.
At some point in our history most European countries have suffered dictatorship or brutal regimes and every European country has in the past outlawed or proscribed minority languages attempting to impose a central tongue and unify a nation state.
It did not work. Europeans have given the world some of the most beautiful things and some of the most evil things. The attempts to impose languages, behaviour, religion on others are amongst the most evil that Europeans ever did. & most of us are aware of that.
Stamping out cultures, diversity, languages and differences did not work. Because every day I speak the co-official languages of the city where I live, Catalan and Spanish, and every day I speak English and every day I hear Punjabi and Arabic in the local shops but those workers reply to me when I speak in Catalan or Castilian Spanish.
I repeat:-
it enriches us as human beings.
hope this answer helpful.
That’s because Barcelona is a city in the Catalonia region, Spain. Many people in Barcelona speak Catalan, while others speak Spanish, while others are bilingual. Many Barcelona inhabitants are bilingual between Spanish and Catalan, as the Valencian language is spoken in the city of Valencia, down south of Catalonia.
It’s just like asking “why don’t Jamaicans speak only English?” or “Why does Kazakhstan (and other Former-Soviet nations) use Russian as a second language, (business-wise)?”. In addition to asking why Croatian and Serbian are mutually intelligible.
Maybe you should consider rephrasing your question, it comes across as somewhat rude, though it might not be your intention. You probably mean:
Why do people from Barcelona sometimes speak in another language than Spanish?
I am assuming that you are unaware that Catalan is spoken in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia. It is part of their identity and culture, and a co official language together with Castilian.
Everybody speaks Spanish in Barcelona, so you should be able to communicate if you learned some Spanish before visiting. but most of everyday and institutional life happens in Catalan.
Is a matter of (good) manners.
If someone says “Bon dia” (good morning, in Catalan) to me, I will answer “Bon dia”, and if he says “Buenos días” (same in Spanish) I will answer “Buenos días”. Conversation will continue in the language it started because, as bilingual people, we do not even know in what language we talk. We do not translate, we do not speak a foreign language, simply, I speak Spanish as I speak Catalan, and I am not aware of the difference.
This may seem weird to someone who just knows one language, but, essentially, we answer in the same language we have been addressed.
Moreover, it is considered rude not to do so, except if you have a reason, say, you are from a foreign country. And, even in this case, if you are a foreigner, a “Bon Dia” even if after this you must continue in Spanish will open to you some doors that would remain closed if you stick to Spanish.
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