YOUR LETTERS

I ENTIRELY agree with Mr Swedberg´s opinion that foreigners living in Spain should try and make an effort to speak and understand the language. Anybody living outside Cataluña and the Balearics (not forgetting Galicia and the Basque country) doesn't have a problem, as the only language spoken is Castellano.

Most of your readers live in the Balearics thus discovering that nowadays many, if not all, official documents are only written in Mallorquin, therefore complicating matters even more. I am lucky enough to speak and read Mallorquin so for me in this particular instance it is not a problem, but it must be very frustrating for those who have tried to learn some Spanish and then find that it isn't much use when dealing with officialdom.

I would also like to make clear that , when I said, in my last letter, that the local village population made an effort to answer me, it was after I had spoken to them in Spanish, not English. I was trying to convey that, when Franco was in power, most elderly people only spoke Mallorquin, Castellano being somewhat foreign to them.

Continuing with Mr Irving´s comments in regards to the dyslexic child who was refused permission to do his exams in Castellano, he was told by his teacher that his father was a “bad islander” for speaking to him at home in this language. He even had 1/2 a point deducted from a test result for writing the date in Castellano instead of Catalan. One wonders if today's teachers are more interested in brainwashing the kids than making sure that they understand the concept of what they are learning and leaving school with a good education. According to a recent poll, 96% of parents are more inclined to think that their children are being brainwashed !. One wonders how long this madness will continue. If I had children at school age, I would be a very worried parent indeed.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Tow, Santa Ponsa

Dear sir,

CONTINUING on the currently very popular topic of language and the local government your readers might like to know that:
The local government has just spent 75'000 euros on producing a children's comic which depicts Israeli troops abusing Arabs.
The local government has just spent 1.8 million euros planting olive trees along 10 Kms of the Arenal to Llucmajor motorway.
The local government has just spent 12 million euros for the rights to transmit Formula 1 racing on the local IB3 television channel.
It matters not whether you use the Castellano, “despilfarrar” or the Catalan, “malversar”, squander is squander in any language! Yours truly,

John Rule, Sol de Mallorca