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useless-catalanfacts · 3 days

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The Catalan authors who were kept out of the Nobel Literature Prize for being Catalan

Did you know that there have been a handful of Catalan writers who were candidates to win the Nobel Literature Prize, but because of Spanish interference they never did?

The Nobel Prize discloses its debate and reasoning process 50 years after each edition. This means that we already know the details of what happened in the earliest editions of this Prize, which was started in 1901.

The name of the Catalan play-writer Àngel Guimerà (author of Marta of the Lowlands, Mar i cel, La filla del mar...), whose works have been translated to many languages and played all around Europe and the Americas, with many film and opera adaptations, sounded often in the Nobel committee. He was presented as a candidate to win the Nobel Prize 17 times in a row, since 1907 until his death in 1924. In the editions of 1917 and 1919, many were convinced he would win. However, the declassified documents show why he didn't: as written by the man who was then president of the Nobel Committee, Haralg Härne, Guimerà wasn't given the prize "to avoid hurting the national pride of the Spanish". In 1919, Härne writes that the objective of the Nobel Prize is to promote peace and thus to award Guimerà and show support for a minority culture would be to encourage internal conflict (🤦). The Academy decided that they couldn't give a prize to Guimerà "before awarding another writer who expresses himself in the most ancient noble language of the country" (weird way to mean "the official language", aka Spanish, because they surely didn't mean Basque). In summary, if a Catalan is to be considered, he must always be second to a Spanish man. Even when the Catalan is, in the words of the Nobel Academy, "the most eminent writer of our times", he can never be considered an equal, always must be behind.

Àngel Guimerà wrote in the Catalan language, which was discriminated against by Spanish and considered an enemy by the Spanish government and much of Spanish society. Guimerà was a firm defender of the right to use the Catalan language and that nobody should be forced to speak the imperial languages instead of their own, and was involved with the political movement for the rights of Catalan people. For this reason, every time the famous Swedish academy was considering Guimerà, the Spanish Royal Academy of Language (RAE) fought it with all its might. Nowadays, Guimerà's theatre plays continue to move thousands of spectators every year.

The same happened again with the poet Josep Carner. In the 1960s, Josep Carner was on exile, because he was a Catalan poet writing in Catalan and who stood against the fascist dictatorship of Spain, which persecuted the Catalan language and identity. Famous writers from around the world, including T. S. Eliot, François Mauriac, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Roger Caillois, supported Josep Carner's candidacy to win the Nobel, but the Spanish Government did everything possible to obstruct it. We don't know if Carner would have won or not, but he was deprived of even trying because of the Spanish government's hatred of Catalan.

Something similar seems to have happened between the 1970s and 1990s to three other Catalan poets: Salvador Espriu, J. V. Foix, and Miquel Martí i Pol, where they did not get any support from the Spanish authorities, so we don't know how it would have ended up.

Another example of what it means to have a state actively working against you because of bigotry against your cultural group.

Sources: book Det litterära Nobelpriset by the president of the Nobel Committee Kjell Espmarck, Pep Antoni Roig (El Nacional), Joan Lluís-Lluís (El Punt Avui), and Jordi Marrugat (Institut Ramon Llull).

#literatura #arts #història #àngel guimerà #josep carner #literature #books #reading #nobel prize #nobel literature prize #catalanophobia #catalanofòbia #catalan #cultures #writing #human rights #minority languages #1900s #history

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yvanspijk · 16 hours

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Duke, -duce, Herzog & ziehen

Duke comes from the Latin word dux (leader). It's related to the verb dūcere (to lead; pull), whence English -duce, for example in to seduce (whose original Latin meaning was 'to lead astray').

The second part of German Herzog (duke) is cognate to dux. This part, -zog, is related to the German verb ziehen (to pull), cognate of dūcere.

Old English had cognates of both words. Its counterpart of Herzog was heretoga (army leader). In Middle English it became heretowe, which would've become modern *hartow. The Old English cognate of ziehen was tēon. This verb would've become *to tee if it had continued to exist. See the infographic for information about its past tense and past participle.

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389 · 7 months

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Manuel Sayrach i Carreras (Catalan, 1886-1937) - Casa Sayrach

#architecture #interior #design #art #Casa Sayrach #Manuel Sayrach #Catalan #lift #interior design #u

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artthatgivesmefeelings · 6 months

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Sculptor: Josep Campeny i Santamaria (Spanish, 1858-1922) Architect: Antoni Vila i Palmés (Spanish/Catalan, 1863-1937) Martinez i Fortuny Company Panteó August Urrutia i Roldán, 1909 Barcelona, Catalunya

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ybon-paramoux · 1 month

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Painting by Cayetano De Arquer Buigas (Catalan, 1932-2012)- Woman at the Window

#art #painting #cayetano buigas #catalan

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didalexiabreakupwitholgayet · 23 days

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super random but is laia codina like super catalan or smth😭😭? i keep seeing so much abt it (aitana as well?)

haha absolutely. if you think alexia is a proud catalana, then laia and aitana are next level, super catalan.

starting with laia, she is the stereotypical, country bumpkin catalan. 😂 she's from a small village near girona and grew up on a farm (her dad and uncle are farmers). in fact, her ex-barça teammates often joke around with her about all her family's cows. plus, if you compare the way laia speaks catalan to the way alexia speaks catalan, it's like alexia has the urban/city barcelona accent and demeanor, and laia has the whole folksy, rural vibe going on. let's just say if you are trying to learn catalan, don't start by listening to laia! 🙈 (also, here's jenni hermoso saying she wants to hug one of her cows 😂)

but no one, and i mean no one, is as proudly catalan as aitana bonmati. first of all, her parents are professors of catalan language and literature. but more interestingly, they are catalan independence and marxist leaning activists. her father was even arrested and accused of being a member of a catalan paramilitary group. (he was later acquitted). her family's history is super interesting and it's common knowledge by now that this activism extends into gender equality and she took her mother's surname (bonmatí) first, followed by her father's, which is quite rare in spain. and we know speaking spanish annoys her. 😂

and finally, aitana is been a very vocal member of the recent movement to add catalan as one of the official languages of the EU.

“I wanted to give value to Catalan. It is my language, with which I express myself every day and with which I do it best. I ask that it be recognized at the European level. It's my language and I have every right in the world to do it." - Aitana Bonmatí

#aitana bonmati #laia codina #fcb femení #barca femeni #barca women #arsenal women #futfem #woso #catalan #spanish history is fun #arsenal wfc

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beautiful-basque-country · 8 months

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Spain just asked to adopt Basque, Catalan and Galician as official languages of the EU

The Government seeks to include the other languages that are official in the State of Spain, apart from Spanish, in the language regime of the European Union.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, has officially requested today [Aug. 17 2023] on behalf of the Spanish Government, the inclusion of Basque, Catalan and Galician in the language regime of the European Union.

The minister has asked to change Regulation 1, which regulates the EU's language system, so that "the other languages that have an official statute besides Spanish" are also official in the European Union.

"Spain speaks Spanish, but also Catalan, Basque and Galician, and it is our duty to guarantee spaces to represent, use and learn about these languages," said Pedro Sanchez, acting president of Spain.

Source

Let's not get our hopes high: the EU has to accept this request UNANIMOUSLY, so we gotta wait 🤞.

#euskal herria #basque country #pays basque #pais vasco #euskadi #Catalan #basque #euskera #euskara #languages #News #politics

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oldpaintings · 11 months

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Garden of the Artist on Majorca by Eliseo Meifrèn y Roig (Catalan, 1857-1940)

#eliseo meifren y roig #20th Century #catalan #art #paintings

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sir20 · 11 months

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Long exposure in Collioure, by ir20

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annadiplosis · 1 month

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In Catalan, the expression "oh, que bé" ("oh, how great" / "oh, that's nice") sounds exactly like "oca B" ("goose B"). So, by labeling the goose under the rain as "goose A" and having the other one say "oh, that's nice" while sunbathing, I'm making an insanely stupid pun. Hope this makes some kind of sense.

#sketchbook #doodles #comics #catalan #geese #birds

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wandering-cemeteries · 3 months

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Tomb of Tomb of Ermengol VII, Count of Urgell, c. 1300-1350. A super fancy tomb in the Cloisters, a museum in New York City.

#tomb #the cloisters #museum #artifact #sarcophogus #original photography #cemetery #photography #taphophile #taphophilia #lensblr #photographers on tumblr #tombs #medieval #catalan #sculpture #wanderingjana

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useless-catalanfacts · 2 months

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A day in the life of someone who posts on the internet in Catalan *cue dozens of Spanish people asking "what's wrong with your mouth", ordering him to speak in Spanish or "in Christian", saying he's rude for speaking in Catalan, calling him "polaco" (derogatory Spanish word to mean a Catalan person), calling the Catalan language a dialect, saying he is possessed because he's speaking Catalan, etc*

This is a video by Sergi Mas showing some of the comments he gets on YouTube. He makes videos about mountain biking that he posts on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And the first comment he got on his first YouTube video was already someone telling him he should do it in Spanish.

Some days ago, another creator who posts his videos in Catalan (Joan Sendra, find him on Instagram and TikTok) answered to a Spanish person who was complaining that it's rude to speak Catalan/Valencian on the internet instead of Spanish because then there's people who don't understand you (as if everyone in the world spoke Spanish lmao). Joan, who is tired of getting this kind of comments so often, answered: there are already endless videos and things to watch on the internet in Spanish. In fact, if you look for [the topic he was talking about in the video that this guy commented] all the videos are in Spanish except for mine. And yet you had to come to me, the one in Valencian, and tell me that I can't make a video in my language and that I can only make it in yours. If you don't like it, it's so easy to find another one!

However, it's not a matter of actually being interested in what's being said in a language they don't speak. It's about the imposition of the language they consider superior (Spanish) and telling speakers of the languages whose land Spain had occupied that they are useless and should be ashamed of existing in public. Well, we aren't. Like Sergi's video, don't let the comments disturb your macarrons.

#català #valencià #actualitat #languages #language #catalan #cultures #valencian #diversity #minoritized languages #imperialism #influencers #sociolinguistics #minority languages

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yvanspijk · 4 months

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The Romance words for 'self' and 'same', such as French même, Spanish mismo, and Portuguese mesmo, don't come from the Classical Latin words for 'self' and 'same'. Instead, they stem from Popular Latin *metipsimus: 'the very same', or literally 'self-selfest'. The infographic shows how it went.

#historical linguistics #linguistics #language #etymology #latin #spanish #french #italian #catalan #portuguese #lingblr

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neapolis-neapolis · 2 months

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