Architect Antoni Gaudi is one of Catalonia's most famous sons

Under Franco's government, languages such as Catalan, Basque and Galician were repressed - anyone who spoke them risked imprisonment.

It was a test of the Spanish people's political determination throughout the dictatorship to keep all their languages alive.

In modern Catalonia, the autonomous government is controlled by the Catalan Party - Convergence and Union - and Catalan is the official language of all state-run schools.

All foreigners and immigrants from other parts of Spain find they have to learn some Catalan just to understand what their children are saying at home.

Boycott

Not surprisingly, then, Harry Potter dubbed into Castilian, as the language of Cervantes is known here - plain Spanish to the rest of us - just wasn't good enough.

In thousands of angry letters and e-mails, parents in Catalonia threatened a boycott of the film and then threatened to extend their boycott to all productions by the American company AOL Time Warner.

After talks between the Spanish representative of Warner and the Catalan government, it has been agreed that all future sequels of Harry Potter will be dubbed into Catalan.

Seven copies of the film in the original English version, with Catalan subtitles, have been distributed in Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.

But given the film's popularity, most observers say Catalan children would have rushed to see the film in any language.