CATALONIA -- Johnson: languages of Spain: How to make a country for everybody | The Economist

Johnson: languages of Spain: How to make a country for everybody | The Economist:

“PER un país de tots, l’escola en català,” reads the sign on the Barcelona schoolhouse gate: “For a country for everyone, school in Catalan.” It is a pointed and, to some, ironic symbol of two very different views of language in Spain.

Johnson recently travelled through three regions where Catalan has three different statuses. Catalan is spoken informally in southern France, but the region is dominated officially by French. Nearby Andorra, a microstate sitting between Spain and France, is the only officially Catalan-speaking state in the world, and despite mass tourism, public signage tends to be only in Catalan.