Contrary to popular opinion, Barcelona is not in Catalonia.
Well, in fact it depends. Catalonia is a region with a deep and perverse history. For a while, its empire had a great package tour monopoly, owning the Costa Brava, Valencia, Naples, Malta and Sicily.
Although swiftly engulfed in Spain following some ill-advised marriages by bankrupt princes, significant moments in its national/local history usually seem to occur when the world was busy doing other things: the Spanish inquisition was 1492, the first unified Catalan government was formed in 1914, only to be exiled in 1939... still, at least their �national� day is secure, being, as it is, September 11th.
Every 200 years or so, someone in Madrid tries to wipe out the Catalan language and identity, and each time it just keeps popping back up like the proverbial. This repeated defiance has made its people somewhat bolshy, like the time the mayor of Barcelona got a bit drunk and declared war on Napoleon, without really thinking it through. Still, we've all done that.
As a race, Catalans are faithful, hardworking, punctual, successful and immensely proud. This also means that, by general consensus, they can sometimes be reserved, insular, scornful, serious and really quite difficult to get to know. (With plenty of individual exceptions, obviously � after all, what else are generalisations for?)
As a result, the region is openly schizophrenic. When things are going well, it�s no surprise. Never forget, you�re in Catalonia. But when a building isn�t finished in time, when the question ��when?� is answered with a shrug, when the verb 'to mend' is spoken in the conditional tense, what more do you expect? This is Spain, after all. At such moments, Barcelona is very much Castillian to the core.
This perversity is also apparent in the Catalan language. Annoyed by the French saying it looked like Spanish, and Spaniards saying precisely the opposite, they invented a method of pronunciation so perverse that only locals have a ice-cube in hell�s chance of getting what they ordered. If you have any other European languages in your utility belt, reading it is actually very straightforward. Listening to Catalan read out loud, on the other hand, is like trying to read braille by smell.
So. Yesterday I learnt my first proper word in Catalan. It was "charger" (spelt 'xarxa') which, it turns out, means LAN network, which is no help at all when you urgently need to power up your laptop. Still, I had a good, if short, game of Quake with the local, non-English speaking, shop owner.
Certain fruity computer manufacturers being as they are, he couldn�t help me anyway and so I found myself trekking halfway up one of the urban mountains here to find the main 'official dealer'.
The conversation that followed my eventual entrance translates from my bad Spanish something like this:
Me: �Do you have a charger for my laptop?� (NB. By now I had the correct word: for those who need to know, it�s carcador. And Apple calls it an adaptor.)
Girl idly leafing through product guide: �I don�t know. Ask that man over there.�
(I walk over)
Me: �Do you have an adaptor for my laptop?� (actually I just typed �lifetop� by mistake. Given that it holds my entire music collection and is my only way of watching films, doing rewrites on stuff in progress and finding people�s addresses, it�s pretty much the same thing)
Gilipolles: �We�re closed.�
Me: �Oh. The door�s open.�
Him: �Yes.�
Silence.
Me: �Um...�
Him: �You have to come back on Monday.�
Me: �Monday?�
Him: �Yes. Unless you want to come back tomorrow, when we close at 12pm.�
Me: �Riiight... well, that�s fine. Can you tell me if you have a charger here in the shop?�
Him: �No, we don�t.�
Me: �About how long will it take to order one?�
Him: �I don�t know.�
Me: �Well, do you think I could have it by next week?�
Him: �Next week? Impossible.�
Me: �Oh. So... do you have any idea at all when it might arrive?�
Him: �No.�
Me: �Do you know much they cost?�
Him: �How should I know?�
Me: �Erm...�
At which point, being British, I thanked him for his time and left. If I�d been Catalan, I would almost certainly have let loose a scathing barrage of swear words against his inefficiency and unhelpfulness.
Either way, I still wouldn�t have gotten any answers. I know now that I was wrong with what I said earlier. Barcelona is still very much the capital of Catalonia. It�s just that, sometimes, Catalonia is in Spain.
Posted by Andrew Losowsky at January 27, 2003 08:06 PM | TrackBackOf course, you realise that every different catalan region has it's own way of pronouncing the vowels, totally unique and different to every other region? If you don't beleive me, take a day trip to Valencia, or Mallorca, and try and work out what they're saying, based on the catalan you already (don't) know...
Oh, and I still haven't worked out why the hell a Xarxa is a network. But geek Catalan is a very scary language.
Moof - a brit nominally living in Mallorca
Posted by: Moof at January 31, 2003 02:33 PMMoof, xarxa means net, like a fisher's net, just that. And, by extension, network, like a transport network, for example. The fact that it sounds like charger is a coincidence, the meaning it's all in your head.
Posted by: Victor at February 3, 2003 06:58 PM