Time for Spain to say ‘adios’ to Catalunya

In Catalan, Catalonia is Catalunya. Catalan sounds a lot like Spanish to the casual passerby, with its musicality and rolling rrrrrrrrs, but when you listen, you can hear the differences, writes Suzanne Harrington. 

It’s not necessarily more beautiful — the Spanish word for welcome, bienvenido, becomes ‘benvinguts’ in Catalan — but it is distinctly different. Thinking of Catalunya as Spanish is like calling Scotland English — it’s just not. Beyond language, everything else is different too — the food, the culture, the politics, the religion. And in the case of football — FC Barcelona better.

On September 11 every year, Catalunya celebrates its own national holiday. This holiday commemorates the September day in 1714, when Catalunya lost a war with Spain and became ruled by Madrid — during football matches at Camp Nou, at 17 minutes and 14 seconds, fans stand and chant, not for the team, but for independence. On September 11 in Barcelona, multinationals like McDonalds have long been spray-painted not by animal rights activists, but by Catalan nationalists — Hamburguesa No, Butifarra Si. They don’t want American hamburgers, they want Catalan sausages.