4  ;
Chapter-1 The Summer
Island
5
The Minorcans
Present-day Minorcans are of varied
ancestry, which has sometimes left recognisable features. A north European
look, with fair or even red hair is sometimes seen, and bespeaks an English,
Irish or Scottish strain deriving from the eighteenth century or the Napoleonic
Wars. Today there are a small number of Anglo-Minorcan marriages, but by
and large the islanders are of Catalan descent as a result of substantial
immigration in the late thirteenth century.
Minorcans have pleasant manners
and are courteous to strangers. They are both industrious and artistic
in temperament, and have that innate dignity of the Spaniard which permeates
all classes.
The majority of Minorcans have not
been great travellers, and were often reluctant to serve in the army overseas.
In 1820, when Spain was compulsorily recruiting single men to fight in
the American colonies, there was a rush to marry. Unlike islanders in northern
Europe, they have not, with a few notable exceptions become great sailors
or sea-captains. They nevertheless maintain that sturdy independence of
islanders everywhere, and think of themselves as Minorcans first, and then
Catalans.
The language
Among themselves Minorcans speak
Minorquin, a dialect derived from the Catalan language of north-eastern
Spain. This was brought to the island by thirteenth-century Catalan immigrants.
As Minorquin is no longer taught in schools, where the teaching medium
is Castilian Spanish, all Minorcans also speak Spanish.
English is now being taught in Minorcan
schools, which gave rise to a notice in a shop window: 'English Spoken
in the afternoon' ( when the child is home from school).
Minorcans encourage visitors to
talk Spanish, and may tactfully correct them with a disarming smile. With
the increase in tourism, English is being increasingly spoken.
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