Consell de Formentera publishes Carme Junyent's lecture on current state of Catalan and inclusive language

The Language Advisory Service of the Consell de Formentera is pleased to present Catalan in 2022: situation and challenges. The question of inclusive language (El català al 2022: situació i reptes. La qüestió del llenguatge inclusiu), which includes the lecture given by linguist Carme Junyent in the plenary hall of the Consell de Formentera on 5 May 2022.

El català al 2022... is the first instalment of "Scripta manent", which Raquel Guasch, language policy councillor, envisions as a yearly publication that "conveys the idea that multilingualism is a human treasure which must be perpetuated, promoted and defended."

This current issue includes Junyent's reflections on the state of minority languages like Catalan, ways that the generational transmission of a language is interrupted, and future prospects for the continuity of Catalan and of linguistic diversity writ large.

It also contains a second section on inclusive language. In Junyent's words, "the vast majority of the world's languages are genderless. This also happens to be where we focus all of our attention, despite the fact that the societies where genderless languages are spoken are just as sexist as ours."

Carme Junyent (Masquefa, Anoia, 1955) is a professor of linguistics at the University of Barcelona and founding member of the Endangered Languages Research Group (GELA). She has written extensively on the diversity and situation of the world's languages and published works and informative articles on inclusive language, a very topical subject. Junyent has edited and collaborated on bestsellers such as El català, la llengua efervescent: 77 visions sobre el terreny (Ed. Viena, 2021), Som dones, som lingüistes, som moltes i diem prou (Eumo, 2021) and El futur del català depèn de tu (La Campana, 2020).

"Scripta manent" is available free of charge at the various the Consell de Formentera locations and at the SAL (Servei de Assessorament Lingüístic, SAL; Carrer Arxiduc Lluís Salvador, 2, Sant Francesc). To ensure "Scripta manent" reaches the widest possible audience, plans are in place to distribute the booklet to places like doctors' offices, hairdressers' and the hospital where people will have time to leaf through it.

1 February 2023
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera