On June 13th, a new episode of the podcast “Atado y Bien Atado” was recorded at La Corrala de la UAM, titled “That’s No Way to Talk: Francoism and Linguistic Repression.” Hosted by journalist Olga Rodríguez, the episode featured two guests: Jon Maia, a Basque philologist and bertsolari, and Luisa M. Rojo, Professor of Linguistics at UAM and director of the MIRCo-UAM center.
This podcast addressed important issues, such as the linguistic repression and the resistance movements organized to preserve the use of local languages during the Franco regime. Through brief audio clips from various individuals, different examples of these events were illustrated and highlighted, which we reproduce below.
Linguistic repression during the Franco regime was a state policy, a reality that permeated all of society and every region of the country. To understand the roots of this state policy, Laura Villa (a professor at the UAM and a member of MIRCo) analyzes the scope of language standardization policies, which even extended to people’s names. Castilian Spanish, she argues, constituted the essential pillar of Francoism, serving as the driving force behind its imperial project—which sought “universal unity” with Spanish-speaking America—and was later used to attempt to forge an “international bloc” based on the superiority of Spain and its Castilian variety over other Spanish-speaking nations.
Luz Pichel (professor of Language and Literature) reflects on the supposed “dignification” of the Galician language. Contrary to the prejudices that claim the Galician language was crude, unrefined, yet diverse and marked by class distinctions, she argues that it is precisely this popular character that highlights the linguistic resistance of the Galician people: the language itself thus becomes an act of resistance.
In this regard, Luisa M. Rojo emphasized the role of language in Franco’s economic policy. With the economic liberalization of the 1950s and the need for labor to work in the booming urban industry—especially in Catalonia and the Basque Country—language served as a normalizing force: the countryside ceased to be the moral reservoir of the nation and became a space associated with “hicks” or backwardness. This gave rise to the classification of “first-class” and “second-class” languages: Castilian, and all the others.
Along these lines, Pastora Filigrana (a labor lawyer) also sheds light on Caló, the language of the Romani people, a vocabulary that has endured to this day as a remnant of the Romani language, which was persecuted for centuries. Although there was no specific persecution, its vocabulary was indeed a target of repression because it was associated with the Romani people and reflected membership in that community. This policy remained in effect until 1981; however, even today—despite the fact that many of its words are widely used and recognized by the RAE—Caló continues to be an important social marker.
Jon Maia illustrates very well how the Basque language has overcome some of the difficulties imposed by the Franco regime. The podcast guest explains how his father, who was from Zamora, learned Basque at a clandestine school, which later served as a model for the ikastolas.
Jaume Claret (historian and professor at the Open University of Catalonia) recalls the stories of his mother, who was Galician, and his father, who was Catalan. Although geographically distinct, both contexts share the imposition of Spanish over their native languages. However, he recalls the figure of Esteve Camprobí, a teacher who continued to use Catalan in his classes, as an example of closed spaces where local languages were used with relative normality.
In fact, Luisa M. Rojo argues that certain elements serve as a form of resistance against linguistic repression. First, the language must be preserved within the home, but it must also extend beyond it. In the Francoist context, where surveillance extended even to the family environment, the mere act of preserving the language was already an act of resistance. This gave rise to “islands” where the language was not replaced.
To illustrate this point, Jacqueline Urla (an anthropologist and member of MIRCo) recalls her research conducted in the 1980s in Usurbil (Guipúzcoa), where the population spoke Basque as their mother tongue. She argues that the linguistic repression under Franco’s regime was a key factor in shaping the town’s linguistic landscape, imposing the idea that Basque was a language that should not be spoken because it was “a language without culture.” Even so, this culture of repression was circumvented by numerous attempts to preserve the language, as reflected in the Euskadi Irratia program Landaberri, which allowed the population to express themselves in Basque in the public sphere, serving as a platform that gave voice to the diversity of the Basque-speaking community.
Second, Luisa also highlights the informal nature of linguistic resistance movements, which are built from the ground up. She identifies two stages for understanding this process: the 1940s, during the early years of Franco’s regime, when these movements were less visible, and the 1960s onward, when they began to flourish. The most important forms of resistance are those that kept the languages alive and produced cultural materials and products, which are now facilitating the resurgence of some of these languages. Examples of these dynamics include clandestine language classes, which were widespread in the Basque Country and served as the precursors to the ikastolas; the founding of publishing houses that produced language works and textbooks, such as the Galaxia publishing house in Galicia; the Church, music, theater, the diaspora… This entire constellation of small acts of resistance ensured that people remained connected to these languages. However, this process was not the same for all languages: some, such as Extremaduran and Aragonese, did not follow this path.
Some obstacles that existed back then remain today. Co-official languages are still viewed as foreign by the general population, and the education system fails to address prevailing linguistic prejudices, among other issues.
Finally, we heard from Guillermo Laseca, a singer-songwriter who performs in Aragonese, who pointed out that Aragonese was particularly hard-hit by that policy of linguistic uniformity. With the breakdown of the family-based transmission of the language, it lost a large base of native speakers, a loss compounded by the elimination of the language from the education system. It wasn’t until the First Festival of Popular Music, held in Zaragoza in 1973, that the language was heard in Aragon outside of absolute secrecy. Since then, organizations promoting the use of the language have grown and expanded, but the fear of extinction continues to plague this community.
If you’d like to learn more, we recommend listening to the episode “Así no se habla” from the podcast Atado y Bien Atado. It’s available on the eldiario.es website and on major streaming platforms.
