This article is a collaboration with Nuria Bayo, founder and president of EDELA (Escuela de Escritura en Lengua Andaluza)
Do you know Buzz Lightyear? In Toy Story, this character gets spoiled and suddenly begins speaking andaluz until he gets fixed and, from that moment on, speaks in a Spanish from the Center-Northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. In TV shows as famous as La que se avecina there are also Andalusian characters, like Chusa or Fermín Trujillo, or those who have grown a bit may remember Juani from Médico de familia.
All these examples reflect the andalufobia (a negative sentiment towards Andalusian people) that us Andalusians suffer constantly, since we are shown as part of the lowest social consideration. We are only shown publicly as silly, goofy, illiterate, criminals, prostitutes or drug addicts, but never playing important or highly-responsible characters. Aren’t there professionals in Andalucía? Aren’t there policemen, judges…? Of course there are, and really good ones. There are, obviously, people of all types, of different social and cultural levels, as in the rest of communities, but this diversity is not shown to the world when Andalucía comes to mind.
The image the media generate gets to the public and reflects and encourages stereotypes that codify us and that are nothing but negative, wrong ideas spread about Andalusians, usually seen as lazy, party animals and of whom it is believed that always go on vacation and enjoys siesta as the main activity of our daily life, all of this meaning that we don’t work or study or have aspirations—that is the rest of Spain’s job, to provide for us. The implicit issue is that there are people who believe this, hence they don’t question that unreality, which is obviously wrong and provable. With Buzz Lightyear they made it clear: we are spoiled, what needs to be fixed, the people who, besides lazy, cannot speak properly.
Glottophobia is the despise oriented towards people because of how they speak, affecting their constitutional rights, hierarchizing human groups, hence, the fact that us Andalusians are being questioned and despised constantly because of how we speak is a very, very important matter that needs to be condemned and stopped as soon as possible.
Andaluz is our language, our way of expressing, just as we communicate among us, our identity sign and we do not have less linguistic abilities because we speak andaluz.
Andaluz is defined by a rich number of expressions and has its own linguistic characteristics (candao, casa (casa/caza/caja), madrugá) and an enriching lexicon (no ni ná, chambao, relente, botijo, arcancija, jechura). Quoting my dearest Juan Carlos Aragón, besides being portrayed to the world as the “latest step of their narrow hierarchy”, we are also banned from the media to perform tasks such as being a TV host arguing that people do not understand us; however, when it’s Los Morancos or Dani Rovira, no one complains about them being incomprehensible, placing andaluz exclusively to humor and music, such as flamenco.
This way of despising us has a colonial origin in the worldwide domination on people of the world. In our case, it is the Castilian conquest of Al-Andalus and blood fixing. The imperial policy is based upon a sole state and a sole language in Spain and is characterized by the hierarchization of varieties and thus people that speak those languages. In this hierarchy, Andalucía is inferiorized and excluded against Spanish and Castilla.
CATETO TÚ QUE NO’NTIENDÊ L’ANDALÛH
Nowadays, there has been an active movement of initiatives, activists and people that defend andaluz, promoting its cultural and linguistic values aiming at dignifying it and to challenge prejudice, while also promoting its use among all spheres of life. Among them, it is highlighted the Andalugeeks group, the first andaluz school in the world to which I belong, called EDELA (Escuela de Escritura en Lengua Andaluza) (www.escueladeandaluz.es/wordpress.com @edela_andaluh), writers such as Manuel Rodríguez Illana, music groups like Califato ¾, artists like Pintarraheo and the Instagrammer Zestáperdiendo. Everybody’s contribution is essential for the visibility and defense of andaluz, raising awareness, naturalness and pride.
EL ANDALÛH TAMMIÉN ÇE ÊCCRIBE, ÇEÑO
Increasingly there are more people that intuitively are writing andaluz, like in shop labelling (see the Andalusian linguistic landscape made by Andalugeeks in www.andaluh.es/paisaje-linguistico-andaluz as an example).
This is a choice. It does not mean that by writing andaluz you stop doing it in Spanish. In this regard, the EPA andaluzrules (Êttandâh Pal Andalûh) is used more naturally and frequently. This is a cohesive and a unifying proposal, since it includes pieces of all Andalusian varieties and contains a set of rules defined in the first world Andalusian teaching manual, called Aprende a escribir en andaluz, of which I am a co-author and that enables to learn the rules that then are part of the EPA proposal in an encouraging way, thanks to some characters that we the authors invented, like the lynx Gazpacho. This book is available in Amazon.
This proposal has firmly spread and we are increasingly aware that andaluz is our language and should not exist in the otherness. On the contrary, we cannot allow us to be undervalued or discriminated, and we cannot let the stereotypical idea that the andaluz language is inferior and not valid spread. We cannot let ourselves be constantly stigmatized, insulted or reviled. We cannot forget that our linguistic variety is protected under the Estatuto de Autonomía and is part of an identity treat that we should feel proud for. We cannot forget that behind languages there are speakers who use them and who suffer such oppression, something unconstitutional. We need to challenge the naturalization efforts of what is historically built. And don’t forget that this struggle relies upon us. So, don’t be silly and speak andaluz!
