Promoting Spain’s Linguistic Diversity – Language Magazine

Last month, directors from the Cervantes Institute (Spanish), the Ramón Llull Institute (Catalan), the Etxepare Euskal Institutua (Basque), and the Galician Culture Council (Gallego) met in Santiago de Compostela to assess progress since the first Collaboration Agreement between the four entities, signed two years ago. During the meeting, they discussed several common projects to promote the Linguistic diversity of Spain and its multicultural richness, including the production of a biannual report on the situation of the languages ​​of Spain, developing literary translation programs, and holding a traveling exhibition.

Preparation of the biannual report, which will cover the position of Spanish and Spain’s co-official languages, will begin in the coming months with the creation of a working group. This report will make it easier to compare statistics across all of the languages, to be more proactive.

During the meeting at the Headquarters of the Galician Culture Council, other initiatives were agreed, including the presentation of a traveling Intercultural and Multidisciplinary exhibition presenting contemporary creative works in Gallego, Basque, Catalan, and Spanish and the Specification of a process to facilitate contemporary literary translation between the different languages.

The meeting was also a good opportunity to weigh up the success of the initiatives carried out during these first two years of the four-year Collaboration Agreement signed in 2020. During this period, activities have been carried out as such as the Celebration of the European Day of Languages ​​(in Berlin in 2020 and in Naples in 2021), participation in international meetings, and numerous initiatives through the Headquarters of the Cervantes Institute around the world.

The goal of the agreement is the joint promotion of Linguistic diversity and cultural plurality among the four entities.