Bernard Weish
Bernard Weish or Bernard Weiss (or Bernhard, or Weis, depending on the source) was a purported fictional linguist who has been cited as an authority to support theories on the differences between the Valencian and Catalan languages. There is speculation that the character was created either by proponents of Language secessionism such as the Blaverists (Valencian nationalists) to bolster their arguments, or by those who oppose secessionism / to mock it. At the beginning of the 1980s, a Dr. Bernard Weiss, claimed to be a philologist specialising in Romance languages in the Department of the University of Munich. He circulated papers to blaverist meetings and contributed articles to the Valencian media in support of secessionist linguistic theories regarding Valencian and Catalan. His supposed expertise gave the Blaverists a scholarly source to support their claims, which they previous lacked from any other universities.