Defending the Catalan Language

Abstract

This study focuses on the work Los col·loquis de la insigne ciutat de Tortosa [Dialogues. A Catalan Renaissance Colloquy Set in the City of Tortosa] by the Catalan knight Cristòfol Despuig. While it was written around 1557, it was not published until 1877. My analysis demonstrates that the issue of language is raised in the Dialogues to defend the memory of the Catalan-Aragonese Empire in which the Principality of Catalonia has always been the dominant part, especially in the Catalan-speaking lands. The prestigious position of the Principality of Catalonia is supported by an explicit hierarchy of the varieties of the Catalan language in which the Catalan used in the Principality of Catalonia is considered superior. This explicit hierarchy implies two important ideological aspects: first, the idea of origin as the main criterion to value the different varieties of the language. Second, the description of the Valencian other as a palimpsest, since while Valencians were colonized first by Catalans and then by Castilians, the Catalan colonial presence can still be recovered. The otherness of the Valencian identity is represented by four linguistic aspects of the text: first, the Castilian name of the Valencian character: don Pedro. Second, don Pedro’s lack of awareness that Catalan was a courtly language. Third, don Pedro’s acknowledgement that the Catalan spoken in the Kingdom of Valencia has been contaminated by its contact with Castilian. Finally, the erasure of the literary achievements in Catalan in the Kingdom of Valencia during the reign of the Castilian Trastámara Dynasty in the Crown of Aragon (1412–1516). This erasure supports the superiority of the House of Barcelona-Aragon over the Trastámara Dynasty. Moreover, it supports a clear association between language and political power in which literature does not play an important role in the value of a language.