Alghero Culture

Alghero is the only place in Italy with a Catalan culture that was never imported for show, and it shapes almost everything here.

The language

Algueres is a variety of Catalan, recognised and co-official in the commune. It is on the street signs alongside Italian, it is taught in some schools, and it is still spoken — though, as with most minority languages, by a shrinking and ageing share of the population. Catalan institutions maintain links with the town, and Catalan visitors find they can be understood.

Coral

Red coral has been fished off this coast for centuries and worked into jewellery in the town. The branch of coral is on Alghero's coat of arms. Harvesting is now strictly limited and licensed after decades of over-exploitation, and the workshops that remain are working a genuinely scarce material.

How the language is doing

Not well, and the town is fairly open about it. UNESCO classes Alguerés as endangered; the share of the population that speaks it has fallen steadily through the twentieth century as Italian became the language of school, work and television. There are courses, signage, a radio presence and cultural associations working at it, and there are children learning it who have no Catalan-speaking grandparents. Whether that is enough is an open question here.

What it eats

The Catalan inheritance is clearest at the table. Aragosta alla catalana — spiny lobster served cold with raw tomato and onion — is the town's dish, and it exists nowhere else in Italy in that form. Alongside it: sea urchins in winter, paella-descended rice dishes, and the Torbato and Vermentino whites grown on the plain behind.

Holy Week

The rites are Spanish in form and conducted partly in Catalan, which is unlike anything else in Italy.