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<div><font face="Comic Sans MS">Thankyou, Sandra in New York! As a
language pedant and a minority-language advocate, I would like to
add:</font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS">In addition to fully-recognized
Catalan (català), spoken by over 7 million, Galician (galego) - over
2 million, and Basque (euskara) - over 650,000, there are two
more languages which have semi-official constitutional status in
Spain: Asturian (bable), 450,000 speakers, and Aragonese (fablà),
only 30,000. All of these are Romance languages except the
unrelated-to-anything-known Basque.</font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS">In any case, Castilian Spanish will be
understood by just anyone you meet, except perhaps (I am guessing
here) by older people in small Basque villages. Minority-language
speakers who wish to make a 'statement' may deliberately not
understand Castilian Spanish, but only when addressed by Castilians -
not by foreign visitors.</font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Comic Sans MS">Tom in snowy Edmonton</font></div>
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