Post: #1

I've become more and more interested recently in historic, but now minority languages. I met a guy who spoke both Castellano and Catalan, and he was telling me that Catalan is one of the very few minority languages which is currently thriving.

Even in the birthplace of the world's lingua franca, we have a rich history of ancient languages. However Cornish and Manx (Isle of Man) have no more native speakers, only a few thousand for each who have learnt the language from scratch. Welsh is still pretty widespread in its use, especially in the rural areas and efforts are in place to keep it being spoken. Gaelic Irish is spoken by just over a million people, but Scots Gaelic is just 60,000 or so.





Football or Rugby fans should know this one:



The line that really stands out to me is 'o bydded i'r hen iaith barhau' which means 'oh may the old language endure'.

I think it's really important to keep regional/minority languages all around the world, but obviously it's also better if everyone also speaks a major language such as English, Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.

What are your thoughts on it?

Post: #2

I think it's good and important. Language learning is damn hard. It creates a firm social exclusiveness than allows ethnicities to grow and flourish. This basically overlaps with the globalism/nationalism battle.

That said I hope every girl I meet speaks English regardless of her nationality, because I suck balls at learning languages. This is the dichotomy of wanting two conflicting things (like wife & easy lays) that must just be accepted.

Post: #3

A language is considered endangered if children, the next generation, aren't speaking it. By this definition, a language with thousands of native speakers could be endangered, while a language with only a few hundred could be non-endangered.

(09-01-2016 04:10 AM)britchard Wrote:  I think it's really important to keep regional/minority languages all around the world, but obviously it's also better if everyone also speaks a major language such as English, Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.

Parents often decide that their children's economic future will be brighter if they, the children, speak English — or whatever the main language of the region is. It's hard to argue with that. There are around 6000 languages in the world. Every year, many of them die. Sad in a way, but it's not for outsiders to say what language a community should prefer. Once a language is on its deathbed, it's nearly impossible to revive.

The ideal option is often to use the community language for daily life, but to learn the lingua franca for business and education. If the parents are bilingual, this can even be done natively if one parent speaks the first language to the child and the other speaks the second. In any event, children don't seem to have a developmental problem with bilingualism.

Would the world be better off as a whole if everyone spoke a common language, either natively or bilingually? Yes. At this point, English has a clear head start. (It won't be Chinese, despite their greater number of native speakers and a strong economy.) David Crystal has an interesting book on the topic called Globish, meaning 'global English'.

In my current neighborhood, several indigenous languages are spoken in the streets by itinerant workers. It's taken me a while to find out what languages those are, because the speakers themselves are ashamed of being bilingual and will lie about it. They lower their voices when you pass. The local community disapproves of their language use, calling them 'dialects', gutter languages.

Roosh has an old post railing on faux 'polyglots' and language hackers: http://www.rooshv.com/language-hackers-a...ll-of-shit

Quote:The height of idiocy is people learning tribal languages like Quechua just to alleviate their white guilt or make people think they are progressive for going native.

Post: #4

@britchard Interesting topic. I speak Irish quite well (or Gaelic as it's mostly called outside of Ireland).
I used to be fluent and probably could get back to fluency if I spent a month back in the 'Gaeltacht' (the parts of Ireland where Irish is the first language, mostly in remote parts of the West, SW and NW).
Most Irish people can speak a few basic phrases but not much beyond that.
The amount of people who can speak Irish well or fluently, is probably only about 5% of the nation.
The language has gotten a boost in the last couple of decades as it now has a national channel dedicated to it (TG4) and a national radio station (RnaG).
Interestingly there's a dynamic going on in Ireland in the last decade especially where some Irish parents are seeking out Irish language schools to send their kids to, partly because the standard is usually quite good in these schools, but also because these schools are usually quite monocultural, with almost exclusively white Irish kids of mostly Catholic or at least Christian heritage going there, as opposed to the Diversity that's become quite present in primary and second level education in Ireland in the past ten to fifteen years particularly.
As a former teacher myself, I can confirm that it's easier to teach a class of kids who are predominantly from the same culture and possessing the same native language as you.
It's better for the kids too, in an educational sense anyway.
I'm sure if you got any teacher to speak honestly about it, he or she would confirm the same.
One last factor is there's a 'cool' factor to saying you went to an Irish speaking school or that your kids are attending one.
A lot of the wealthy classes in Ireland send their kids to these schools.
All of the above means this language is not dying out anytime soon despite the fact that practically nobody outside the island speaks it.

Post: #5

There's a separate independence movement through Europe, which is not really political, but ethnic. Basque, Catalan, Scottish, Flemmish there's a Celt movement across several countries (from Wales to Spain), nation states are breaking down because they have outlived their use as political and primarily military entities (quantity over quality musketmen). Nation states as we know them are rather arbitrary because they in many places are founded upon the ruins of empires which encompassed many different people and these are prone to break down as the Austro-Hungarian empire did. Because nationstates have broken down into secular bureacracies, people go back to their local and ethnic identity.

Post: #6

(09-01-2016 07:15 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  I think it's good and important. Language learning is damn hard. It creates a firm social exclusiveness than allows ethnicities to grow and flourish. This basically overlaps with the globalism/nationalism battle.

That said I hope every girl I meet speaks English regardless of her nationality, because I suck balls at learning languages. This is the dichotomy of wanting two conflicting things (like wife & easy lays) that must just be accepted.

Yes, I was going to tie it in to the globalism/nationalism argument in my OP but decided against it as I wanted to leave out my arguments, and see what would be put forward by others.

(09-01-2016 08:22 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  A language is considered endangered if children, the next generation, aren't speaking it. By this definition, a language with thousands of native speakers could be endangered, while a language with only a few hundred could be non-endangered.

(09-01-2016 04:10 AM)britchard Wrote:  I think it's really important to keep regional/minority languages all around the world, but obviously it's also better if everyone also speaks a major language such as English, Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.

Parents often decide that their children's economic future will be brighter if they, the children, speak English — or whatever the main language of the region is. It's hard to argue with that. There are around 6000 languages in the world. Every year, many of them die. Sad in a way, but it's not for outsiders to say what language a community should prefer. Once a language is on its deathbed, it's nearly impossible to revive.

The ideal option is often to use the community language for daily life, but to learn the lingua franca for business and education. If the parents are bilingual, this can even be done natively if one parent speaks the first language to the child and the other speaks the second. In any event, children don't seem to have a developmental problem with bilingualism.

Would the world be better off as a whole if everyone spoke a common language, either natively or bilingually? Yes. At this point, English has a clear head start. (It won't be Chinese, despite their greater number of native speakers and a strong economy.) David Crystal has an interesting book on the topic called Globish, meaning 'global English'.

In my current neighborhood, several indigenous languages are spoken in the streets by itinerant workers. It's taken me a while to find out what languages those are, because the speakers themselves are ashamed of being bilingual and will lie about it. They lower their voices when you pass. The local community disapproves of their language use, calling them 'dialects', gutter languages.

Roosh has an old post railing on faux 'polyglots' and language hackers: http://www.rooshv.com/language-hackers-a...ll-of-shit

Quote:The height of idiocy is people learning tribal languages like Quechua just to alleviate their white guilt or make people think they are progressive for going native.

I agree with what your ideal situation would be. Regional languages such as Catalan and Welsh for a sense of community and identity, but also lingua francas such as Spanish and English.

(09-01-2016 10:06 AM)amity Wrote:  @britchard Interesting topic. I speak Irish quite well (or Gaelic as it's mostly called outside of Ireland).
I used to be fluent and probably could get back to fluency if I spent a month back in the 'Gaeltacht' (the parts of Ireland where Irish is the first language, mostly in remote parts of the West, SW and NW).
Most Irish people can speak a few basic phrases but not much beyond that.
The amount of people who can speak Irish well or fluently, is probably only about 5% of the nation.
The language has gotten a boost in the last couple of decades as it now has a national channel dedicated to it (TG4) and a national radio station (RnaG).
Interestingly there's a dynamic going on in Ireland in the last decade especially where some Irish parents are seeking out Irish language schools to send their kids to, partly because the standard is usually quite good in these schools, but also because these schools are usually quite monocultural, with almost exclusively white Irish kids of mostly Catholic or at least Christian heritage going there, as opposed to the Diversity that's become quite present in primary and second level education in Ireland in the past ten to fifteen years particularly.
As a former teacher myself, I can confirm that it's easier to teach a class of kids who are predominantly from the same culture and possessing the same native language as you.
It's better for the kids too, in an educational sense anyway.
I'm sure if you got any teacher to speak honestly about it, he or she would confirm the same.
One last factor is there's a 'cool' factor to saying you went to an Irish speaking school or that your kids are attending one.
A lot of the wealthy classes in Ireland send their kids to these schools.
All of the above means this language is not dying out anytime soon despite the fact that practically nobody outside the island speaks it.

I will never forget the look of envy in my friend's face when I was able to speak to several francaises when we were out one evening, whilst he just had to watch. If you can create a sense of speaking another language as desirable and cool, then more people will learn it.

(09-01-2016 10:22 AM)nomadbrah Wrote:  There's a separate independence movement through Europe, which is not really political, but ethnic. Basque, Catalan, Scottish, Flemmish there's a Celt movement across several countries (from Wales to Spain), nation states are breaking down because they have outlived their use as political and primarily military entities (quantity over quality musketmen). Nation states as we know them are rather arbitrary because they in many places are founded upon the ruins of empires which encompassed many different people and these are prone to break down as the Austro-Hungarian empire did. Because nationstates have broken down into secular bureacracies, people go back to their local and ethnic identity.

I get the sense that you have sympathy with lots of these independence movements, no?

Post: #7

I think it's good to have large numbers of people who can speak other languages in any country. But its a big problem if they're between the ages of 6 or 60 and can't speak the main language of their larger community, or at least make an effort. In fact, this should be among the top five factors in deciding whether or not someone is entitled to residency in a country or region that is not his own.

When I went to my local DMV in the NE USA, there were maybe 10 people at the office and about 7 of them were Latino. Why? Probably because over half of the people applying were Latino and a good percentage of them can't speak English properly. So what it looks like to me is that the government has essentially bent over backwards in an area that has no historical connection to Latin America in order to cater to people who can't reach a minimum standard because according to *some people* even setting that minimum standard would be racist.

I know that English is not the official language of the USA. But it is the language of government and it ought to follow that internal government services be generally conducted in English unless there is a legitimate demographic expedient—and by legitimate I don't mean that 10% of the population is here illegally and another 10% the children of said illegals.

This might get on some people's nerves but I think that places like California, New Mexico, and Texas are okay for Spanish-speaking minorities. We conquered it from them in war, the least we can do is recognize that they have a historical connection to the area. If they want to make Spanish an official language in those places I don't care and frankly this is the way a lot of countries (including China and Russia) do it: designate certain territories as ethnic subdivisions and let the local government deal with its minority cultures as appropriate.

But I'm sure that this great idea, which would allow for the multiculturalism that leftists claim to love so much to coexist with the dominant culture, would be shot down as ethnocentric or patronizing.


Another issue in large, sprawling countries is that of dialects in the main language, which I believe must be heavily regulated if not active discouraged for the sake of the national polity. The USA is still young, so we don't have this problem yet, but in China they have like 20 different versions of Chinese, mostly in the south, that can't be understood if you only speak Mandarin. The PRC government wisely does not allow these "dialects" (in practice they are separate languages) to gain prominence in media, education (this includes writing, which is all done with Mandarin grammar and special dialect-specific characters are not official in any way), or media. If SJWs ran the show the country would fall apart within months once someone pointed out that forcing everyone to use Beijing's version of Chinese for work and administration is "unfair."

If China is a linguistic success, there are also failures. Eastern Europe is one of these. As a person of Chinese ethnic background, "languages" like Ukrainian, Belarussian, and to a lesser extent the southern and western Slavic tongues seem to be little more than dialects that the speakers of each have an intense attachment to. There are good historical reasons for this, but it still comes across as a shame and not to mention a huge geopolitical disadvantage that 300 million ethnically and culturally similar people can't put aside these trivial differences to build a stronger and richer civilization from the size and natural wealth of Central and Eastern Europe.

Post: #8

(09-01-2016 12:54 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  In fact, this [being able to speak the main language] should be among the top five factors in deciding whether or not someone is entitled to residency in a country or region that is not his own.

It's so bizarre that US government agencies bend over backwards to accommodate other languages.

I literally do not want permanent residents in the US who can't speak basic English. That is insane.

Here in Mexico, there is no English at the Immigration Offices. No flyers in English, no signs in English, no bilingual clerks. The main form has some imperfectly translated English on it, but that's it. If you can't handle the transaction in English, you are expected to hire a lawyer to do it for you.

To become a naturalized citizen in Mexico, you have to pass an oral language exam in Spanish about Mexican society, history and culture, even about Mexican vocabulary like 'chaparro' and knowing what song gets sung during birthday parties. If you're over 70 years old, you don't have to take the exam but you still have to PROVE THAT YOU SPEAK SPANISH. There's also a requirement that you be integrated into Mexican society. (Source: Reglamento de la ley de nacionalidad.)

Also: foreigners from Latin countries, including Spain, get fast-tracked for Mexican citizenship. They only have to wait five years to apply, not ten years like the rest of us. The US could learn a lot from Mexico's immigration policy. Sorry, this isn't the Trump thread, I know.

Post: #9

I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and if I encounter another speaker, it's not just an "oh cool" but it's like we throw a party and generally people will invite you to meet the family. If you find a single attractive woman who speaks it and you do as well, you just gave yourself +100000 points.

As usual though, for the girls who are becoming more westernized it isn't as effective but we often marry our own since there are so few of us left. Phonetically, the closest language is probably Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Post: #10

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and if I encounter another speaker, it's not just an "oh cool" but it's like we throw a party and generally people will invite you to meet the family. If you find a single attractive woman who speaks it and you do as well, you just gave yourself +100000 points.

As usual though, for the girls who are becoming more westernized it isn't as effective but we often marry our own since there are so few of us left. Phonetically, the closest language is probably Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Make sure you teach your children it. I know that Amharic is a very ancient language and is very similar to the language Jesus would have spoken, is this true?

Post: #11

OP you mentioned Catalonian.
It is a interesting factor to analyze that it its various variations -what is officially considered catalonian.I understand is the barcelonian dialect/branch.
It,valentian, many south French patoises and Genoese amongs others.form what has been grouped as "occitanian linguistical nations".
When you take into accointbthe shared Mediterranean mercantile outpost origin all these linguistic groups have an interesting cultural pattern begins to emerge.

One of my pet afficionate hobbies is to trace and reconstruct philological divergents from hidden bits and pieces in languages,lingoes and forms of speech.
I've discovered it to be a vital aid when studying the sociohistorical evolution of societies

Post: #12

(09-01-2016 11:59 AM)britchard Wrote:  I get the sense that you have sympathy with lots of these independence movements, no?

Yeah sure, I like real diversity and a lot of people in Europe have been put into a box they don't really belong in. If they want to speak their own language then they should.

Post: #13

(09-02-2016 04:31 AM)El_Gostro Wrote:  OP you mentioned Catalonian.
It is a interesting factor to analyze that it its various variations -what is officially considered catalonian.I understand is the barcelonian dialect/branch.
It,valentian, many south French patoises and Genoese amongs others.form what has been grouped as "occitanian linguistical nations".
When you take into accointbthe shared Mediterranean mercantile outpost origin all these linguistic groups have an interesting cultural pattern begins to emerge.

One of my pet afficionate hobbies is to trace and reconstruct philological divergents from hidden bits and pieces in languages,lingoes and forms of speech.
I've discovered it to be a vital aid when studying the sociohistorical evolution of societies

Yes it was the dialect in the barcelona area- which is catalunya.

(09-02-2016 12:58 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  

(09-01-2016 11:59 AM)britchard Wrote:  I get the sense that you have sympathy with lots of these independence movements, no?

Yeah sure, I like real diversity and a lot of people in Europe have been put into a box they don't really belong in. If they want to speak their own language then they should.

I wholeheartedly agree. However the elites often try to subtlety imply that speaking regional languages is less 'proper' and is for stupid people...

Post: #14

(09-02-2016 04:14 AM)britchard Wrote:  

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and if I encounter another speaker, it's not just an "oh cool" but it's like we throw a party and generally people will invite you to meet the family. If you find a single attractive woman who speaks it and you do as well, you just gave yourself +100000 points.

As usual though, for the girls who are becoming more westernized it isn't as effective but we often marry our own since there are so few of us left. Phonetically, the closest language is probably Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Make sure you teach your children it. I know that Amharic is a very ancient language and is very similar to the language Jesus would have spoken, is this true?

That's not the language I am referring to.

The language you are referring to is Ethiopian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic

The one I speak is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Post: #15

Quite interesting thread in here.

This one probably no one here has ever heard off, Mirandese language, or in Portuguese it is called "Mirandês". Spoken by 10 to 15k people in the northern countryside of Portugal, in the Douro river valley, and close to the contemporary Castile and León autonomous community in Spain (former kingdom of Leon). It is recognized has the second official language in the country (along with Portuguese, the only two).

It is derived from the Latin language spoken in the central north of the Peninsula (Asturias and Leon), while Portuguese and Galician derive from the Latin spoken northwest. An inhospitable area with a stunning scenery, and blessed with amazing gastronomy, it is also one of the Port wine regions.

Below some pictures, a video of the "Pauliteiros de Miranda", the traditional dance of the warriors from this region and the wikipedia article about the language.

And by the way...50% of my roots are from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirandese_language

   

   

   

Post: #16

Basque is definitely the most interesting language in Europe, since it has no family members, an isolate, anywhere in the world. Is Basque the original ancient European langage? Finno-Ugric Uralic language is also interesting because of the strangeness of being found in Hungary, Estonia and Finland, so far apart and with the idea of an Urheimat (origin) near the Uralic mountains. People used to believe those languages were of Asiatic-Mongoloid origin, Hun people and so on. Hun - gar, Bul - gar, Ma - gyar, Khaz - ar, Tat - ar, all these are names from Central Asian Turkoid people invading Europe quite late in 'modern' history.

However, actual genetical studies cluster Hungarians almost entirely as their neighbors as with the Fins, they also cluster very close to Nordic people. If Uralic languages is a Central Asian Turk origin, why do Finns have virtually zero Central Asian genetics? Uralic languages most likely are not then the Northern cousins of the Indo-Europeans, virtually genetically the same, perhaps then some Uralic tribe went south, met with some Indo-European tribes and migrated into Central Europe where they settled in modern day Hungary. There was a lot of room to settle in pre-historic times, with a world population of only a few million.

Post: #17

(09-05-2016 03:36 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  Basque is definitely the most interesting language in Europe, since it has no family members, an isolate, anywhere in the world. Is Basque the original ancient European langage? Finno-Ugric Uralic language is also interesting because of the strangeness of being found in Hungary, Estonia and Finland, so far apart and with the idea of an Urheimat (origin) near the Uralic mountains. People used to believe those languages were of Asiatic-Mongoloid origin, Hun people and so on. Hun - gar, Bul - gar, Ma - gyar, Khaz - ar, Tat - ar, all these are names from Central Asian Turkoid people invading Europe quite late in 'modern' history.

However, actual genetical studies cluster Hungarians almost entirely as their neighbors as with the Fins, they also cluster very close to Nordic people. If Uralic languages is a Central Asian Turk origin, why do Finns have virtually zero Central Asian genetics? Uralic languages most likely are not then the Northern cousins of the Indo-Europeans, virtually genetically the same, perhaps then some Uralic tribe went south, met with some Indo-European tribes and migrated into Central Europe where they settled in modern day Hungary. There was a lot of room to settle in pre-historic times, with a world population of only a few million.

Yes, it is a very bizarre language for those of us who speak romance/germanic languages, as it isn't even part of the larger group of Indo-European languages. That is to say, a language such as Turkish or Russian is closer to English or Spanish than Basque.

Post: #18

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and if I encounter another speaker, it's not just an "oh cool" but it's like we throw a party and generally people will invite you to meet the family. If you find a single attractive woman who speaks it and you do as well, you just gave yourself +100000 points.

As usual though, for the girls who are becoming more westernized it isn't as effective but we often marry our own since there are so few of us left. Phonetically, the closest language is probably Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Fascinating. Can you read Syriac as well?

In my non-RVF life, I work in a field that requires me to be familiar (and competent) in several Near Eastern languages, as well as classical ones.

Post: #19

(09-05-2016 03:36 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  .... Is Basque the original ancient European langage? .....

I have read that, of existing European languages, Lithuanian is most authentic to the original proto-European language.

Post: #20

(09-05-2016 03:36 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  Basque is definitely the most interesting language in Europe, since it has no family members, an isolate, anywhere in the world. Is Basque the original ancient European langage? Finno-Ugric Uralic language is also interesting because of the strangeness of being found in Hungary, Estonia and Finland, so far apart and with the idea of an Urheimat (origin) near the Uralic mountains.

Old as hell or not, Basque is most likely an isolate since there are no linguistic "neighbours," unlike the Finn/Estonian/Hungarian connections, which most likely came from the east.

Post: #21

(09-05-2016 07:25 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and if I encounter another speaker, it's not just an "oh cool" but it's like we throw a party and generally people will invite you to meet the family. If you find a single attractive woman who speaks it and you do as well, you just gave yourself +100000 points.

As usual though, for the girls who are becoming more westernized it isn't as effective but we often marry our own since there are so few of us left. Phonetically, the closest language is probably Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Fascinating. Can you read Syriac as well?

In my non-RVF life, I work in a field that requires me to be familiar (and competent) in several Near Eastern languages, as well as classical ones.

I can, I was taught the alphabet when I was younger. There are different scripts as well (Serto (western), Estrangela (classic) and Madinkhaya (eastern)).

I was taught the Madinkhaya (eastern) but can read the other scripts as well. Regardless- I do read at an elementary level since the last time I formally studied I was a child.

Post: #22

(09-05-2016 03:36 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  Uralic languages most likely are not then the Northern cousins of the Indo-Europeans, virtually genetically the same, perhaps then some Uralic tribe went south, met with some Indo-European tribes and migrated into Central Europe where they settled in modern day Hungary. There was a lot of room to settle in pre-historic times, with a world population of only a few million.

That's exactly what happened. Magyars culturally overlapped with the Iranian and Turkic inhabitants of the Ponto-Caspian steppe, adopted their nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, and migrated Westward into the Pannonian plain, which had been primarily inhabited by leftover Latins from the days of the Roman empire (Vlachs), and Slavs.

Post: #23

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

We have a lot of you guys out here in Chicago. I don't get along well with most of them, but the ones I do get along with end up being very good friends.

Post: #24

Interesting post. Catalan is indeed thriving. Almost all signs in Barcelona are also in Catalan. I had a pretty interesting experience on the Metro one day actually. The metro was stopped due to some kind of mechanical issue. There was a sign in the station that said this, but it was in Catalan. So about 30-40 people (not sure how many from Spain, touristy area) were sitting there waiting for the Metro for a good 20 mins 1/2 hour. Finally, I translated the sign from Catalan to English and realized I was sitting there like a jackass.

I actually have a whole bunch of family who speak Breton. There are tons of regional languages in Europe still spoken to this day by a small minority of people.

Post: #25

(09-08-2016 10:52 PM)godzilla Wrote:  Interesting post. Catalan is indeed thriving.

Is it true than many Catalans prefer speaking English with foreigners rather than Spanish, for reasons of regional pride?