Having just come back from Barcelona, a place I know well, I thought I'd write the next few blog posts about the city and Catalonia. First up: the language. There are two languages in Barcelona, Catalan and Spanish, which historically have ebbed and flowed with the political winds. Language can be quite a polemic issue there, as Franco severely repressed the Catalans and their language during his dictatorship - especially in terms of public use which is crucial to the survival of a language. The picture I've used here (from Wikipedia) shows graffiti with the message "I watch TV3, I want TV3", which pertains to the Catalan-language TV channel which has played THE main role in normalising the language. Catalans want the right to culture in their own language, while Spaniards do not want Spanish to become peripheral in an area they see as an integral part of the Spanish polity. It's a thorny issue, but the policies to bring back Catalan to daily life have been successful and Spanish as a language is under no threat - despite vitriolic commentaries to the contrary. Here then, is a model for bilingualism - it's not perfect but it works.