Demolinguistics in Catalan-speaking territories

Abstract

The article starts by explaining the origins of “demolinguistics” and the reasons behind its emergence and goes on to assess how it has stretched to other parts of the world. The paper then goes into further depth on the emergence of this discipline in the Catalan language domain and, in particular, its evolution in this sphere. This evolution is divided into four stages; two of them date back to the past century and the other two date from the 21st century. The paper then outlines themain issues that demolinguistics deals with in the Catalan sphere and, to conclude, it lists a number of key challenges that the discipline faces.

KEY WORDS: demolinguistics, sociolinguistics, Catalan language, Catalan language area.