Idioms in Catalan with a religious origin

There's quite a lot of idioms that we say in everyday life, outside of the context of religion, but that come from religious stories or events.

Most of them come from Christianity, and many of them are shared with other Romance languages or other languages from historically Christian countries. To keep this list accessible to everyone regardless of cultural background, I will include the literal translation to English and also an explanation all of them.

Let's see how many of these you can understand before seeing the explanation. Let us know in the tags!

1. Fer Pasqua abans de Rams = "to do Easter before Palm Sunday", meaning to get pregnant, have a baby, or to have sex before getting married. Nowadays it's used in a more general sense to mean to do something before it's time (like English "put the cart before the horse"). Palm Sunday is a holiday celebrated the week before Easter.

2. Per a més inri = "for more INRI", used to add a bad thing on top of something else, making a situation even worse or more humiliating. It's a reference to the sign that said "INRI" (stands for the initials of "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" in Latin) that Roman soldiers hanged on Christ's crucifix to make fun of him.

3. A la babalà = "in the babalà way", meaning to do something without having thought much about it. But what does "babalà" mean? This word doesn't exist in the Catalan language outside of this expression. It comes from the Arabic Alà bâb Allâh which means "in God's hands".

4. On Crist va perdre l'espardenya = "where Christ lost his sandal", or on Crist va perdre el barret = "where Christ lost his hat", meaning somewhere very far away and usually in the middle of nothing. I don't know of any story that has Christ lose his sandal or hat.

5. Perdut de la mà de Déu = "lost by God's hand", meaning a place in the middle of nowhere.

6. Ser un calvari ="to be a calvary", meaning that something is a cause of suffering. You can also hear quin calvari! = "what a calvary!". This is a reference to Mount Calvary, where Christ was crucified.

7. Endavant les atxes = "ahead with the candles!", meaning "keep going!", used to encourage to keep going in a negative situation with difficulties or a situation that you would have preferred to avoid. An atxa is a kind of big candle that the first people in a religious procession carry. This was the shout that would start a procession.

(Note: in recent years, Spanish media has used this idiom as supposed proof that Catalan independentists who said it are calling for violence, using a fake translation that assumed that "atxa" must mean the same as Spanish "hacha", meaning "axe" 🪓, because the pronunciation is almost identical. This is false, when people were saying "endavant les atxes" they did not intend any meaning related to "bring the axes". This was used to justify violence against Catalan activists, but has no ground in reality. "Axe"🪓 in Catalan would be "destral".)

8. Net com una patena = "as clean as a paten", meaning very clean. A paten is a kind of small dish used in Catholic mass, where the blessed sacramental bread in placed on.

9. Acabar com el rosari de l'aurora = "to end up like the dawn rosary", meaning to end very, very badly, usually in violence. The dawn rosary used to be a procession that was done in the early morning of certain holidays while praying the rosary. The idiom (which also exists in Spanish) comes from the year 1868. Around those years, there were many anticlerical riots, while the Catholic church kept doing the dawn rosary on the streets and often assigning it political meaning. In Barcelona and other cities, anticlerical protestors tried to stop the dawn rosary from happening, and it ended in violence and blood.

10. Plorar com una Magdalena = "to cry like a Magdalene", meaning to cry a lot and very desperately. This is a reference to Mary Magdalene, a character from the Bible's New Testament who cried when she met Christ.

11. Déu-n'hi-do! = "God gives!". This expression is difficult to translate because I don't think English has an equivalent (the closest I can think of are "wow!" or even "holy shit!"), but Catalan people use it a lot. It's an exclamation used to show surprise, awe or to mean a big quantity.

12. Ser més vell que Matusalem = "to be older than Methuselah", meaning that someone is very very old. Methuselah is a character from the Bible's Old Testament who is said to have lived for 969 years. This comparison is used for comedic value.

13. Rentar-se'n les mans = "to wash one's hands", meaning to say you're not responsible for what happens. This is a quote from the Bible's New Testament: when Christ is being judged by Pontius Pilate, the crowd is asking him to sentence him to crucifixion. He asks Christ to defend himself, but he doesn't. Pilate doesn't want to sentence him to death, but he sees he has no other option. Then, he sees his hands are stained with Christ's blood, and washes his hands as he decides that this situation will not be his responsibility.

14. Arribar a misses dites = "to arrive to mass [already] said", meaning to arrive late when something has already happened.

15. Ser com les palmes d’Elx, que vingueren el matí de Pasqua = "to be like the Elx palms, that arrived on Easter morning", this is used in the Valencian Country to mean to be late. Elx is a city with the biggest palm groove in Europe ever since the Middle Ages, and many of these palm tree leafs are used for making the palms used for Palm Sunday, the celebration that happens a week before Easter.

16. Va a missa = "goes to mass", meaning whatever is said is exactly what will happen, without complaining or second thoughts.

17. Endiumenjar-se = "to Sunday yourself" or "to Sunday up", meaning to dress up in your best clothes (same as "to wear your Sunday best" in English). Traditionally, people used to wear their best clothes for Sunday mass.

18. Alt com un sant Pau = "as tall as a saint Paul", someone who is very tall. Saint Paul was not tall, in his texts he describes himself as a "little man". The origin of this sentence is in Catalonia centuries ago. People used to celebrate the holiday of Saint Paul's Conversion (January 25th). In the Sant Pau del Camp church area in Barcelona, the tradition for this day had a man yield a huge sword. For this reason, the man had to be tall and strong.

19. Alegre/content com unes pasqües = "as cheerful/happy as Easters", meaning to be very happy and cheerful.

20. Discutir sobre el sexe dels àngels or parlar del sexe dels àngels = "to argue about angels' sex", meaning to endlessly argue heatedly about something insignificant where neither side will ever convince the other to change their minds. Also called una discussió bizantina="a Byzantine argument". This comes from the historical fact that Biblical scholars spent centuries arguing on whether angels can be male or female or not. Legends say that, when the Ottomans were laying siege on Constantinople in 1453 and getting ready to invade it, the Byzantine theologists were arguing about whether angels have sexes instead of doing anything useful.

21. Pagant, sant Pere canta = "if you pay, saint Peter sings". The person who hears it, might answer i sant Joan fa esclops = "and Saint John makes clogs". This means that money will get you anything, even the things that seemed impossible. It might be a reference to the Bible story where saint Peter was asked if he knew Christ after he was taken to crucify, and Peter lied three times and said he didn't know him. "To sing" in Catalan can also mean "to confess". Maybe, if they had paid him he would have confessed.

22. Perdre l'oremus = "to lose the oremus", meaning to lose control of yourself, or to get disoriented or lose memory. "Oremus" (which means "let's pray" in Latin) is the sentence that Catholic priests say during mass to lead a prayer. It's believed that this idiom comes from some incidents where a priest would start the sentence "oremus..." but then couldn't find the prayer he wanted to lead, which he might have misplaced somewhere else in his book. So he would say "oremus... uh... oremus..." while flipping the pages looking for the right one.

23. A bon sant t'encomanes! = "You entrust yourself to a good saint!", said with irony. It's said when you ask for help or rely on someone who is not competent.

24. Ser més papista que el Papa = "To be more Popeist than the Pope", meaning someone who is too dogmatic, too strict or extremist in following the rules, or who believes in or defends something in a more extreme way than the people most affected by it.

25. Qui no coneix Déu, a qualsevol sant li resa = "He who doesn't know God, prays to any saint", used to compare something very good to something worse that someone else likes, usually something worse but that is very popular.

And there's probably others that I forgot.

How many of these are shared with your language?

Curiously, here to Chile, the 4th one arrived with both the biblical figure and the object switched, as "donde el Diablo perdió el poncho", I guess because nobody imagined Jesus doing rounds by this end of the world, where definitely the Devil would. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't keep his souvenir!

I love that!

A day in the life of someone who posts on the internet in Catalan *cue dozens of Spanish people asking "what's wrong with your mouth", ordering him to speak in Spanish or "in Christian", saying he's rude for speaking in Catalan, calling him "polaco" (derogatory Spanish word to mean a Catalan person), calling the Catalan language a dialect, saying he is possessed because he's speaking Catalan, etc*

This is a video by Sergi Mas showing some of the comments he gets on YouTube. He makes videos about mountain biking that he posts on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And the first comment he got on his first YouTube video was already someone telling him he should do it in Spanish.

Some days ago, another creator who posts his videos in Catalan (Joan Sendra, find him on Instagram and TikTok) answered to a Spanish person who was complaining that it's rude to speak Catalan/Valencian on the internet instead of Spanish because then there's people who don't understand you (as if everyone in the world spoke Spanish lmao). Joan, who is tired of getting this kind of comments so often, answered: there are already endless videos and things to watch on the internet in Spanish. In fact, if you look for [the topic he was talking about in the video that this guy commented] all the videos are in Spanish except for mine. And yet you had to come to me, the one in Valencian, and tell me that I can't make a video in my language and that I can only make it in yours. If you don't like it, it's so easy to find another one!

However, it's not a matter of actually being interested in what's being said in a language they don't speak. It's about the imposition of the language they consider superior (Spanish) and telling speakers of the languages whose land Spain had occupied that they are useless and should be ashamed of existing in public. Well, we aren't. Like Sergi's video, don't let the comments disturb your macarrons.

This is EXACTLY what my friend Fran (cabrafotuda) always talks about, and WHY he does all his content in Valencian. It’s also why he’s so successful! Because Valencians want content in their own language, and watch the Castilian stuff cause it’s the only stuff out there, and not because it’s better.

Language supremacy is one of the few things in the world where the slippery slope argument actually applies. The more languages you suppress and eradicate the closer you get to a deathmatch between only the most common languages in the world. People who have small languages or regional dialects and speak them openly should be celebrated and learned from not forced to speak whatever big language is their nearest neighbour.

Nice!

Dear Nanami, Love Gojo x

POV: you're an Andalucían who is learning Northern culture

"Northern", this culture has a name

@drholmestuck proof-reading this answer before posting it, I realise this can be read to sound kind of rude, but that is not my intention. I only wish to inform on why the comment I was answering to was not as good faith or just a product of ignorance as you might be assuming. Anyway:

The post starts with the sentence "Dating a Catalan", was posted by a blog named useless-catalanfacts whose profile picture has the text "free all Catalan political prisoners" and the Catalan flag, and is about the one thing that is probably the most famous element of Catalan culture in the world outside of Catalonia. And if all of those things (which, again, includes the name of the culture being stated in the very first sentence of the post) aren't clear enough, it only takes 1 second to click on my URL useless-catalanfacts and you'll see my blog description is "Welcome! Benvinguts! This blog is a place to share the culture and history of the Catalan Countries, explained by Catalans" and my header image is a map showing where the Catalan Countries are.

I'm sorry that this caused you frustration, I just thought this was clear enough and that were I to mention the words "Catalan" or "Catalonia" one more time, I would break a record.

The whole point of this blog is education and sharing every aspect of our culture to everyone. I do my best to keep my posts accessible to everyone regardless of cultural background or previous knowledge, even when this might look like over-explaining things that might seem "common knowledge" to people who know some history of Southern Europe or people from countries with a Christian background (when I have talked about mythology and some traditions and their origin). I do not want anyone to be frustrated or to think they can't understand, because nobody is born knowing and I also enjoy learning about other countries but for some far-away cultures I don't even have an introductory level of knowledge.

HOWEVER, and here's why I answered the way that I did:

The person who commented that, who refused to name Catalan culture and decided to call it "Northern", is —as they themselves said in that comment— not from a far-away country, and very clearly knows what Catalans are. Refusing to name us while knowing this is about us, instead attributing a beloved cultural element to some mysterious "Northern culture" (by which they mean "Northern Spain", as if Galicia, Castilla, Leon, the Basque Country, Asturies, Cantabria, etc had anything to do with this) is a decision taken on purpose. This person is from Andalusia, in the south of Spain. Spain. That means we share the same state, the same government. It's impossible that they don't know what Catalans are.

Catalan culture has suffered ethnocide by Spain for 300 years, but most strongly in the last century under the proto-fascist dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) and the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975). Still nowadays, Catalan people face discrimination in Spain for being Catalan and for speaking the Catalan language (you can find some more information in my tag for current events: #actualitat).

Despite government after government that wants to eradicate Catalan culture (as an easy example, in 2012, the Minister of Education of the Spanish Government said it very clearly in Congress: "our objective is to turn Catalan kids into Spanish kids", and he's far from the only one to make that so clear), every so often there will be one thing that they like. First, it was landscapes: the Catalanophobic and fascist dictatorship of Franco turned our country into a touristic colony. Did you know that even nowadays, as a result of this, there are way more tourists than inhabitants in our country, which creates a huge crisis of housing, gentrification, and poverty? Average per year, Catalonia has 2.5 tourists per inhabitant, and the Balearic Islands have 12(!!!!) tourists per inhabitant. One of the highest ratios in the world, and a disaster for locals. For tourist promotion, the Spanish government also decided to steal paella (they took the name of the Valencian rice, meat and vegetables dish, merged it with the rice and seafood recipe from Catalonia, and sold it as "typical Spanish"). So now all the world can know how beautiful Spain is with those beaches in Mallorca, Ibiza and the Costa Brava, and how delicious Spanish cuisine is with their paella! (/sarcasm). All while all these things are part of the culture they're trying to exterminate. At the same time as those were marketed to the world, our parents were beaten up at school by the teacher if they were heard speaking Catalan, singing certain Catalan songs like la Santa Espina were forbidden, censorship prohibited you from saying your culture is Catalan and talking about many parts and its history and expressions, and the military police would gladly arrest you and torture you if you complained about your culture being repressed.

So yeah, when I shared this thread about Tió (the Christmas log), one of the most beloved icons of Catalan culture and which symbolizes the relationship with the land (we feed nature, nature feeds us), and which btw already gets ridiculed a lot by non-Catalans; seeing it be reblogged but most reblogs end with this "northern culture" (intending "northern Spanish culture"), that gets tiring. And even more when knowing this person knew perfectly well what they were doing. (And if they didn't do it on purpose to erase the Catalan-ness of it, even worse! They have interiorized the idea that Catalan culture can be discarded so much that it was their automatic response to do it).

Catalan culture is very open. We like sharing everything and we absolutely love it when foreign people are interested and choose to participate. You can make the Tió poop in your house wherever in the world you are, and every Catalan you tell will love it and congratulate you. We quickly "adopt" people into being Catalan: have you learned the language? You're Catalan now. Have you lived here for a little while? You're Catalan now, if you consider yourself to be so. Do you feel identification with this land and culture because of any other life experience? You're Catalan now, if you consider yourself to be. Share it with everyone you want. But remember this is Catalan culture that you're participating in, and that it exists because we resisted all these years. Don't contribute to erasing our culture by saying it's Spanish, because if the efforts to Spanishize us had won, this tradition that you now enjoy would have died as well together with the rest of our language, culture, and soul.

This is why, yes, it's important to say this culture has a name. As Angie on Twitter did perfectly well, she credited it in her first sentence about it. It's Catalan culture. A culture that, despite all the efforts to destroy it, is still alive. And a culture that yharnamsnewslug already knew very well which was it was.

That being said, @drholmestuck, I will keep in mind your recommendation for future cases, and as always I thank any type of feedback that can help me learn how to make this blog's contents more accessible. But I hope it was also understood where I was coming from.

Yesterday (November 6th 2023), Spanish right-wing and neo-nazi organisations called to attack the Madrid headquarters of PSOE, the ruling party of Spain who is currently negotiating with different political parties to ensure enough votes to form a government. The reason for this protest was showing their opposition to PSOE for negotiation with Catalan political parties, and particularly the fact that one of the things that is being talked about is a possible amnesty for Catalans victims of political reprisals.

About 3,800 people (according to the Spanish Government) showed up following the call, holding Spanish flags and signs that say "Pedro Sánchez [PSOE president] traitor" and "no amnesty". They tried to take hold of the PSOE headquarters. When riots started, the police attacked these right-wingers and neo-nazis as is usually done in protests, using tear gas and rubber bullets.

The right-wing PP and fascist Vox parties have been complaining today because they think their followers shouldn't have been attacked. The PP party said the response was disproportionate and condemned the police for "treating [the protesters] like CDRs".

CDRs —which stands for Committees in Defence of the Republic— are grassroots non-hierarchical associations in Catalonia in favour of independence, which the Spanish media often used as a boogeyman.

So, basically, they attack a rival political party's headquarters, and when the police uses violence against them, the complaint is "how dare they treat us like this? What do they think we are, Catalans??"

I lived in Catalonia in the last four year of Franco’s life. We fought often against the Blue Shirts in the streets & constantly against the Grises around the university. At 79 I am not much of a fighter, but you all must carry forth the battle or lose the unique Catalan culture.

Thank you 💛

Nou Barris is one of the neighbourhoods in Barcelona (Catalonia’s capital city) that receives the most immigration. Since 2004, the local association Nou Barris Acull (which means “Nou Barris welcomes”) and the XIC (“Network for the Exchange of Knowledge”) has been organising a festival centered on something that bring everyone together… soup!

According to the organisation, “Why a soup festival? Firstly as an excuse to meet up, and secondly because soup is a symbol of mixing and at the same time of difference, of something very own and at the same time very universal. All soups share basic elements (fire, water, the cauldron, etc), and from here on the diversity is almost infinite: vegetables, meats, spices…, and everything that each people and each family has around them. Soups are, in essence, the same, and at the same time unique; all of them different and all of them similar, just like people.”

The Festival Sopes del Món (“Soups of the World Festival”) is celebrated annually in Nou Barris. Neighbours organise in groups to cook soup and share recipes, there’s live music and circus.

The photos in this post are from the 2021 festival, smaller than usual because of the pandemic. Photo source: Festival Sopes.

hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate

BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard (under My Filters) to get rid of it!

reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3

Happy Halloweenie 🎃

some gesture studies from episode 1 of OPLA

📍Sitges, along Catalonia's coastline, combines stunning beaches with captivating architecture. Its diverse designs, from Modernisme (exemplified by Casa Bacardí) to the Old Town's Mediterranean allure, showcase a rich heritage. Notable landmarks like the Church of Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla and opulent seafront mansions add to Sitges' architectural charm, making it a culturally rich and visually captivating destination.

📸: Yamil Doval

One of the figures in Catalan traditional festivities like festes majors are these big-headed characters. They are called different names depending on the area: cabeçuts, capgrossos, cabuts, cabets, caparrots, nanos or nanets. All these words derive from the concepts of "big head" or "short person", since that's their most iconic characteristic.

They're hollow paper-mache figures where the dancer puts their head in, and sees through the figure's mouth. They dance usually cheerful songs and greet the people who are watching, particularly children.

The figures can represent stereotypical people from the town (a school child, a rich man, a priest, a farmer, a heiress, etc), local historical or legendary people (nobles, pirates, etc), or just silly people. In some places, if someone from the town/city becomes famous or does something very good for the town, people can choose to make a capgròs that represents them.

If I'm not mistaken, this figures also exist in Basque culture, where they are called buruhandiak or kilikiliak (am I right, @beautiful-basque-country?)

Video by Agrupació de Balls Populars de Sitges taken in the national meet-up of cabeçuts from around Catalonia.

It is so so important to show that queer people have always existed and are allowed to live long, happy lives. Young queer people–especially those in conservative areas–need to know that being queer is not a death sentence. Despite the many struggles we have faced, throughout history there have always been queer lives filled with joy and love. and you will find yours.

Buon Compleanno Trish!! 🥳➗