Languages' law enforced in Aragon: Catalan language recognized but not official yet

Catalan language is spoken outside the limits of the Catalonia autonomous community. One of the regions where the language is spoken is Aragon. Once a confederated kingdom with the Catalan one, today Aragon is highly hispanicized. In spite of this Aragon preserves its own language, Aragonese, only spoken by about five thousand people.

Today is enforced the Aragon languages' law approved last December. After years of broken promises, the Aragonese parliament approved the so-called “languages law” on 16.12.2009. It’s the first time that Aragonese and Catalan are recognized officially. Law is considered highly weak by languages militants but introduce several improvements. Everyone can use his/her own language in his/her relation with the institutions, everyone can learn the language and Catalan as well as Aragonese are considered “originals, historical and own languages” by the parliament. Spanish language still would be the only official one.

With this recognition, Catalan is recognized in all the territories where it is spoken. In spite of this the language is not official yet in Aragon (Spanish state), Northern Catalonia (French state) and L’Alguer (Italian state). Not official yet; but it has been recognized everywhere.

Last May more than a thousand people demonstrated in Zaragoza giving support to the law. They demanded three official languages too (Aragonese, Catalan and Spanish). Half of the way done.