Carles Castellanos i Llorenç (born 1942, in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

) is a writer, translator, and political activist of the

Catalan independence movement The Catalan independence movement (; ; ) is a Social movement, social and political movement with roots in Catalan nationalism that seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain. While proposals, organizations and individuals advocating for Ca ...

. He holds a PhD in Translation from the

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

, has been director of the Department of Translation and Interpreting of this University, and is currently a professor of doctoral studies in this Department. He is a member of the

Catalan National Assembly The Assemblea Nacional Catalana (in English: Catalan National Assembly, ANC by its Catalan acronym) is an organization that seeks the political independence of Catalonia from Spain. It also promotes the independence of other Catalan-speaking regi ...

and was vice-president from 2012 to 2013,Carme Forcadell elected president of the ANC and Carles Castellanos as vice-president
in www.llibertat.cat as well as a member of

Poble Lliure Poble Lliure ( English: ''Free People'') is a Catalan socialist and pro-independence political organisation, which is part of the Pro Independence Catalan Left. Poble Lliure was founded in November 2014 from historical militants of the Movement f ...

and the

Popular Unity Candidacy The Popular Unity Candidacy (, CUP) is a left-wing to far-left pro-Catalan independence political party active primarily in Catalonia, where it has political representation, but also in other autonomous communities in Spain it considers to be part ...

of Barcelona.

Biography

When he was a boy he participated in advocacy and cultural tasks in the Sant Andreu neighborhood of Barcelona and joined the

National Front of Catalonia The National Front of Catalonia ( Catalan: ''Front Nacional de Catalunya'', FNC) was a Catalan nationalist party which was active between 1940 and 1990. The FNC was created in 1940 by former members of the Estat Català and the Catalan Nationali ...

(FNC) in 1960. In 1968 he was one of the founders of the Socialist Party of National Liberation (PSAN). In 1974 he created the PSAN-Provisional a split from the PSAN. In 1979 he formed Independentists of the Catalan Countries (IPC) after union with the Socialist National Liberation Organization (OSAN) of Northern Catalonia. He was later one of the driving forces behind the Movement for Defence of the Land (MDT) from 1983 to 1984 and joined it again in 1985 (after IPC temporarily left that organization). During the following decades, he was one of the most prominent leaders of the MDT. Due to militance in the Esquerra Independentista, he suffered several arrests and imprisonments during the early years of the

Spanish transition to democracy The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as (; ) or (), is a period of History of Spain, modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system ...

, in 1981, 1982 (for carrying a banner with the slogan "Independence"), in 1988 and in 1992, when he was persecuted during

Operation Garzón Operation Garzón (Catalan language, Catalan: ''Operació Garzón'', Spanish: ''Operación Garzón'') was a police operation which saw the arrest of 45 Catalan Catalan independence movement, pro-independence individuals and the search of the head ...

, which is why he went underground and had to go into temporary exile. He is a member, among other entities, of the

Pau Vila Research and Documentation Centre Pau or PAU may refer to: Places * Pau (Aachen), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany * PAU, an agricultural university in Punjab, India * Pau (river), a river of south-western France (Gave de Pau) * Pau, Edom, a city in the Bible * Pau, Pyr ...

, the Catalan Forum for the Right to Self-Determination, Circle 21, and the Platform for the Right to Decide. He has been one of the prominent promoters of the Language Defense Groups (1982–1988) and the Third Congress of Catalan Culture (1999–2001). He was vice president of the

from 2012 to 2013. The protracted independence militancy has led to many arrests and tortures, with 4 periods of imprisonment, clandestinity, and exile.

Academic assignment

He is an industrial engineer and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, author (or co-author) of several works

lexicographical Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretical lex ...

, among which, we can highlight the ''Dictionary'' ''French-Catalan/Catalan-French'' (1979, expanded in 2003), the ''Diccionari d'informàtica'' (1982), the ''Diccionari de paranys de traducció (false friends)'' (2000) and the ''Diccionari bàsic occità-català'' (2008). He directed the ACTIVE Project (for the learning of Catalan for computer media) between 1977 and 1982. In addition, he is the author of numerous articles and works on the subject of

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...

historiographic Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term "historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific to ...

and politics, among which the following must be established: ''The national phenomenon'' (1974), ''Elements of historical materialism'' (1977), ''Small dictionary of independence'' (1988–1990), ''A language without order or concert'' (1993), ''Language and variation'' (1993), ''Catalan independence, 1979–1994'' (1994), ''Language, dialects and standardisation'' (2002). He has translated several works, including from the French, ''Catalonia a thousand years ago'', by

Pierre Bonnassie Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

(t. 1981) and ''Els paradisos artificial'' by Baudelaire (t. 1990); of the Classical Egyptian, ''History of Sinuhè and other tales'' (2005); and, from the

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

, the collection of poems ''Blind Sun'', by

Salem Zenia Salem Zenia (born September 26, 1962 in Freha, Tizi Ouzou Province, Algeria) is a Kabyle writer. He studied in Frèha and later in Azazga High School and journalism (distance studies) in Ecole Universalis (Liège, Belgique) . He has worked as ...

(2008). A scholar of linguistic standardization and Afro-Asiatic languages, he has done his thesis and published several papers on the

Amazigh language The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

, such as ''La llengua rifenya'' (1995), ''Guia de conversa universitària amazic-català'' (2006) and is currently vice-director of the Observatori Català de la Llengua Amaziga. He has published a book of memoirs ''Relive the days – memories of a silenced time'' (2003).

Works

* ''Diccionari francès-català'' (1979) * ''Diccionari d'informàtica'' (1986) * ''Una llengua sense ordre ni concert'' (1993) * ''Llengua, dialectes i estandardització'' (2000) * ''Els amazics'' ( CIEMEN, 2010) * ''Els cosins del català'' (Volaina Edicions, 2019) * ''Reviure els fets: Memòries polítiques (1960–2020)'' (Edicions del 1979, 2020)

Biography

Academic assignment

Works

See also