Mind your language

In Spain, language is important and no more so than in Catalonia. Any discussion relating to Catalonia will inevitably get round to the topic of language. That is because there are two languages in Catalonia, each fighting for supremacy, each claiming to be in danger if not protected and promoted and each provoking emotional fights which are taken up by not only political parties but also two football clubs.

The most famous club in Catalonia is FC Barcelona, of that there is no doubt. Barça are the team of the people, the Catalan people. Their slogan, more than a club, reflects their role in defending and promoting the Catalan cause throughout their history. Barça are unashamedly Catalan.

There is however another team from Barcelona who are a lot harder to define and whose name sums up the political nature of language in Catalonia. Stop number 11 on El Camino de La Liga, Espanyol.

Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona, to give them their full name, are Barcelona’s second team. Their name is written in Catalan but it translates as Royal Spanish Sporting Club of Barcelona. I can’t sum it up any better than Simon Harris from Spain-Football.org,

“If you can imagine what would happen to a football club in Glasgow made up of Scottish players but called Her Majesty's English FC, then you're some way to understanding why the majority of Catalans will always find it difficult to support RCD Espanyol”

The history of Epanyol’s name is perhaps the most interesting thing about them, having changed four times, each time reflecting the changing nature of politics in Catalonia. The club was the first in Spain to be founded exclusively by Spaniards and not foreigners. The original name, Club Deportivo Español (written in Spanish), was supposed to reflect this. City neighbours Barça had been founded by foreigners and consisted mainly of foreign players. A few years later the club was given royal patronage and became Real Club Deportivo Español. However in 1931 Spain became a republic and royal symbols were banned. At the same time support for Catalonian autonomy was growing and so the name was changed to Club Esportiu Espanyol in order to fit in with the times. That is without the Royal patronage and this time written in Catalan and not Spanish. The Spanish republic didn’t last very long and following Franco’s victory in the civil war the name had to be changed again, this time due to the fact that the Catalan language itself had been banned. So once again they became known as Real Club Deportivo Español. This has been the name that lasted the longest. However in 1995, quite a bit after Franco had died and the ban on Catalan had been lifted, the club changed their name for one final time and invented a word in the process. This time they kept the royal patronage but changed the spelling to Catalan. However in order to keep the initials RCD they invented the word Deportiu a Catalanised version of the Spanish word Deportivo. The final result was the aforementioned Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona. If there is a club who reflects the linguistical history of Catalonia over the last 100 or so years then I have yet to find them.

So that’s the history lesson but what about the people who support Espanyol? It has to be said, anyone who is from Catalonia and supports a team named Espanyol is probably not voting for Esquerra Republicana (the Catalan independence party). I lived in Catalonia for a year and only met one Espanyol fan in that time. He was Catalan born but his parents were from other parts of Spain, what some Catalans call immigrants. During the Franco years many people moved to Catalonia from poorer parts of Spain such as Andalusia and Extremadura in search of work. Like many people of a similar background, he associated much more with his parent’s roots than with the place of his birth. He spoke both Spanish and Catalan but considered Spanish his mother tounge.

On my way to the stadium I was thinking about him, wondering if he was representative of most Espanyol fans. Espanyol have recently moved to a new stadium in Cornellá, a town with a large Spanish speaking population on the outskirts of Barcelona. Walking through the streets to the stadium I passed by several pubs full of fans having a pre-match beer. The language of choice for the conversations was definitely Spanish. The closer I got to the stadium the more police I passed until I eventually passed a group who were clearly the Espanyol hooligans, looking like a cross between Millwall and Ultrasur, kitted up in Burberry hats and Spanish flags.

Once at the stadium I popped into the club shop to buy a pin badge (this has become something of a tradition for me) and while having a look at the scarves I realised they have two versions, one written in Catalan and the other in Spanish. I doubt if FC Barcelona offer such a choice. When I got in the stadium and had a look through the progamme I realised it too was bi-lingual, with some articles written in Spanish and others in Catalan. Inside the stadium I also started to hear a bit more Catalan being spoken, although the dominant language remained Spanish. Looking around the stands I could see quite a few Spanish flags, many of which had the outline of a bull emblazoned on them. The bull is a symbol of Spanishness and particulary controversial at the moment as the Catalan parliament debates banning bull-fighting in Catalonia.

So I had pretty much made up my mind that this was a club for Spanish speakers when suddenly the teams were read out only in Catalan. If I found this a little strange then I was really confused when the teams came out for the start of the match and club anthem was played. All teams in Spain have an anthem, usually played as the teams come out at the start of the match. The Espanyol anthem is written and sung in Catalan. So I’m sitting watching a stadium full of people, many holding Spanish flags, standing to sing their club anthem in Catalan.

The visitors happened to be Athletic Bilbao, who along with Barça are the sworn enemies of Españolistas (Spanish nationalists) everywhere. The presence of a couple of hundred Basques in the stadium seemed to get the hooligan mob I had spotted earlier a bit animated and I could see quite of a few of them aiming facist salutes towards to the travelling support. You could also hear Viva España being sung although many of the home support booed when this happened. I have heard Viva España being sung many times at Real Madrid, perhaps Spain’s most Epañolista club, and I have never heard anyone boo it. So it seems that what we can say is that not all Espanyol supporters are Españolistas. However what is clear is that they are all anti Barça. There was universal approval for the songs insulting their city neighbours. So perhaps that is what unites them, a hatred of Barça and what it stands for. And what exactly does Barça stand for? I’ll tell you next week because stop number 12 on El Camino de La Liga is FC Barcelona.