Editing Catalan language (section)

=== Spain: 18th to 20th century ===
{{See also|Nueva Planta decrees|Language politics in Spain under Franco|Anti-Catalanism}}

In 1807, the Statistics Office of the French Ministry of the Interior asked the [[Prefect (France)|prefects]] for an official survey on the limits of the [[French language]]. The survey found that in [[Roussillon]], almost only Catalan was spoken, and since Napoleon wanted to incorporate Catalonia into France, as happened in 1812, the [[consul]] in [[Barcelona]] was also asked. He declared that Catalan "is taught in schools, it is printed and spoken, not only among the lower class, but also among people of first quality, also in social gatherings, as in visits and congresses", indicating that it was spoken everywhere "with the exception of the royal courts". He also indicated that Catalan was spoken "in the Kingdom of Valencia, in the islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Sardinia, Corsica and much of Sicily, in the Vall d "Aran and Cerdaña".<ref>{{cite book |last=Merle |date=5 January 2010 |publisher=Editorial Trabucaire |isbn=978-2849741078 |language=French |location=Perpinyà |first=René |pages=223 |title=Visions de "l'idiome natal" à travers l'enquête impériale sur les patois 1807–1812}}</ref>

The defeat of the pro-Habsburg coalition in the [[War of Spanish Succession]] (1714) initiated a series of [[Nueva planta decrees|laws]] which, among other centralizing measures, imposed the use of [[Spanish language|Spanish]] in legal documentation all over Spain. Because of this, use of the Catalan language declined into the 18th century.

However, the 19th century saw a Catalan literary revival ({{lang|ca|[[Renaixença]]}}), which has continued up to the present day.{{sfn|Wheeler|2010|p=191}} This period starts with [[Bonaventura Carles Aribau|Aribau]]'s ''Ode to the Homeland'' (1833); followed in the second half of the 19th century, and the early 20th by the work of [[Jacint Verdaguer|Verdaguer]] (poetry), [[Narcís Oller|Oller]] (realist novel), and [[Àngel Guimerà|Guimerà]] (drama).{{sfn|Costa Carreras|Yates|2009|pp=10–11}} In the 19th century, the region of [[Carche]], in the [[province of Murcia]] was repopulated with Valencian speakers.{{sfn|Wheeler|2005|p=1}} Catalan spelling was standardized in 1913 and the language became official during the [[Second Spanish Republic]] (1931–1939). The Second Spanish Republic saw a brief period of tolerance, with most restrictions against Catalan lifted.{{sfn|Wheeler|2010|p=191}} The [[Generalitat]] (the autonomous government of Catalonia, established during the Republic in 1931) made a normal use of Catalan in its administration and put efforts to promote it at the social level, including in schools and the [[University of Barcelona]].

The Catalan language and culture were still vibrant during the [[Spanish Civil War]] (1936–1939), but were crushed at an unprecedented level throughout the subsequent decades due to [[Francoist Spain|Francoist dictatorship]] (1939–1975), which abolished the official status of Catalan and imposed the use of Spanish in schools and in public administration in all of [[Spain]], while banning the use of Catalan in them.<ref name="Guardian1">{{Cite news |last=Burgen |first=Stephen |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/22/catalan-language-survived |title=Catalan: a language that has survived against the odds |date=22 November 2012 |work=The Guardian |access-date=18 January 2017 |language=en-GB |archive-date=24 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224061600/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/22/catalan-language-survived |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Wheeler|2010|pp=190–191}} Between 1939 and 1943 newspapers and book printing in Catalan almost disappeared.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Manent |first1=Albert |last2=Crexell |first2=Joan |title=Bibliografia catalana dels anys més difícils (1939–1943) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l39t7WmeBG0C&pg=PA14 |date=1988 |publisher=Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, S.A |location=Barcelona |isbn=8472029379 |page=14 |access-date=9 December 2023 |archive-date=31 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131130959/https://books.google.com/books?id=l39t7WmeBG0C&pg=PA14 |url-status=live}}</ref> Francisco Franco's desire for a homogeneous Spanish population resonated with some Catalans in favor of his regime, primarily members of the upper class, who began to reject the use of Catalan. Despite all of these hardships, Catalan continued to be used privately within households, and it was able to survive Franco's dictatorship. At the end of [[World War II]], however, some of the harsh measures began to be lifted and, while Spanish language remained the sole promoted one, limited number of Catalan literature began to be tolerated. Several prominent Catalan authors resisted the suppression through literature.<ref>{{Cite book |last=CORNELLÀ-DETRELL |first=JORDI |jstor=10.7722/j.cttn346z |title=Literature as a Response to Cultural and Political Repression in Franco's Catalonia |date=2011 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-85566-201-8}}</ref> Private initiative contests were created to reward works in Catalan, among them ''Joan Martorell'' prize (1947), ''Víctor Català'' prize (1953) ''Carles Riba'' award (1950), or the [[Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes|Honor Award of Catalan Letters]] (1969).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Una polèmica literària sota el franquisme |url=https://palavracomum.com/cas-obert-una-polemica-literaria-sota-el-franquisme-ii-por-xesus-gonzalez-gomez/ |website=Palavracomum |date=20 July 2015 |language=ca-ES |access-date=25 May 2022 |archive-date=17 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817040501/https://palavracomum.com/cas-obert-una-polemica-literaria-sota-el-franquisme-ii-por-xesus-gonzalez-gomez/ |url-status=live}}</ref> The first Catalan-language TV show was broadcast in 1964.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Primera emisión de un programa en catalán |url=https://www.rtve.es/rtve/20180730/historia-tve-primera-emissio-dun-programa-catala/1772240.shtml |website=RTVE |date=30 July 2018 |language=es-ES |access-date=25 May 2022 |archive-date=25 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220525000521/https://www.rtve.es/rtve/20180730/historia-tve-primera-emissio-dun-programa-catala/1772240.shtml |url-status=live}}</ref> At the same time, oppression of the Catalan language and identity was carried out in schools, through governmental bodies, and in religious centers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Casademont |first=Enric Pujol |date=2020 |title=Culture, language and politics. The Catalan cultural resistance during the Franco regime (1939–1977) |url=https://publicacions.iec.cat/repository/pdf/00000292/00000098.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://publicacions.iec.cat/repository/pdf/00000292/00000098.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |journal=Catalan Historical Review |volume=13 |pages=69–84}}</ref>

In addition to the loss of prestige for Catalan and its prohibition in schools, migration during the 1950s into [[Francoist Catalonia|Catalonia]] from other parts of Spain also contributed to the diminished use of the language. These migrants were often unaware of the existence of Catalan, and thus felt no need to learn or use it. [[Catalonia]] was the economic powerhouse of Spain, so these migrations continued to occur from all corners of the country. Employment opportunities were reduced for those who were not [[Multilingualism|bilingual]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rendon |first=Sílvio |date=2007 |title=The Catalan premium: language and employment in Catalonia |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20730773 |journal=Journal of Population Economics |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=669–686 |doi=10.1007/s00148-005-0048-5 |jstor=20730773 |hdl=10016/291 |s2cid=29009762 |issn=0933-1433 |hdl-access=free |access-date=4 December 2021 |archive-date=4 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204184857/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20730773 |url-status=live}}</ref> Daily newspapers remained exclusively in Spanish until after Franco's death, when the first one in Catalan since the end of the Civil War, [[Avui]], began to be published in 1976.<ref>{{cite book |author=Katrin Voltmer |title=Mass Media and Political Communication in New Democracies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Snx9MYO1T7UC&pg=PA19 |year=2006 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-33779-3 |page=19 |access-date=18 September 2023 |archive-date=5 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230205220526/https://books.google.com/books?id=Snx9MYO1T7UC&pg=PA19 |url-status=live}}</ref>