Standardization of the Catalan Language and Modernist Prose

In the early twentieth century, thanks to the authors of Noucentisme and their pact with the Regionalist League, political power began to invest resources, successfully managing to legislate the language.

The 1906 International Congress of Catalan

In 1906, a congress chaired by Antoni Maria Alcover was held, attended by representatives from all Catalan-speaking areas. The aim of the congress was to establish guidelines for standardization; the theses adopted were mostly those of Pompeu Fabra.

The Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC)

As a result of these efforts, Enric Prat de la Riba established the IEC in 1907. The task of legislating the language was assumed by the Philological Section, headed by Antoni M. Alcover, who commissioned the work to Pompeu Fabra.

Antoni Maria Alcover and Dialectology

His interest in language and popular culture led him to collect folk tales and dialectal materials across 24 volumes. This compilation led to the inventory of a large number of dialectal words. He moved away from the idea of a dictionary based solely on written materials, instead questioning people across the entire linguistic domain to collect data first-hand.

He organized a corps of correspondents in different regions and secretaries to organize the materials collected to produce a comprehensive dictionary. This work aimed to bring together the ancient language, modern literary forms, and various dialects.

To gain support from the Balearic Islands and Valencia, the project was renamed from the Dictionary of the Catalan Language to the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Dictionary. Francesc de Borja Moll was called upon as the primary organizer and editor. Alcover published the first volume during his lifetime; after his death, the responsibility for the dictionary passed to Borja Moll, who was commissioned to continue the work.

Pompeu Fabra: Architect of Modern Catalan

Although he was a Professor of Chemistry, Fabra felt a strong inclination toward philology. The IEC appointed him the task of standardizing the language. With the help of collaborators, he created orthographic standards, the Catalan Grammar, and the General Dictionary of the Catalan Language.

The criteria for the reform were:

• Respect for etymology and knowledge of the laws of linguistic evolution.
• Respect for the medieval literary tradition.
• Consideration of the actual pronunciation of dialects.
• Harmony with other European languages.

Fabra systematized his normative work in stages:

1. Orthographic encoding.
2. Grammatical systematization.
3. Fixing the lexicon.
4. Dissemination of criteria through publications.

Characteristics of Modernist Prose

Modernist narrative was characterized by several key elements:

• The Hero: A character facing social or natural forces, often marginalized and misunderstood, who struggles against adversity to improve society.
• Subjectivity: The narrator provides a subjective view of the conflicts the characters experience.
• Atmospheric Description: Descriptions of characters, environments, and situations are subjective and depend on the characters' moods.
• Symbolism: The use of symbolic elements, such as character names and landscape features.
• Virile Style: A robust style applied to the language of stories, often featuring rural settings and idiomatic phrases.