Spanish Language Interpretation
A $16,000 Mistake?

For those of you who haven't come across the article, it is about the upper chamber of Spain's parliament, and its recent decision to allow senators to debate with their colleagues in one of the country's official languages, while interpreters sit by at the ready to transfer those languages into Castillian Spanish, a language that all the senators can speak perfectly well.

As you can quite imagine, there are arguments to both sides of this controversy.

On the one hand, those in favor of the new ruling feel that by allowing all official languages to be spoken (including Catalan, Galician, Valencian, and Euskara) helps realize the goal of having the parliament truly represent the various regions of Spain, and that the senators just need to get used to the idea of hearing different languages be spoken in the chamber.

However, those on the other side of the Spanish language interpretation fence argue that allowing the four additional languages is nonsense. First of all, this increases costs at a time when governments worldwide are trying to cut back and save. For each day that the senators are debating, about 25 interpreters are needed to perform Spanish language interpretation, which adds up to roughly 16,000 USD per day. Critics argue that this is a blatant waste of money, as senators who moments before the debate are speaking Castillian Spanish to one another perfectly well are now using a language that not everyone in the chamber understands, necessitating the interpreters.

All this makes me wonder. How important is language in determining an identity? I understand (and agree) that the language an individual speaks plays a large role in shaping the identity of that person, but does this extend out to those who use the language supposedly on our behalf? Does it matter if a senator miles away from where I live uses a language I speak? What if he or she only uses the language during a debate in the parliament, but then goes back to speaking the common language (Spanish) throughout the rest of his or her day?

And what if there is a price to pay for this Spanish language interpretation to happen? What is it worth? Is it worth $16,000 a day? Wouldn't it be better to use this money for some other project that helps preserve the cultural identity of the various groups in Spain?

Now Spain might be a special case, as around 11% of of the Spanish population have a native tongue that is one of the languages I mentioned earlier. That equates to about 5 million people who speak Catalan, Valencian, Galician and Euskara as their mother tongue. This has obviously led to clashes in the country, especially in regional areas where there have been arguments over the languages used by different aspects of society, such as schools, regional governments, and even things like street signs.

So what do you think about this?

Should Spanish language interpretation be required in Spain's upper house of parliament even though all the relevant officials are able to converse freely in Castillian Spanish?

Do you think Spain is Crazy?

Give us your opinion!