An American telling someone to speak English properly???That's like a politician telling someone to be honest.

I would imagine that is was the National Police who only deal with civil disobediance and security matters.

What surprises me about this incident is that the police had more than 40 minutes to waste on this obviously very rude tourist. Surely there was more urgent business to attend to, such as pickpockets, robbing gypsy women, trileros, parking violations etc.

And don´t lets mention what the Ibicencos (or should that be eivissencos ), Menorquines, or for that matter, the Valencianos, think about the whole thing !

Haha, no doubt. It has been under 'dispute' all the 50+ years that I have lived in this country. I have a degree in Catalan philology which also included studying the various 'dialects', however each to his/her own as we would say. I do agree though that people should at least make some attempt at one of the language(s) if only a few basic words in the case of a tourist and should certainly not be shaking someone (!!) for not speaking a English properly, whatever 'properly' might mean in this case!P.S. There's no need to use capital letters to make your case. That equates shouting in the spoken language!

Then I would respectfully suggest that your friends are either from Cataluña, or left wing politicians or teachers (who teach in the Catalan "version"and not the Mallorquin "version"), all of whom who are very enthusiactic about creating a Catalan State. The "real" mallorquins want nothing to do with the political side of it and object to Mallorqui being referred to as Catalan. True Mallorquin is based on Catalan and anyone who speaks either of them can understand perfectly what the other one is saying. The accent is different as well as a few ( quite a few actually ) words. I suppose it could be compared to the difference inbetween British and American english (that´s going to be worth a few negative points).

I have many friends who would dispute that! The point is English is NOT an official language of Spain and while it is nice when you are trying to solve a problem if the other person offers to help out by speaking some English it is NOT a requirement. We are in their country and everyone needs to respect the language and the culture.

Mallorquí is a dialect of Català, not a separate language (although some Mallorcans may well dispute that point!).

Castellano, Catalan and Mallorquin

Geoff, which 3 languages are you referring to ?