David Mingo: "Whoever opposes the officiality of the language in Asturias is seen as a bad Asturian"

• Languages ​​Iniciativa pol Asturianu: "There is a linguistic conflict in Asturias because there are cases of discrimination"

• Language The turn of the PSOE unleashes the war so that the bable is co-official language in Asturias

History professor

has just published

(Amarante), a book of interviews with legal and political personalities from Asturias -among others, historical socialists such as the former regional president

or the former councilor

- who warn of the problems that Asturian would cause to become a co-official language, as the PSOE claims.

This will be one of the central debates in the region ahead of the elections.

autonomic actions of 28-M.

Is there a parallel between what has happened in Catalonia with the language and what is happening in Asturias?

I have written this book out of fear that what happens here will happen in other autonomies where language policy has been made.

Situations very similar to those in other regions are taking place where the movement of the officialdom is linked to the creation of a national identity and the language becomes an element of social construction that involves everything.

In Asturias, anyone who is contrary to officialdom is seen as a bad Asturian.

At a qualitative level there are similarities, but it is a minority phenomenon, for now.

There is no

conflict

language in Asturias but there is an intention for it to exist.

How many people claim that Asturian is a co-official language?

The Euskobarómetro speaks of 53% of Asturians.

But there are doubts about that figure and more serious studies would be needed.

When former president Juan Luis Rodríguez-Vigil proposed a referendum, those who supported the officialdom rejected it because they knew they were not in the majority.

In the demonstrations in favor of the officialdom there is always the same number of assistants, between 3,000 and 4,000.

Of them, many live from this and others aspire to do so.

There is no majority social demand.

The

hardly anyone speaks it.

What presence do you have at school?

There is an optional Asturian subject chosen by 48% of Primary students, 14% of ESO and 3% of Baccalaureate.

That is, as they grow they see that it is not useful for their future.

Where does the need to protect the Asturian come from?

From a collection of grievances.

During the Franco regime, people who spoke Bable were stigmatized and there were teachers who forced children to use Spanish.

One of the interviewees in the book, whose mother tongue is Bable, suffered this repression, but now he finds that the children of the young men who then marked people for not speaking Spanish are the ones who now point them out for not wanting to speak the

.

Félix Fernández de Castro, professor of Spanish Language at the University of Oviedo, says that there are teachers who present Spanish as an invasive language.

This is so.

there is a movement

, but it is a minority.

He maintains that the Kingdom of the Astures was colonized and Castilian was imposed.

The victimhood of nationalisms.

If you show yourself against the officialdom, you receive all kinds of insults: they call us

, provincials, self-conscious... Fernández de Castro has been insulted and threatened on many occasions and has been painted on his faculty.

They also call Rodríguez-Vigil, a socialist, a fascist and an ultra-rightist and they tell him that he has joined Vox.

Are there economic interests around the co-official status?

There are economic interests behind the officialdom.

They come from a minority elite, especially from the educational world and the audiovisual sector.

if the

becomes official, subsidies and aid for its promotion will increase.

Dubbing will multiply, certifications accrediting the training of teachers and public radio and television will have to broadcast part of its programming in Asturian.

Customer networks will be created and the cake will be shared among a very small number of people.

He

presno report

On the consequences that the co-official status commissioned by President Adrián Barbón would have, he spoke of an economic cost of up to 172 million euros.

What other effects would it have?

This report was entrusted to a professor at the University of Oviedo who is not suspected of being on the right.

He was expected to be favorable to officialdom

that Barbón defended, that he maintained that nothing was going to be imposed, but he dismantled this supposed kindness and that is why they hid it.

He revealed that officiality would imply that Asturian would become the vehicular language, and therefore compulsory, of teaching, it would oblige doctors and civil servants to use it and it would be a requirement for competitive examinations.

All this will sow division, discord and confrontation in a land where there have never been problems of coexistence.

Asturias will not be different from other autonomies where a process of

linguistics: in the Balearic Islands there are not enough doctors;

In the Basque Country, to practice, it is more important to have the Basque language than a doctorate;

in Catalonia a family was harassed for asking for another Spanish subject... These processes always go hand in hand with an imposition.

And they break the equality established by the Constitution.

During last Christmas, the Gijón City Council offered some workshops that were entirely in

, when most children do not have it as their mother tongue.

Barbón said the other day that the Asturians are not pro-independence but have "a very strong feeling of identity" and that "the language is part of that feeling of identity."

How is the issue going to be addressed in the regional election campaign?

The demand is not buried and is going to be one of the fundamental axes of the campaign.

It is a priority for Podemos and IU, while the PSOE, which had always denied the officialdom, has been involved since Sanchismo landed in Asturias under the flag of the officialdom to cover up the serious economic situation in which the region finds itself. : the highest youth unemployment in the EU, lack of opportunities for young people, depopulation, delayed infrastructure... In the Forum there is a sector that wants to become the Asturian PNV.

And for the PP it is a hot potato, but the vast majority of its bases are against it.

How does the speech that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has maintained in Galicia fit with the one that the national PP has traditionally had?

It is very difficult to fit and is incoherent.

There is no single message.

The PP has yielded in autonomous communities such as Galicia or the Valencian Community, where it has not been forceful when it comes to defending equality among all citizens.

Why is the Law for the Use and Promotion of the Bable not enough for the defenders of co-officiality?

The law allows citizens to write in Asturian, but does not oblige the administration official to answer in this language.

They say that their rights are not respected, but neither can it be that a minority prevails.

The percentage of letters received by the administration in Asturian does not reach 0.1%.

How much money does the Asturian government allocate to the

?

The promotion of the Asturian language receives 2.5 million euros, three times more than what is dedicated to the conservation of the Pre-Romanesque.

Is co-official status the only mechanism to protect the Asturian?

There are others, such as its promotion at school and in the media and other actions so that the bables are not lost.

If we want to protect them, we must promote and care for them, but not impose.

It is necessary to legislate for the benefit of people's understanding and communication.

Languages ​​do not have rights, rights are held by their speakers.

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