Catalan, the official native language of Catalonia and our University, is now a language with considerable projection and presence in academic institutions and universities in Europe and other parts of the world. UPF strives to build bridges with those institutions and to foster the presence of the Catalan language and culture in academic circles beyond our own borders.
Great strides have been made in recent years to recover and standardise the Catalan language, including at the university level. Based on the results obtained, Pompeu Fabra University hopes to continue deepening and reinforcing this policy on the understanding that, under the the current circumstances of mobility and internationalisation which characterise academic life, the ideal solution - and possible the only viable one - is to implement a decisive policy to promote asymmetrical multilingualism, with Catalan as the central or host language, in order to foster an interest in learning and understanding the Catalan language and culture among new students and teaching staff, while at the same time fostering cultural exchanges and the interest in other languages and cultures at the core of our university community.
The model used until now in the process of recovering Catalan language and culture has rendered good results and for many it has been and is a model to be followed and an example of good practices and seriousness which allows users to remain in touch with the languages from the perspective of everyday use and particularly within an educational context. The linguistic buddy programmes offered by the different universities and other social entities and the many Catalan language courses offered free of charge to students and new members of the university community are just one example of our firm commitment to internationalisation but also of our desire to preserve our identity.
In its external diffusion, UPF uses the following institutions and organisations as a reference:
The Institute d'Estudis Catalans, founded in 1907 at the initiative of Enric Prat de la Riba, is an academic, scientific and cultural organisation whose mission is to conduct scientific research, primarily concerning all the elements of Catalan culture. The IEC's activities also include language studies, establishing guidelines and ensuring the consistency of the linguistic standardisation throughout the entire linguistic domain. The Institute has its headquarters in Barcelona and has established regional offices within its geographical area, which encompass all areas where the Catalan language and culture are present.
The Xarxa Vives d'Universitats is a network of universities in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, North Catalonia and Andorra which coordinates educational programmes, research activities and cultural activities relating to the Catalan language.
The Institut Ramon Llull is a consortium created by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Govern Balear whose mission is to project the Catalan language and culture in all of its forms and modes of expression.
The Institut Ramon Llull promotes the teaching of Catalan language, literature and culture at the university level and in other higher education centres outside of the linguistic domain and it does this primarily by fostering and supporting the network of assistantships and and the creation of professorships and other ongoing studies of the Catalan language and culture. The Map of Catalan assistantships shows all the Catalan assistantships existing around the world, broken down by continent and country.
Catalan communities abroad are private entities recognised by the Generalitat founded by Catalan nationals and/or Catalan scholars with the aim of promoting Catalonia and supporting the expatriate Catalan community. The link to Catalan cultural centres around the world allows the user to access, by continent and country, a complete list of Catalan cultural centres and entities around the world.
Linguamón – House of Languages is an organisation created by the Generalitat of Catalunya whose mission is to promote the languages of the world and to achieve recognition of the value of each language in order to facilitate co-existence and to ensure that all languages become part of the information society and new technologies.
The Catalan Language Observatory publishes the Catalan Language Bulletin, an online bulletin especially aimed at foreign journalists, media, politicians and observers, with the aim of informing them about the linguistic reality in this country and, above all, of providing them with objective and contrasted information sources. The Catalan Language Bulletin can be accessed through the Observatory website, from where you can ask it to be sent to your personal e-mail address.
Aiming to break down the barriers created by national media, cafebabel.com is the first online magazine of its type. Published in seven languages –English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and Polish–, the site presents its readers with an insight into European current affairs from a trans-national perspective, and is updated on a daily basis.
As a forum for reflection and analysis, cafebabel.com encourages its readers to think as Europeans, bringing European politics back to the people. As a participatory media, cafebabel.com relies on its extensive network of voluntary writers and translators to contribute to the pan-European debate. Every contributor has the right to submit an article in his/her original language and be read in each of the seven languages of cafebabel.com. As an open media, cafebabel.com encourages and respects diversity of opinion, insofar as articles are written from a European perspective.
This electronic publication, which is published in ten languages, aims at promoting a “linguistically responsible” behaviour in the net, from the two-fold perspective of fostering a qualitative use of languages and encouraging at the same time multilingualism in the Internet. Linguo-responsable also includes “La Lettre”, a monthly electronic newsletter.