Sociolinguistic Status of Majorcan Catalan in San Pedro, Argentina

This chapter focuses on the sociolinguistic underpinnings that account for the current sociolinguistic status of Majorcan Catalan as a heritage language in San Pedro, Argentina. The Catalan-Spanish bilingualism in the community can be defined as an asymmetric one, in the sense that it features the presence of Spanish as the official and majority language in the community, spoken alongside Catalan as the clearly minority (and minoritized) language. Based on this preliminary observation, San Pedro Majorcan Catalan is defined as a dying variety of the language, in adherence to the theoretical framework for language endangerment proposed by Bradley and Bradley (Language Endangerment. Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 17) and UNESCO (2009). Current use of the heritage language in the community is analyzed from a comprehensive approach, and so are the reasons that may have led to the interruption of cross-generational transmission of the language. Based on this, a grim picture is painted whereby, in the absence of determined and consistent revitalization efforts, the heritage language may be bound to disappear following the passing of the current generation of speakers. While not many efforts seem to be currently in place to prevent the loss of this variety (and, along with it, the idiosyncrasy of the community), conscientious efforts are made in this chapter to document the speakers’ “fading voices.” Such voices encompass certain loss-resistant semantic fields and lexical units, encountered even in participants no longer able to speak the language of their ancestors. In this light, this chapter compiles various idiomatic expressions, lexicalized phrases, instances of morphophonological variation, swearwords, riddles, and nursery rhymes, as well as popular verses and songs. Some interviewed participants revealed how modern Majorcan tourists to San Pedro have been surprised to encounter a variety of their language that is ‘no longer in use on the island of Majorca,’ thus one that provides ample evidence of archaic terms and grammatical constructions, as well as of the cross-linguistic influence of Argentinian Spanish. The popular controversy opposing “Majorcan” to “Catalan” is also approached based on participants’ narratives. The final subsections provide a review of local institutional efforts to preserve the heritage language of the community. These include an overview of formal instruction in Catalan, media, written production in the local language variety, Majorcan-descent local author Jorge L. Sagrera, and historic personal correspondence.