Catalan pop star uses Spanish words in Milionària, her first single in the local language

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Catalan pop star Rosalía has upset language purists with her first single recorded in Catalan, by using “Spanishisms” that critics say dilute the language.

In Milionària, which received 2m views on YouTube in its first 24 hours, the 25-year-old singer uses the word cumpleanys – a corruption of the Spanish cumpleaños – to mean birthday, instead of the Catalan aniversari.

She also uses escoltada (accompanied) when in Catalan the word is escortada and refers to botellas of champagne instead of ampolles.

“Will we really forgive Rosalía for saying cumpleanys?” asked Twitter user @LuxSpeculi.

“The singer suffers from a linguistic deficit but at least now everyone now knows that cumpleanys is a gross Spanishism,” wrote Gabriel Bibiloni in El Periódico.

Rosalía was presumably referencing the fact that many people, especially in the Barcelona area, mix Spanish into their Catalan, much to the chagrin of purists.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Milionària received 2m views on YouTube in its first 24 hours.



The singer comes from Sant Esteve Sesrovires, about 25 miles west of Barcelona, and, like nearly everyone in the area, is bilingual as all education is in Catalan. However, the mother tongue of about 55% of the local population is Spanish.

While she is hugely popular in the area, the fact that Spain’s biggest international star is a Catalan who sings in Spanish is a source of irritation to Catalan nationalists, many of whom would prefer a monolingual Catalonia.

Catalonia’s separatist president, Quim Torra, did not congratulate Rosalía when she won two Latin Grammys last year, and the pro-independence paper La República complained that she made no reference to the “repression” of the Catalan people in her acceptance speech.

“The separatists don’t like Rosalía because she doesn’t dance to their tune and they can’t use her for propaganda,” said Mercè Vilarrubias, a Catalan writer on linguistics. “Also she dares to sing in Catalan, which they regard as their personal property. They don’t like this gesture of freedom and look for ways to criticise her, like her saying cumpleanys, when everyone knows that creative artists invent and adapt.”

Several cultural institutions welcomed Rosalía’s decision to sing in Catalan, errors notwithstanding, and as people took to Twitter many agreed that what mattered was that an international star was singing in Catalan, several adding that they, too, say cumpleanys rather than aniversari. Mariàngela Vilallonga, the Catalan culture minister, said her family said cumpleanys, although they know it’s incorrect.

There are also a few English words thrown into the song but, amid the fuss, no one seems to mind that the refrain repeats the words “Fucking money man”.

• This article was amended on 15 July 2019 to remove the statement that “[Rosalía’s] mother tongue is Spanish”.