In Spain’s parliament, you can now speak Basque (or Catalan or Galician)

“ALWAYS REMEMBER this, Sepharad/Keep safe the bridges of dialogue/and take care to understand and keep/the different reasons and languages of your children.” Thus in 1960 Salvador Espriu, a Catalan poet, reminded Spain of its historical diversity (using the country’s Hebrew name to evoke the days before it expelled Jews in 1492). Espriu’s stance was bold at the time. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship forbade official use of any language but Castilian Spanish. But on August 17th Francina Amengol, the new president of the lower house of Spain’s parliament, known as the Congress of Deputies, read the verse in Catalan in her maiden speech. Sprinkling in Basque and Galician too, she announced that the chamber would thenceforth allow use of those three languages.Spain’s election in July left neither its right- nor left-wing alliances with a majority. On August 23rd the country’s king gave Alberto Núñez Feijóo of the conservative People’s Party the first shot at forming a new government, but he is expected to fail. Pedro Sánchez, head of the Socialist party, remains as caretaker prime minister, and still hopes to stay in power by cobbling together the support of five regional separatist parties. It was those parties that helped elect Ms Armengol (also a Socialist) to her post, and changing the language policy was part of the deal.