Is the Catalan of Mallorca Threatened?

Abstract

This paper offers a brief historical and political context serving as a framework for a reflection on a possible threat for the Catalan language in the largest island of the Balearic Islands. The Community of the same name has been considered a bilingual community since 1983, i.e. year when Catalan was proclaimed a co-official language along with Spanish. In those of the Spanish Communities whose statutes of autonomy determine the co-officiality of another language, laws defining their linguistic policy regarding the use of the two languages in public administration, in teaching and in the media have been enacted. Despite the same character of the laws, the results of their application differ significantly and also have various reasons. In this respect, the main objective of this work is to show the complexity of the current linguistic reality as well as to identify the reasons the political debates revolve around at present, such as the realization of the linguistic policy, the unity of the Catalan language and the denomination of the local variety of Catalan. To complete the panorama of the last aspect, the results two chosen questions of a sociolinguistic investigation carried out by the paper’s author are presented below.