¡Bable nes escueles! Averamientu hestórico-políticu a la vindicación de la enseñanza de la llingua asturiana

Resumen

This paper examines the historical development of schooling in Asturian, focusing on the first decade of this process: from 1974, when the emergence of Conceyu Bable gives rise to the modern movement for linguistic recognition and recovery in Asturias, to 1984, the year in which the teaching of Asturian is officially included in the educational system. Using a qualitative research model based on documentary analysis and full-length interviews, this paper approaches a process marked by the first educational initiatives regarding the llingua asturiana: the development of the first drafts of a curriculum for Asturian and, most notably, the launch of the grassroots movement “Bable nes escueles” (“Bable at schools”). This campaign collected more than 30,000 signatures calling for the inclusion of the llingua at schools and gathered, for the same purpose, around 7,000 people in the streets of Xixón in what is considered to be the first great political and cultural protest of the Transition in Asturias. The efforts made by the advocates of linguistic recovery would set the stage for the creation of the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, or Academy of the Asturian Language. This institution played a major role in schooling, as it undertook the important task of publishing materials and developing teacher training programmes. Moreover, it initiated the negotiations with the competent administrative institutions for the incorporation of the Asturian language in school centres. The paper ends with a study of the agreement reached between the Asturian Department of Education and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science in 1984, which approved the pilot project that introduced the official teaching of Asturian. The analysis of the events which took place during the first decade of the vindication process will certainly enable us to better understand the present situation of a movement which still today demands the full recognition and legal, social and educational dignity of Asturias’ own language.