So, I was looking around the site langology and I happened to come across an article, "Language Policy in Spain." I have never heard of language policies before. I did some research through the web and found out about General Franco's policies on making sure the Spanish language does not dominate Spain. Franco used these policies to prevent regional languages, such as Catalan and Galician (which are languages I have never heard of until reading Lourenco's article), from going extinct. I thought to myself, "Weird." I mean, the regional government actually fined people for not communicating in the same language of that region. So I am thinking that this ordeal was great and slimmed the dominance of the Spanish language because I always root for the underdog! BUT the policies set by Franco caused not only conflicts within regions but on borders. For an example, no one knew which language to communicate with between the border of Aragon and Catalonia. Luckily, this policy has been regulated after reading a recent article by Fiona Govan, "Catalans protest 'return to Franco' as schools are told to teach more Spanish,"that talked about Catalan government balancing the use of Spanish language and regional languages.
To think that language can be restricted for the well being of other languages is interesting and is something, again, I have never heard of before. I think policies on language could never work in the world because of globalization. Learning about failed language restrictions such as this one only teaches us that language is wild and cannot be contained.
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