The city council promotes a plan with 68 actions to encourage the use of Catalan

Barcelona is launching a plan to promote the use of Catalan in the city. It has been drawn up by Barcelona City Council in collaboration with a group of experts and different organisations. The resulting document is the result of more than half a year’s work coordinated by the sociologist Marta Rovira and in consensus with the municipal groups. The plan is the municipal contribution to the Pacte Nacional per la Llengua, promoted by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Secretaria General de Política Lingüística, and is a set of proposals to promote the use of Catalan in all areas, re-establish emotional ties with the language and generate motivation to use Catalan as a habitual language.

The proposals presented, entitled Les 68 accions per promoure l’ús del català. Proposta de pla d’acció en el marc del Pacte nacional per la llengua, are structured into 12 areas, including the internal management of the City Council in the political-institutional sphere; communication with citizens; citizen services; education; sports; the economy; culture; the scientific and university sphere; health; youth and leisure. Each area has been worked on individually, with specific proposals and seeking to include innovative actions. Among the actions planned are the creation of the Dia de la Llengua a Barcelona, with festive activities open to the public; ensuring that Catalan is the default language in the speeches of the mayor and councillors; and that Catalan is the default language in institutional advertising and the City Council’s information channels; create a competition for the creation of digital content in Catalan with different age categories and different forms of participation, such as memes, videos and music; and create a Catalan language office, located in the Casa de les Lletres del Poblenou. There will be a campaign in the neighbourhoods to promote the use of the Catalan language in shops in the main interactions, with the slogans “Bon dia tingui” and “El comerç, km 0 de la llengua”.

In the field of education, training and sport, actions are included such as inviting influencers who speak Catalan to secondary schools, especially in those neighbourhoods and districts where Catalan is less widely used; establishing a sponsorship system for pupils who have recently arrived from other countries and areas of the state where Catalan is not spoken, and providing training in linguistic practices for sports coaches and referees who work with children and young people. And in the field of science, among other actions, a prize will be created for contributions to scientific language in Catalan.

The actions designed by Barcelona City Council to promote the use of Catalan also include a communication campaign under the slogan “El teu català suma“, which will run from 23 February to 3 April. Its aim is to help stimulate its use and re-establish emotional links with the language among the public.

The plan is designed for the next four years and has a budget of €24,216,100. The group of experts from different social fields who have participated in the design of the plan is made up of Teresa Cabré, Rudolf Ortega, Jordi Font, Míriam Hatibi, Enric Gomà, Eduard Voltas and Custodia Moreno. The proposals have been coordinated with the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, the Centre de Normalització Lingüística, the Secretaria de Política lingüística, universities, cultural and social organisations, among others. They have also been submitted for consideration by the different participatory bodies and municipal groups, and their contributions have been gathered.