With over 10 million speakers, Catalan is a Romance language official in Andorra (80,000 inhabitants—capital city Andorra la Vella) and Catalonia (8 million inhabitants—capital city Barcelona), also spoken in other regions of Spain—where it is co-official—such as the Valencia region or the Balearic Islands, and also in some spots of France and Italy. The context of the Catalan language is inseparable from its complex relationship with the Kingdom of Spain. With its existence proven since the early 4th century, the Catalan language—seen as a symbol of Catalan nationality—has been legally suppressed multiple times in history, such as with the Nueva Planta decrees in 1716 or later during the Franco dictatorship in the mid-20th century. It is argued that ‘Spanish nationalism is consistently obsessed with homogenizing the population through language.’ There is evidence that the famous architect Antoni Gaudí—master, amongst others, of La Sagrada Família and Park Güell—was detained in 1924, accused of speaking Catalan to a police officer.

Especially in Catalonia, despite the coexistence with the Spanish language in most of the public spheres, the presence of the Catalan language is widely legally protected. For instance, it is the language used by all public administrations, most formal education is carried in Catalan, companies have the obligation to use it in public spaces, and there is a powerful public-funded media corporation completely in Catalan. Nevertheless, despite its large number of speakers and the favorable legislative context, its use has decreased these last years, and some fear its existence is starting to be endangered.

The official status of the language does not automatically make it the most widely used in the region, and the data clearly supports this. According to the 2021 Plataforma Per la Llengua—Platform for the Catalan Language—report, only one third of the 8 million people living in Catalonia uses Catalan as their usual language. Over a million of them cannot speak it, and 350,000 do not understand it. In schools, whereas in 2006 ⅔ of the students used it in their informal relationships, in 2022 this number dropped to 22%. The reality is that among young people, its usage has dropped to half of what it was 20 years ago. Also in formal professional spheres, according to the Catalan College of Medicine, 63% of the doctors reach out to their patients initially in Spanish, and only 6.8% of judicial rulings are written in Catalan despite a public financial incentive of an extra €25 for every judgment written in the language.

The Catalan administration is fully aware of the situation and has started taking actions on the matter. The most relevant one is the recent creation of the Linguistic Policy Ministry in the Catalan Government, but other important steps have been taken these last years with the officialization of the use of the Catalan language in the Spanish Congress and Senate or the creation of the free digital streaming service 3CAT, with almost 300,000 hours of content in Catalan. And some data also leads to optimism. According to the World Wide Web Consortium, Catalan ranks in the 35th place of the most used languages on the internet, and thanks to a huge community of volunteers, it recently became the 5th language with the 10,000 essential articles on Wikipedia. Netflix and HBO are adding dozens of movies and shows in Catalan to their catalog, and the music group The Tyets had over 1 million listeners on Spotify in 2023—the first time ever that a Catalan band reached this number.

Securing the future of Catalan: challenges and opportunities

From my point of view, Catalan is not at risk of extinction (yet), but there are some important challenges that need to be faced in the following years in order to make sure that the situation does not drastically change. The most important one is regarding the newcomers. Catalonia has historically been—and still is—a welcoming land, a country that grows due to migration waves. And it is essential that these newcomers are incorporated in the Catalan linguistic community. Society has a lot to do with it: the environment must promote Catalan as the integration language and has to prove it useful to be learned, and Catalan speakers must avoid easily changing into Spanish whenever they believe the other is not going to understand them.

Secondly, linguistic immersion programs must be improved, as they have proven not to be working well enough, especially in schools. The educational community must respect the directives of leading the classes in Catalan, and the language has also to be promoted in the informal conversations. Last but not least, Catalan must gain presence in the new spheres of communication, such as social media and the Internet. Although popular apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok are available in Catalan, most Catalan speakers still perform Google searches in Spanish, and despite the huge investment of the public administration projects such as AINA—an AI project aimed at promoting Catalan in the digital world—Alexa or Siri do not speak Catalan yet. We need new generations to feel Catalan can also be useful online, so they do not abandon it.

Catalonia is in a key moment. Whereas 50 years ago it was the main language spoken in Catalonia, the percentage of people using it in their daily lives nowadays is steadily decreasing. There are some important initiatives being done, but they are not enough. Professor Joan M. Serra warns in his essay ‘The spoken use of Catalan’ that if the response of both the institutions and society is not sufficient, in a 2070 horizon the use of Catalan can be almost residual. On the other hand, if we are able to incorporate the sons and the grandsons of the newcomers to the Catalan linguistic community, as it happened in the 60s and the 70s of the last century, he reckons there is hope that Catalan becomes, once again, the actual main language in Catalonia.

Catalonia stands at a crossroads. While the decline in its usage is concerning, the initiatives being undertaken offer hope. By fostering integration, improving education, and ensuring a digital future for the language, both society and institutions can secure Catalan's place for generations to come.