Language, identity, and the scriptorial landscape in Quebec and Catalonia

Two small cities, Victoriaville, Quebec, and Olot, Catalonia, are discussed in their national contexts to understand the twentieth-century evolution of that aspect of the visible landscape that is scriptorial in character: the signs, banners, graffiti, and inscriptions in public view. In Victoriaville, signs have gone from bilingual French and English to French. In Olot, they changed within a decade from Castilian to Catalan. Especially in Olot, with its recent history of repression, the monolingual landscape script represents an act of resistance. Both transformations reflect a strong sense of cultural solidarity and the adoption of legislation designed to protect and promote the main basis of the identity of distinctive regions. A territorial minority seeking cultural affirmation is sensitive to how the visuality of language separates it from the surrounding majority that speaks a different vernacular. As such, the language on signs or inscriptions carries symbolic meaning, involves subtleties, and contains contradictions. The scriptorial landscape, one element of the cultural landscape, contributes to the communication of national identity in a bounded territory in the past and the present.