some 12 percent of the total number of books published in the country. What the Catalan experience seems to demonstrate is that banning a language may be an effective way of preserving it.

That followed decades of a “total immersion” system whereby the Catalan language was used in all classes in schools, except when Spanish or foreign languages were being taught. The Catalan ...

But students in Catalonia lost even more, and native Spanish-speakers did worse than Catalan-speakers to boot—a failing critics were quick to pin on language policy. In the 1980s Catalonia began ...

rule. The use of Catalan - a language as close to regional languages of southern France like Occitan as it is to Castilian Spanish - has equal status with Castilian. Read more country profiles ...