Andorra Launches Videopodcast Series to Preserve Native Catalan Dialect

The Department of Linguistic Policy has launched a new videopodcast series titled Parla’m d’aquí, aimed at preserving Andorra's native dialect by capturing local stories, anecdotes, and expressions from the country's parishes.

Promoted by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, the initiative seeks to deepen knowledge of the Catalan language and highlight the principality's autochthonous speech. Each episode will feature prominent figures from individual parishes, starting with the inaugural installment centered on Joana Punsola—known as the Juanita de cal Valentí—and Josep Marsal, former chief consul of Encamp, ex-deputy syndic, and one of the drafters of Andorra's Constitution. School students Irene Serena and Beatriz Começanha from the Andorran Baccalaureate School also contributed through the Andorran PAS school's volunteer program.

The videopodcast is available on the Linguistic Policy Service's YouTube channel. Its launch coincided with the presentation of the book El parlar d’Andorra dels segles XIX i XX by Xavier Rull, a doctor in Catalan philology and professor at Rovira i Virgili University. The publication, which continues Rull's earlier research on Andorran speech from the 17th and 18th centuries, received the 2023 Lídia Armengol Vila grant.

During the event, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Mònica Bonell described the two projects as "related and complementary," noting that they share the goal of recovering and safeguarding Andorra's language and identity.

The Lídia Armengol Vila grant, awarded biennially by the Linguistic Policy Service as part of a joint research funding call from the departments of Higher Education and Research, Cultural Heritage, and Linguistic Policy, supports projects focused on Andorran themes.