Barcelona and Catalonia facts

I have been doing lots of reading on Barcelona and Catalonia in preparation for my trip. I have learned that I and perhaps others have some misconceptions…..



1. The “Th” thing is Catalon and is a lisp.


No. The “Th” thing is not Catalon, it’s Castilian. And it is not a lisp. No one in Catatonia says Barthelona. People in Madrid say Barthelona. Do not say Barthelona in Barcelona. Even though it is funny to say I am going to Barthelona in Theptember it is so not cool and it is wrong. Apparently this whole thing is an urban legend that someone in a royal family (king, queen, princess, gay prince…depends on who is telling the story) had a lisp so everyone started talking that way so as to not embarrass the royal and get their head cut off. The real reason is mind-numbingly boring, but here is what I plagiarized from the internet:


• “Firstly, the ceceo is not a lisp. A lisp is the mispronunciation of the sibilant "s" sound. In Castilian Spanish, the silibant "s" sound exists and is represented by the letter s. The seseo comes in to represent the sounds made by the letters Z and C followed by i or e. In medieval Castilian there were two sounds that eventually evolved into the ceceo — the ç (the cedilla) as in plaça and the z as in dezir. Choke…snore….The cedilla made a /ts/ sound and the a a /dz/ sound. This gives more insight into why those similar sounds may have evolved into the ceceo. Obviously, the spelling of Spanish has changed in the last few hundred years. Choke…snore….Although the ç is used in some other Romance languages — including Catalan, Portuguese and French — it is not seen in modern Spanish….snore….choke…snore.”






2. Catalan is a dialect of Spanish.


No. This is not true either. Catalan is not a dialect of Spanish nor is it a mixture of Spanish and French. Catalan comes directly from “Vulgar” Latin and is as old as the rest of the romance languages. Vulgar Latin is the uneducated sloppy language of prostitutes and soldiers just like southern American English. It is very closely related to Provençal, spoken just over the border in the south of France where they have really great pink wine and the best olive oil. And cicadas. The internet that I am now plagiarizing again also tells me that Portuguese is more similar to Spanish than Catalan and that Catalan has common elements with French. Look at this sentence "I want to eat eight apples" (which I would totally never, ever say by the way. I am from Yakima, I hate apples):






• Spanish: Quiero comer ocho manzanas


• Portuguese: Eu quero comer oito maçãs


• Catalan: Vull menjar vuit pomes


• French: Je veux manger huit pommes


• Itlalian: Voglio mangiare otto mele


• Latin: Volo edere mala octo


• Pig Latin: Iway antway otay eatway eightway applesway










3. It will be hot and dry.


I don’t know why but I have this idea in my head that it will be hot and dry there. Here are averages I stole off the internet also:

September:
High 78(f) / Low 62(f) / Rain 3.35 (inches)



October:
High 70(f) / Low 54(f) / Rain 3.38 (inches)





It will rain.  I can live with this. 






4. Marseille is just up the road to the right, Valencia is just south over the other hill, and Blibao is on the other side of that hill to the left.


No. Nothing is really all that close. It’s not like how you can see London from the top of the Eiffel Tower.


• Marseille is 211 miles away


• Valencia is 205 miles away


• Bilbao is 380 miles away


• Madrid is 313 miles away


• Seattle is 5431 miles away






OK, this is all I have learned so far.





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