Discurs President al Fòrum Minories nacionals, ètniques i lingüístiques 1/12/2022 1. Catalonia is a modern, advanced and prosperous nation a. A pro-European nation open to the world that has the will to project itself into the future - fully, with freedom - and to contribute to address global challenges, as the rest of nations do. b. We are a nation of choice, of free affiliation, where our culture and our language, the Catalan language, play a central role in ensuring and promoting social cohesion. 2. More than eight centuries ago, we Catalans turned our language into a communication tool suitable for all purposes and we began to use it in all spheres of life. a. Today, the Catalan language have ten million speakers distributed in four different states. b. We are ten million speakers. This is why we do not define Catalan as a minority language but as a minoritized language. Except for Andorra - a microstate where Catalan enjoys full officialdom - neither Italy nor France nor Spain, has offered the Catalan language the recognition and protection that any language in the world deserves. c. Catalan is a minoritized language and as such, the tendency towards standardization in the contemporary world accentuates our vulnerability. Due to this, we are concerned about a significant decline in the social use of our language after the last few decades of progress. 3. In this regard, I would like to talk about our own experience and about how we are taking advantage of the recovery of our institutions - with limited sovereignty - to stop the replacement of the Catalan language by Castilian [the Spanish language]. a. A situation that has been occurring since the beginning of the 18th century, which also affects the Valencian Autonomous Community and the Balearic Islands, and which is part of a conscious process of political and economic recentralization and national and cultural assimilation that has put the Catalan language into a role of subordination to the Spanish language. 4. Since the recovery of democracy and institutions just over 40 years ago, Catalonia has developed its own language policies, of course within the Spanish constitutional framework. These policies have contributed to the progress toward the use of the language.