The Catalan government's Secretary for Linguistic Policy, F. Xavier Vila, visited Tortosa on Wednesday to present new support tools for municipal language policy. He urged local councils and regional authorities in Terres de l'Ebre to take action. The meeting introduced the 'Guide for the elaboration of local plans to promote Catalan' and the document '40 proposals for action'.
Joan Castor, the Catalan government delegate in Terres de l'Ebre, opened the event by highlighting the need for active language policies. Tortosa's mayor, Mar Lleixà, detailed the city council's recent efforts, including creating a specific language department and a citizen suggestion box for language matters.
Vila stressed the critical role of local councils in revitalising the social use of Catalan. "Councils are the administration closest to citizens and have an enormous capacity to influence," he said. "The language needs an active municipal language policy that ensures the use of Catalan in municipal facilities and all areas within your competence. That is why we provide concrete tools and ask you to make them your own. The Secretary and the Consortium for Linguistic Normalisation (CPNL) are here to help you with whatever you need."
New Tools for Promoting Catalan
Jordi Duran, director of the Centre for Linguistic Normalisation (CNL), presented the 'Guide for the elaboration of local plans to promote Catalan'. This is the main technical resource the department now offers councils. Aimed at municipal language policy managers and technicians, it is a practical tool that helps systematically incorporate a linguistic perspective into all areas of municipal activity. This ranges from citizen services to culture, sport, the inclusion of newcomers, and public procurement.
The document provides detailed guidance for creating a local Catalan promotion plan. Its method starts with a diagnosis of the municipality's sociolinguistic situation, sets out actions, a timeline, and a budget, and ends with an evaluation and communication phase. The Guide also includes a template for drafting a local plan, models for linguistic use criteria to encourage Catalan in internal council activities, linguistic clause models for contracts and subsidies, and a summary of the current regulatory framework for language policy.
The goal is for each council to design its own language policy, tailored to its demographic and sociolinguistic reality. The Secretary for Linguistic Policy and the CPNL will coordinate with all municipalities seeking support to start or strengthen their local plans.
40 Concrete Proposals for Action
In addition to the Guide, Duran presented a list of 40 action proposals developed by the department. These are designed so that any council, regardless of size or resources, can incorporate linguistic criteria into its activities. The measures cover a wide range of areas and are presented as a menu of options from which each municipality can choose those best suited to its situation.
Among the proposals are internal actions, such as organising awareness and training sessions on linguistic rights for municipal staff or reviewing linguistic use criteria in institutional communication. Others focus on the local economy, like promoting language management plans in businesses and shops, or training establishments on consumers' linguistic rights.
There are also proposals for the wider community: creating informal Catalan learning points in municipal facilities, promoting Catalan in the visual and auditory linguistic space of street events, ensuring a prominent presence of Catalan in sports and cultural offerings, and strengthening the language in activities for children, adolescents, and young people. The document explicitly invites all councils to adopt as many proposals as possible and to formalise them in their own local plan to promote Catalan.
Catalan in Terres de l'Ebre: High Presence
The event also included a presentation by Xavier Tenorio, a studies and indicators technician from the Secretary for Linguistic Policy. He shared the results of the 2023 Survey on Linguistic Uses of the Population (EULP) for Terres de l'Ebre. The data confirms that the region has the highest presence of Catalan, well above the Catalan average. Specifically, 87.6% of the population can speak it, and 66.8% use it as their usual language.
These figures also show considerable appeal: the percentage of habitual speakers (66.8%) clearly exceeds that of initial speakers (57.7%). This indicates that a significant portion of the population adopts Catalan beyond their family language. This effect is particularly strong among young people aged 15 to 29, where the jump between initial language (59.8%) and habitual language (70.7%) shows active incorporation into Catalan by speakers of other languages.
Despite this potential, there was a decline in the habitual use of Catalan between 2018 and 2023, falling from 72.2% to 66.8%. Knowledge of the language, however, remained almost stable, moving from 88.5% to 87.6%, and the absolute number of people who know it even grew. The drop is explained by two demographic factors: a decrease in the number of people born in Catalonia, which led to a significant fall in the percentage of initial speakers, and the growth of the foreign population. While some of this population learns and adopts Catalan, they often start with other initial languages and sometimes use Castilian, either alone or combined with their language of origin. According to officials, 65% of this foreign population uses Catalan and/or Castilian as their habitual language, either alone or with their own language, while 23.4% maintain only their initial language.
