The Catalan language is a rather beautiful, often quite poetic language. Currently, there is much debate here in Mallorca as to whether Mallorquín as a language is a proper such language or simply, a dialect of the Catalan idiom from Catalunya on the mainland. I am not an expert in this matter but I know that there are experts of some consequence in linguistic issues. One of them was Antoni Maria Alcover i Sureda (1862-1932).

Although Mossèn Alcover’s first literary efforts were in Spanish, he turned to the Catalan language in 1879. From this date, he undertook to collect the Rondalles de Mallorca (fables and folklore of Mallorca), which he began to publish in 1880 in various journals under a pseudonym (Jordi d’es Racó). In 1886, Alcover was ordained and became the parish priest for Manacor, hence the title Mossèn. In 1888 he became a professor of ecclesiastical history at the seminary in Palma.

The first Congrés Internacional de la Llengua Catalana (International Congress of the Catalan Language) was held in 1906 on his initiative and under his presidency. He was named president of the philological branch of the Institute for Catalan Studies. His principal work was the Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear (Catalan-Valencian-Balearis Dictionary), also known as Diccionari Alcover-Moll, which unfortunately he did not live to see completed. A first tome was published in 1926. The complete oeuvre was finished by his then collaborator Francesc de Borja i Moll and published in 1962, fifty years ago this year. The current edition is a lexicon in ten tomes, published in 1993 (see photo below).

Perhaps José Ramon Bauzá, the president of the Govern de les Illes Balears, should buy a complete set of this lexicon and actually study the language that he seems to so vehemently repress.

The photo (top) was taken in Palma, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: June 14th, 2012. The time was 23:11:33. The photo (bottom) was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of ca.wikipedia.org.

Moltes gràcies.