Are you very concerned about the situation in Catalan?

Yes, I'm very worried, but I'm also very hopeful. I follow what Fabra said [Pompeu Fabra established the current Catalan regulation]: “Domestic work and hope must never be neglected.” There are a lot of people fighting for language, and the struggle gives results. On the other hand, people from other backgrounds have acquired the language and cannot adapt it to what we dominated in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's. We have to pay a kind of toll: to have more Catalan speakers you have to lower the level a little.

What do you mean?

I lived in Italy and spoke Italian, but not like the Italians. They were happy to speak Italian, but I couldn't speak as well as they were. Here's the same thing. We have people from many backgrounds (China, Latin America, Ukraine, Russia…). They're not going to learn Catalan like us. We will have to accept some objective deficiencies. If we want more than a million Catalans who have not been born in Catalonia, we will have to recognise that they have a lower language level, they will not behave as if they had it or not, they do not have the same authenticity. I'm not pessimistic, because there are a lot of people working. We must continue to fight and wait for these people to acquire the language, love it and improve it. I'm Catalan everywhere, but the Ruaixt seemed to have come from Occitania, probably in the 16th century, and they adapted. We now have to wait for the same thing to happen: for those who have come to adapt, for them to feel Catalan speakers, for them to defend the language and to try to speak as well as possible.

What role do the media play?

I have a lot of respect for the media for a number of reasons. For starters, they have to work very quickly. I understand that when I see mistakes in the newspapers. Secondly, the media are a reflection of society. If the Catalan spoken has many shortcomings, we cannot ask the media to act very differently, they are also part of society. They don't have the best level, but we can't ask for much more. We cannot ask journalists, who have to know many things and, above all, everyday things, to take care of the quality of the language as well. We can't go find them.

The surgeon is asked to know how to use the scalpel. Should we not demand the same level of those who speak the language in their profession?

It would be nice for those who work in the media to speak and write better. But they've studied journalism, not linguistics. We can't ask them to write like a professor of philology.

And what role do teachers play?

A distinction must be made between language teachers and those who teach a subject. Language teachers should ask for more, but they have had to learn so many lessons… In addition to language there are many interesting things and not all are linguists. In the future we will see things that are going to improve and that are going to get worse. But because Fabra was, I want to be optimistic.

If we are so pragmatic and lose references, are the second and third generations not going to suffer damage?

We have to get the media to connect with the new generations. If we make language too esoteric, too complicated, too high, they won't feel identified. We have to get used to more authentic and straightforward ways, but in the meantime, they don't feel uncomfortable. They're going to be asking, they're going to be recovering the ways that were lost. So did the Hebrews. They were in the diaspora, they had the opportunity to return to their country and they have regained Hebrew. It's not exactly the same, but there's some similarity. We have to be prepared to lose a battle if we want to win the war. If young people and immigrants turn their backs on us, we have a party. We must be skilled. Pragmatics.

In the media, in the duplicate conversations, we hear expressions like: “how to mole,” “uncle, what you do,” “what to suck.” Can't we have our juvenile language?

I insist. We have to be skilled. We must know to what extent we can impose or propose genuine forms. We can guess them, but users must be willing to accept them. In order to win in the long run, we have to lose now twenty. For the future, they will be able to recover the most authentic forms or will invent new ones. Some sociolinguistics said: languages are impure. Catalan comes from poorly spoken and poorly written Latin. In the 8th and 9th centuries, those who knew Latin would be frightened of the footsteps of their contemporaries. And we are now happy, it is an exemplary language. A certain impairment is inherent in language. Languages are not forever, they are perishable like us.

Don't die.

In the long run, like all things, he will die. In 200 or 300 years… I’ve started talking like a cure…

Do we go vigorously or do we fall?

In the Principat we are winning in number of speakers, but in quality we are losing out. With regard to other peripheral areas, it is quite worrying, there are forces that want the language to be reduced, even to disappear. We have to help them, but as Fabra said, the Valencians and those in the Balearic Islands have to decide their policy. We cannot be imperialists.