Catalan language


Catalan is a Western Romance language and is the indigenous and official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community, where it is called Valencian. Catalan is also the sole official language of Andorra, has semi-official status in the Italian municipality of Alghero, and is spoken in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan-speaking regions are often called the Catalan Countries.
The language evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees. It became the language of the Principality of Catalonia and the kingdoms of Valencia and Mallorca, being present throughout the Mediterranean as the main language of the Crown of Aragon. It was replaced by Spanish as a language of government and literature in the 1700s, but 19th century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, culminating in the early 1900s. During the Francoist dictatorship, the usage of Catalan was subject to repressive measures, before it entered a relatively successful process of re-normalization between the 1980s and the 2000s. However, during the 2010s, it experienced signs of decline in social use, diglossia and the re-growth of discrimination cases.

Etymology and pronunciation

The word Catalan is derived from the territorial name of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology. The main theory suggests that Catalunya derives from the name Gothia or Gauthia, since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Catalonia theoretically derived.
In English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652. The word Catalan can be pronounced in English as or .
The endonym is pronounced in the Eastern Catalan dialects, and in the Western dialects. In the Valencian Community and Carche, the term valencià is frequently used instead. Thus, the name "Valencian", although often employed for referring to the varieties specific to the Valencian Community and Carche, is also used by Valencians as a name for the language as a whole, synonymous with "Catalan". Both uses of the term have their respective entries in the dictionaries by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans..

History

Middle Ages

By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south. From the 8th century onwards the Catalan counts extended their territory southwards and westwards at the expense of the Muslims, bringing their language with them. This process was given definitive impetus with the separation of the County of Barcelona from the Carolingian Empire in 988.
In the 11th century, documents written in macaronic Latin begin to show Catalan elements, with texts written almost completely in Romance appearing by 1080. Old Catalan shared many features with Gallo-Romance, diverging from Old Occitan between the 11th and 14th centuries.
During the 11th and 12th centuries the Catalan rulers expanded southward to the Ebro river, and in the 13th century they conquered the lands that would become the Kingdoms of Valencia and the Majorca. The city of Alghero in Sardinia was repopulated with Catalan speakers in the 14th century. The language also reached Murcia, which became Spanish-speaking in the 15th century.
File:Map of the Crown of Aragon.svg|thumb|upright=1|Diachronic map of the Crown of Aragon. King James the Conqueror dictated his autobiographical chronicles entirely in Catalan. Some of this territory nowadays makes up the Catalan Countries.
In the Low Middle Ages, Catalan went through a golden age, reaching a peak of maturity and cultural richness. Examples include the work of Majorcan polymath Ramon Llull, the Four Great Chronicles, and the Valencian school of poetry culminating in Ausiàs March. By the 15th century, the city of Valencia had become the sociocultural center of the Crown of Aragon, and Catalan was present all over the Mediterranean world. During this period, the Royal Chancery propagated a highly standardized language. Catalan was widely used as an official language in Sicily until the 15th century, and in Sardinia until the 17th. During this period, the language was what Costa Carreras terms "one of the 'great languages' of medieval Europe".
Martorell's novel of chivalry Tirant lo Blanc shows a transition from Medieval to Renaissance values, something that can also be seen in Metge's work. The first book produced with movable type in the Iberian Peninsula was printed in Catalan.

Early modern era

Spain

With the union of the crowns of Castille and Aragon in 1479, the Spanish kings ruled over different kingdoms, each with its own cultural, linguistic and political particularities, and they had to swear by the laws of each territory before the respective parliaments. But after the War of the Spanish Succession, Spain became an absolute monarchy under Philip V, which led to the assimilation of the Crown of Aragon by the Crown of Castile through the Nueva Planta decrees, as a first step in the creation of the Spanish nation-state; as in other contemporary European states, this meant the imposition of the political and cultural characteristics of the dominant groups. Since the political unification of 1714, Spanish assimilation policies towards national minorities have been a constant.
The process of assimilation began with secret instructions to the corregidores of the Catalan territory: they "will take the utmost care to introduce the Castilian language, for which purpose he will give the most temperate and disguised measures so that the effect is achieved, without the care being noticed". From there, actions in the service of assimilation, discreet or aggressive, were continued, and reached to the last detail, such as, in 1799, the Royal Certificate forbidding anyone to "represent, sing and dance pieces that were not in Spanish". The use of Spanish gradually became more prestigious and marked the start of the decline of Catalan. Starting in the 16th century, Catalan literature came under the influence of Spanish, and the nobles, part of the urban and literary classes became bilingual.

France

With the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Spain ceded the northern part of the Principality of Catalonia to France, and soon thereafter the local Catalan varieties came under the influence of French, which in 1700 became the sole official language of the region.
Shortly after the French Revolution, the French First Republic prohibited official use of, and enacted discriminating policies against, the regional languages of France, such as Catalan, Alsatian, Breton, Occitan, Flemish, and Basque.

France: 19th to 20th century

After the French colony of Algeria was established in 1830, many Catalan-speaking settlers moved there. People from the Spanish province of Alicante settled around Oran, while those from French Catalonia and Menorca migrated to Algiers.
By 1911, there were around 100,000 speakers of Patuet, as their speech was called. After the Algerian declaration of independence in 1962, almost all the Pied-Noir Catalan speakers fled to Northern Catalonia or Alicante.
The French government only recognizes French as an official language. Nevertheless, on 10 December 2007, the then General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan as one of the départment's languages and seeks to further promote it in public life and education.

Spain: 18th to 20th century

In 1807, the Statistics Office of the French Ministry of the Interior asked the prefects for an official survey on the limits of the French language. The survey found that in Roussillon, almost only Catalan was spoken, and since Napoleon wanted to incorporate Catalonia into France, as happened in 1812, the consul in Barcelona was also asked. He declared that Catalan "is taught in schools, it is printed and spoken, not only among the lower class, but also among people of first quality, also in social gatherings, as in visits and congresses", indicating that it was spoken everywhere "with the exception of the royal courts". He also indicated that Catalan was spoken "in the Kingdom of Valencia, in the islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Sardinia, Corsica and much of Sicily, in the Vall d "Aran and Cerdaña".
The defeat of the pro-Habsburg coalition in the War of the Spanish Succession initiated a series of laws which, among other centralizing measures, imposed the use of Spanish in legal documentation all over Spain. Because of this, use of the Catalan language declined into the 18th century.
However, the 19th century saw a Catalan literary revival, which has continued up to the present day. This period starts with Aribau's Ode to the Homeland ; followed in the second half of the 19th century, and the early 20th by the work of Verdaguer, Oller, and Guimerà. In the 19th century, the region of Carche, in the province of Murcia was repopulated with Valencian speakers. Catalan spelling was standardized in 1913 and the language became official during the Second Spanish Republic. The Second Spanish Republic saw a brief period of tolerance, with most restrictions against Catalan lifted. The Generalitat made a normal use of Catalan in its administration and put efforts to promote it at the social level, including in schools and the University of Barcelona.
The Catalan language and culture were still vibrant during the Spanish Civil War, but were crushed at an unprecedented level throughout the subsequent decades due to Francoist dictatorship, which abolished the official status of Catalan and imposed the use of Spanish in schools and in public administration in all of Spain, while banning the use of Catalan in them. Between 1939 and 1943 newspapers and book printing in Catalan almost disappeared. Francisco Franco's desire for a homogeneous Spanish population resonated with some Catalans in favor of his regime, primarily members of the upper class, who began to reject the use of Catalan. Despite all of these hardships, Catalan continued to be used privately within households, and it was able to survive Franco's dictatorship. At the end of World War II, however, some of the harsh measures began to be lifted and, while Spanish language remained the sole promoted one, limited number of Catalan literature began to be tolerated. Several prominent Catalan authors resisted the suppression through literature. Private initiative contests were created to reward works in Catalan, among them Joan Martorell prize, Víctor Català prize Carles Riba award, or the Honor Award of Catalan Letters. The first Catalan-language TV show was broadcast in 1964. At the same time, oppression of the Catalan language and identity was carried out in schools, through governmental bodies, and in religious centers.
In addition to the loss of prestige for Catalan and its prohibition in schools, migration during the 1950s into Catalonia from other parts of Spain also contributed to the diminished use of the language. These migrants were often unaware of the existence of Catalan, and thus felt no need to learn or use it. Catalonia was the economic powerhouse of Spain, so these migrations continued to occur from all corners of the country. Employment opportunities were reduced for those who were not bilingual. Daily newspapers remained exclusively in Spanish until after Franco's death, when the first one in Catalan since the end of the Civil War, Avui, began to be published in 1976.

Present day

Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalan has been institutionalized as an official language, language of education, and language of mass media; all of which have contributed to its increased prestige. In Catalonia, there is an unparalleled large bilingual European non-state linguistic community. The teaching of Catalan is mandatory in all schools, but it is possible to use Spanish for studying in the public education system of Catalonia in two situations—if the teacher assigned to a class chooses to use Spanish, or during the learning process of one or more recently arrived immigrant students. There is also some intergenerational shift towards Catalan.
More recently, several Spanish political forces have tried to increase the use of Spanish in the Catalan educational system. As a result, in May 2022 the Spanish Supreme Court urged the Catalan regional government to enforce a measure by which 25% of all lessons must be taught in Spanish.
According to the Statistical Institute of Catalonia, in 2013 the Catalan language is the second most commonly used in Catalonia, after Spanish, as a native or self-defining language: 7% of the population self-identifies with both Catalan and Spanish equally, 36.4% with Catalan and 47.5% only Spanish. In 2003 the same studies concluded no language preference for self-identification within the population above 15 years old: 5% self-identified with both languages, 44.3% with Catalan and 47.5% with Spanish. To promote use of Catalan, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories, with entities such as .
In Andorra, Catalan has always been the sole official language. Since the promulgation of the 1993 constitution, several policies favoring Catalan have been enforced, such as Catalan medium education.
On the other hand, there are several language shift processes currently taking place. In the Northern Catalonia area of France, Catalan has followed the same trend as the other minority languages of France, with most of its native speakers being 60 or older. Catalan is studied as a foreign language by 30% of the primary education students, and by 15% of the secondary. The cultural association La Bressola promotes a network of community-run schools engaged in Catalan language immersion programs.
In Alicante province, Catalan is being replaced by Spanish and in Alghero by Italian. There is also well ingrained diglossia in the Valencian Community, Ibiza, and to a lesser extent, in the rest of the Balearic islands.
During the 20th century many Catalans emigrated or went into exile to Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and other South American countries. They formed a large number of Catalan colonies that today continue to maintain the Catalan language. They also founded many Catalan casals.

Classification and relationship with other Romance languages

One classification of Catalan is given by Pèire Bèc:
However, the ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists and philologists, particularly among Spanish ones, such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal.
Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to the linguistic varieties subsumed under the cover term Occitan language. Thus, as it should be expected from closely related languages, Catalan today shares many traits with other Romance languages.

Relationship with other Romance languages

Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative.
Catalan shares many traits with the other neighboring Romance languages. However, despite being spoken mostly on the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Iberian Romance group in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; it shows instead its closest affinity with languages native to France and northern Italy, particularly Occitan and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance.
According to Ethnologue, the lexical similarity between Catalan and other Romance languages is: 87% with Italian; 85% with Portuguese and Spanish; 76% with Ladin and Romansh; 75% with Sardinian; and 73% with Romanian.
GlossCatalanOccitan
Sardinian		ItalianFrenchSpanishPortugueseRomanian
cousincosícosinfradilicuginocousinprimoprimo, coirmãovăr
brothergermàfrairefradifratellofrèrehermanoirmãofrate
nephewnebotnebotnebodinipoteneveusobrinosobrinhonepot
summerestiuestiuistadiestateétéverano, estíoverão, estiovară
eveningvespreser, vèspreseruserasoirtarde, nochetarde, serãoseară
morningmatímatinmangianumattinamatinmañanamanhã, matinadimineață
frying panpaellapadenapaellapadellapoêlesarténfrigideira, fritadeiratigaie
bedllitlièch letulettolitcama, lechocama, leitopat
birdocell, auaucèlpilloniuccellooiseauave, pájaroave, pássaropasăre
doggos, cagos, canhcanicanechienperro, cancão, cachorrocâine
plumprunaprunaprunaprugnapruneciruelaameixaprună
buttermantegabodreburru
burrobeurremantequilla
manteigaunt
piecetrostròç, petaçarrogupezzomorceau, piècepedazo, trozopedaço, bocadobucată
graygrisgriscanugrigiogrisgris, pardocinzento, grisgri, sur, cenușiu
hotcalentcaudcallenticaldochaudcalientequentecald
too muchmassatròptroputroppotropdemasiadodemais, demasiadoprea
to wantvolervòlerbollivolerevouloirquererquerera vrea
to takeprendreprendre
pigaiprendereprendretomar, prenderapanhar, levara lua
to praypregar, resar, orarpregarpregaipregareprierorar, rezarorar, rezar, pregara se ruga
to askdemanar / preguntardemandardimandai, preguntaidomandaredemanderpedir, preguntarpedir, perguntara cere, a întreba
to searchcercar / buscarcercarcircaicercarechercherbuscarprocurar, buscara căuta
to arrivearribararribararribaiarrivarearriverllegar, arribarchegara ajunge
to speakparlarparlarchistionnai, fueddaiparlareparlerhablar, parlarfalar, parlara vorbi
to eatmenjarmanjarpappaimangiaremangercomer
comer, manjar
a mânca

During much of its history, and especially during the Francoist dictatorship, the Catalan language was ridiculed as a mere dialect of Spanish. This view, based on political and ideological considerations, has no linguistic validity. Spanish and Catalan have important differences in their sound systems, lexicon, and grammatical features, placing the language in features closer to Occitan.
There is evidence that, at least from the 2nd century AD, the vocabulary and phonology of Roman Tarraconensis was different from the rest of Roman Hispania. Differentiation arose generally because Spanish, Asturian, and Galician-Portuguese share certain peripheral archaisms and innovatory regionalisms, while Catalan has a shared history with the Western Romance innovative core, especially Occitan.
LatinCatalanSpanish
"to bring closer"' "to put to bed"
"to remove;
wake up"		' "to take"
"to remove"' "to bring"
"to search"' "to fence"
"to bury"' "to hang"
"wife"' "woman or wife"

Like all Romance languages, Catalan has a handful of native words which are unique to it, or rare elsewhere. These include:
  • verbs: 'to fasten; transfix' > confegir 'to compose, write up', > conjuminar 'to combine, conjugate', > deixondar/-ir 'to wake; awaken', 'to thicken; crowd together' > desar 'to save, keep', > enyorar 'to miss, yearn, pine for', 'to investigate, track' > Old Catalan enagar 'to incite, induce', > Old Catalan ujar 'to exhaust, fatigue', > apaivagar 'to appease, mollify', > rebutjar 'to reject, refuse';
  • nouns: > brisa 'pomace', > boga 'reedmace', > cadarn 'catarrh', > congesta 'snowdrift', > deler 'ardor, passion', > freu 'brake', > llau 'avalanche', > vora 'edge, border', 'sawfish' > pestriu > pestiu 'thresher shark, smooth hound; ray', 'live coal' > espurna 'spark', > tardaó > tardor 'autumn'.
The Gothic superstrate produced different outcomes in Spanish and Catalan. For example, Catalan "mud" and "to roast", of Germanic origin, contrast with Spanish and, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan "spinning wheel" and "temple", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish and, of Germanic origin.
The same happens with Arabic loanwords. Thus, Catalan alfàbia "large earthenware jar" and "tile", of Arabic origin, contrast with Spanish and, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan "oil" and "olive", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish and. However, the Arabic element is generally much more prevalent in Spanish.
Situated between two large linguistic blocks, Catalan has many unique lexical choices, such as "to miss somebody", "to calm somebody down", and "reject".

Geographic distribution

Catalan-speaking territories

Traditionally Catalan-speaking territories are sometimes called the Països Catalans, a denomination based on cultural affinity and common heritage, that has also had a subsequent political interpretation but no official status. Various interpretations of the term may include some or all of these regions.

Number of speakers

The number of people known to be fluent in Catalan varies depending on the sources used. A 2004 study did not count the total number of speakers, but estimated a total of 9–9.5 million by matching the percentage of speakers to the population of each area where Catalan is spoken. The web site of the Generalitat de Catalunya estimated that as of 2004 there were 9,118,882 speakers of Catalan. These figures only reflect potential speakers; today it is the native language of only 35.6% of the Catalan population. According to Ethnologue, Catalan had 4.1 million native speakers and 5.1 million second-language speakers in 2021.
According to a 2011 study the total number of Catalan speakers was over 9.8 million, with 5.9 million residing in Catalonia. More than half of them spoke Catalan as a second language, with native speakers being about 4.4 million of those. Very few Catalan monoglots exist; virtually all of the Catalan speakers in Spain are bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish, with 99.7% of Catalan speakers in Catalonia able to speak Spanish and 99.9% able to understand it.
In Roussillon, only a minority of French Catalans speak Catalan nowadays, with French being the majority language for the inhabitants after a continued process of language shift. According to a 2019 survey by the Catalan government, 31.5% of the inhabitants of Catalonia predominantly spoke Catalan at home whereas 52.7% spoke Spanish, 2.8% both Catalan and Spanish and 10.8% other languages.
Spanish was the most spoken language in Barcelona and it is understood almost universally. According to 2013 census, Catalan was also very commonly spoken in the city of 1,501,262: it was understood by 95% of the population, while 72.3% over the age of two could speak it, 79% could read it, and 53% could write it. The share of Barcelona residents who could speak it was lower than that of the overall Catalan population, of whom 81.2% over the age of 15 spoke the language. Knowledge of Catalan has increased significantly in recent decades thanks to a language immersion educational system. An important social characteristic of the Catalan language is that all the areas where it is spoken are bilingual in practice: together with French in Roussillon, with Italian in Alghero, with Spanish and French in Andorra, and with Spanish in the rest of the territories.

Level of knowledge

.

Social use

.

Native language

To calculate the absolute number the figures have been proportioned to the whole population regardless of the age, rounded to the nearest 500.
AreaPeoplePercentageYearSource
Catalonia3,101,50040.6%2021
Valencian Community1,271,00025.4%2021
Balearic Islands401,50033.2%2021
Aragon29,5002.5%2021
Rest of Spain80,5000.3%2021
Andorra35,00044.1%2022
Roussillon60,00012.7%2015
Alghero10,50024.1%2015
TOTAL4,989,500

Phonology

Catalan phonology varies by dialect. Notable features include:
In contrast to other Romance languages, Catalan has many monosyllabic words, and these may end in a wide variety of consonants, including some consonant clusters. Additionally, Catalan has final obstruent devoicing, which gives rise to an abundance of such couplets as amic vs. amiga.
Central Catalan pronunciation is considered to be standard for the language. The descriptions below are mostly representative of this variety. For the differences in pronunciation between the different dialects, see the section on pronunciation of dialects in this article.

Vowels

Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes:, a common feature in Western Romance, with the exception of Spanish. Balearic also has instances of stressed. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair.
In Central Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to three: ; ; remains distinct. The other dialects have different vowel reduction processes.

Consonants

The consonant system of Catalan is rather conservative.
  • has a velarized allophone in syllable coda position in most dialects. However, is velarized irrespective of position in Eastern dialects such as Majorcan and standard Eastern Catalan.
  • occurs in Balearic, Algherese, standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia. It has merged with elsewhere.
  • The velar nasal /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ before /g/ or /k/. However, it has become phonemic in Central dialects that delete the final element of word-final consonant clusters, resulting in minimal pairs such as fan and fang .
  • In Valencian, the fricative appears only as a voiced allophone of /ʃ/ before vowels and voiced consonants; e.g. peix al forn . The /ʒ/ phoneme in other Catalan dialects is pronounced /dʒ/ in standard Valencian.
  • Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing:.
  • Voiced stops become lenited to approximants in syllable onsets, after continuants: >, >, >. Exceptions include after lateral consonants, and after. In coda position, these sounds are realized as stops, except in some Valencian dialects where they are lenited.
  • There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of,,,. Some sources describe them as "postalveolar". Others as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters would be more accurate. However, in all literature only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use for other languages such as Polish and Chinese.
  • The distribution of the two rhotics and closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast, but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset of the first syllable in a word, appears unless preceded by a consonant. Dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring and Central Catalan dialects featuring a weakly trilled unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case appears.
  • In careful speech,,, may be geminated. Geminated may also occur. Some analyze intervocalic as the result of gemination of a single rhotic phoneme. This is similar to the common analysis of Spanish and Portuguese rhotics.

    Phonological evolution

Catalan shares features with neighboring Romance languages.
  • Marked contrast of the vowel pairs and, as in other Western Romance languages, except Spanish and Sardinian.
  • Lenition of voiced stops as in Galician and Spanish.
  • Lack of diphthongization of Latin short ĕ, ŏ, as in Galician, Sardinian and Portuguese, and unlike French, Spanish and Italian.
  • Abundance of diphthongs containing, as in Galician and Portuguese.
  • Abundance of and occurring at the end of words, as for instance and , unlike Spanish, Portuguese or Italian.
In contrast with other Romance languages, Catalan has many monosyllabic words; and those ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters. Also, Catalan has final obstruent devoicing, thus featuring many couplets like amic vs. amiga.

Sociolinguistics

Catalan sociolinguistics studies the situation of Catalan in the world and the different varieties that this language presents. It is a subdiscipline of Catalan philology and other affine studies and has as an objective to analyze the relation between the Catalan language, the speakers and the close reality.

Preferential subjects of study

  • Dialects of Catalan
  • Variations of Catalan by class, gender, profession, age and level of studies
  • Process of linguistic normalization
  • Relations between Catalan and Spanish or French
  • Perception on the language of Catalan speakers and non-speakers
  • Presence of Catalan in several fields: tagging, public function, media, professional sectors

    Dialects

Overview

The dialects of the Catalan language feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between dialects is very high, estimates ranging from 90% to 95%. The only exception is the isolated idiosyncratic Algherese dialect.
Catalan is split in two major dialectal blocks: Eastern and Western. The main difference lies in the treatment of unstressed a and e; which have merged to in Eastern dialects, but which remain distinct as and in Western dialects. There are a few other differences in pronunciation, verbal morphology, and vocabulary.
Western Catalan comprises the two dialects of North-Western Catalan and Valencian; the Eastern block comprises four dialects: Central Catalan, Balearic, Roussillonese, and Algherese. Each dialect can be further subdivided in several subdialects. The terms "Catalan" and "Valencian" refer to two varieties of the same language. There are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community.
Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language and has the largest number of speakers. It is spoken in the densely populated regions of the Barcelona province, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona, and most of the province of Girona.
Catalan has an inflectional grammar. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers. Pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and gender. In terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages.

Pronunciation

Vowels

Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes:, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair.
In Eastern Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to three: ; ; remains distinct. There are a few instances of unreduced, in some words. Algherese has lowered to.
In Majorcan, unstressed vowels reduce to four: follow the Eastern Catalan reduction pattern; however reduce to, with remaining distinct, as in Western Catalan.
In Western Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to five: ; ; remain distinct. This reduction pattern, inherited from Proto-Romance, is also found in Italian and Portuguese. Some Western dialects present further reduction or vowel harmony in some cases.
Central, Western, and Balearic differ in the lexical incidence of stressed and. Usually, words with in Central Catalan correspond to in Balearic and in Western Catalan. Words with in Balearic almost always have in Central and Western Catalan as well. As a result, Central Catalan has a much higher incidence of.

Consonants

Catalan dialects are characterized by final-obstruent devoicing, lenition and voicing assimilation. Additionally, many dialects contrast two rhotics and two laterals.
Most Catalan dialects are also renowned by the usage of dark l, which is especially noticeable in syllable final position, in comparison to neighbouring languages, such as Spanish, Italian and French.
There is dialectal variation in regard to:
Western Catalan: In verbs, the ending for 1st-person present indicative is -e in verbs of the 1st conjugation and -∅ in verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugations in most of the Valencian Community, or -o in all verb conjugations in the Northern Valencian Community and Western Catalonia.
E.g. parle, tem, sent ; parlo, temo, sento.
Eastern Catalan: In verbs, the ending for 1st-person present indicative is -o, -i, or -∅ in all conjugations.
E.g. parlo, parl, and parli, all meaning.
Western Catalan: In verbs, the inchoative endings are -isc/-esc, -ix, -ixen, -isca/-esca.
Eastern Catalan: In verbs, the inchoative endings are -eixo, -eix, -eixen, -eixi.
Western Catalan: In nouns and adjectives, maintenance of of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words.
E.g. hòmens 'men', jóvens 'youth'.
Eastern Catalan: In nouns and adjectives, loss of of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words.
E.g. homes 'men', joves 'youth'.

Vocabulary

Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.
Gloss"mirror""boy""broom""navel""to exit"
Eastern Catalanmirallnoiescombrallombrígolsortir
Western Catalanespillxiquetgranerameliceixir

Standards

Catalan Valencian gloss
anglèsanglésEnglish
conèixerconéixerto know
treuretrauretake out
néixernàixerto be born
càntircànterpitcher
rodóredóround
mevameuamy, mine
ametllaametlaalmond
estrellaestrelastar
copcolphit
llagostallangostalobster
homeshòmensmen
serveiserviciservice

Standard Catalan, virtually accepted by all speakers, is mostly based on Eastern Catalan, which is the most widely used dialect. Nevertheless, the standards of the Valencian Community and the Balearics admit alternative forms, mostly traditional ones, which are not current in eastern Catalonia.
The most notable difference between both standards is some tonic accentuation, for instance: francès, anglès – francés, anglés. Nevertheless, AVL's standard keeps the grave accent, while pronouncing it as rather than, in some words such as: què, or València. Other divergences include the use of in some words instead of like in ametla/ametlla, espatla/espatlla, the use of elided demonstratives in the same level as reinforced ones or the use of many verbal forms common in Valencian, and some of these common in the rest of Western Catalan too, such as subjunctive mood or inchoative conjugation in -ix- at the same level as -eix- or the priority use of -e morpheme in 1st person singular in present indicative : jo compre instead of jo compro.
In the Balearic Islands, IEC's standard is used but adapted for the Balearic dialect by the University of the Balearic Islands's philological section. In this way, for instance, IEC says it is correct writing cantam as much as cantem, but the university says that the priority form in the Balearic Islands must be cantam in all fields. Another feature of the Balearic standard is the non-ending in the 1st person singular present indicative: jo compr, jo tem, jo dorm.
In Alghero, the IEC has adapted its standard to the Algherese dialect. In this standard one can find, among other features: the definite article lo instead of el, special possessive pronouns and determinants la mia, lo sou/la sua, lo tou/la tua, and so on, the use of -v- in the imperfect tense in all conjugations: cantava, creixiva, llegiva; the use of many archaic words, usual words in Algherese: manco instead of menys, calqui u instead of algú, qual/quala instead of quin/quina, and so on; and the adaptation of weak pronouns. In 1999, Catalan was among the twelve minority languages officially recognized as Italy's "historical linguistic minorities" by the Italian State under Law No. 482/1999.
In 2011, the Aragonese government passed a decree approving the statutes of a new language regulator of Catalan in La Franja as originally provided for by Law 10/2009. The new entity, designated as Institut Aragonès del Català, shall allow a facultative education in Catalan and a standardization of the Catalan language in La Franja.

Status of Valencian

Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the North-Western varieties spoken in Western Catalonia. Central Catalan has 90% to 95% inherent intelligibility for speakers of Valencian.
Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian Community, the Valencian Academy of Language declares the linguistic unity between Valencian and Catalan varieties.
The AVL, created by the Valencian parliament, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian, and its standard is based on the Norms of Castelló. Currently, everyone who writes in Valencian uses this standard, except the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture, which uses an independent standard for Valencian.
Despite the position of the official organizations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority of the Valencian people consider Valencian different from Catalan. This position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicates that younger generations educated in Valencian are much less likely to hold these views. A minority of Valencian scholars active in fields other than linguistics defends the position of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture, which uses for Valencian a standard independent from Catalan.
This clash of opinions has sparked much controversy. For example, during the drafting of the European Constitution in 2004, the Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Galician, Catalan, and Valencian, but the latter two were identical.

Vocabulary

Word choices

Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.
Literary Catalan allows the use of words from different dialects, except those of very restricted use. However, from the 19th century onwards, there has been a tendency towards favoring words of Northern dialects to the detriment of others.

Latin and Greek loanwords

Like other languages, Catalan has a large list of loanwords from Greek and Latin. This process started very early, and one can find such examples in Ramon Llull's work. In the 14th and 15th centuries Catalan had a far greater number of Greco-Latin loanwords than other Romance languages, as is attested for example in Roís de Corella's writings. The incorporation of learned, or "bookish" words from its own ancestor language, Latin, into Catalan is arguably another form of lexical borrowing through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period, most literate Catalan speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Catalan.

Word formation

The process of morphological derivation in Catalan follows the same principles as the other Romance languages, where inflection is common. Many times, several affixes are appended to a preexisting lexeme, and some sound alternations can occur, for example elèctric vs. electricitat. Prefixes are usually appended to verbs, as in preveure.
There is greater regularity in the process of word-compounding, where one can find compounded words formed much like those in English.
TypeExampleGloss
two nouns, the second assimilated to the firstpaper moneda"banknote paper"
noun delimited by an adjectiveestat major"military staff"
noun delimited by another noun and a prepositionmàquina d'escriure"typewriter"
verb radical with a nominal objectparacaigudes"parachute"
noun delimited by an adjective, with adjectival valuepit-roig"robin"

Writing system

Catalan uses the Latin script, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan orthography is systematic and largely phonologically based. Standardization of Catalan was among the topics discussed during the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. In 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló de la Plana to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló, a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms.
NotesExamples
c before i and e
corresponds to ç in other contexts		feliç vs. felices
caço vs. caces
g before e and i
corresponds to j in other positions		envejar vs. envegen
gfinal g before i and final ig before other vowels are pronounced
corresponds to j~g or tj~tg in other positions		desig vs. desitjar vs. desitgem, exception: càstig, pronounced with
boig vs. boja vs. boges
gu before e and i
corresponds to g in other positions		botiga vs. botigues
gü before e and i
corresponds to gu in other positions		llengua vs. llengües
qu before e and i
corresponds to c in other positions		vaca vs. vaques
qü before e and i
corresponds to qu in other positions		obliqua vs. obliqües
x initially and in onsets after a consonant; after i
between vowels and syllable final
between vowels and syllable final before voiced consonants		xinxa, guix
taxi, fixar, extra
exacte, exdirector

Grammar

The grammar of Catalan is similar to other Romance languages. Features include:

In gender inflection, the most notable feature is, the loss of the typical masculine suffix -o. Thus, the alternance of -o/-a, has been replaced by ø/-a. There are only a few exceptions, such as minso/minsa. Many not completely predictable morphological alternations may occur, such as:
  • Affrication: boig/boja vs. lleig/lletja
  • Loss of n: pla/plana vs. segon/segona
  • Final obstruent devoicing: sentit/sentida vs. dit/dita
Catalan has few suppletive couplets, like Italian and Spanish, and unlike French. Thus, Catalan has noi/noia and gall/gallina, whereas French has garçon/fille and coq/poule.
There is a tendency to abandon traditionally gender-invariable adjectives in favor of marked ones, something prevalent in Occitan and French. Thus, one can find bullent/bullenta in contrast with traditional bullent/bullent.
As in the other Western Romance languages, the main plural expression is the suffix -s, which may create morphological alternations similar to the ones found in gender inflection, albeit more rarely. The most important one is the addition of -o- before certain consonant groups, a phonetic phenomenon that does not affect feminine forms: el pols/els polsos vs. la pols/les pols.

Determiners

The inflection of determinatives is complex, specially because of the high number of elisions, but is similar to the neighboring languages. Catalan has more contractions of preposition + article than Spanish, such as dels, but not as many as Italian.
Central Catalan has abandoned almost completely unstressed possessives in favor of constructions of article + stressed forms, a feature shared with Italian.

Personal pronouns

The morphology of Catalan personal pronouns is complex, especially in unstressed forms, which are numerous. Features include the gender-neutral ho and the great degree of freedom when combining different unstressed pronouns.
Catalan pronouns exhibit T–V distinction, like all other Romance languages. This feature implies the use of a different set of second person pronouns for formality.
This flexibility allows Catalan to use extraposition extensively, much more than French or Spanish. Thus, Catalan can have m'hi recomanaren, whereas in French one must say ils m'ont recommandé à lui, and Spanish me recomendaron a él. This allows the placement of almost any nominal term as a sentence topic, without having to use so often the passive voice, or identifying the direct object with a preposition.

Verbs

Like all the Romance languages, Catalan verbal inflection is more complex than the nominal. Suffixation is omnipresent, whereas morphological alternations play a secondary role. Vowel alternances are active, as well as infixation and suppletion. However, these are not as productive as in Spanish, and are mostly restricted to irregular verbs.
The Catalan verbal system is basically common to all Western Romance, except that most dialects have replaced the synthetic indicative perfect with a periphrastic form of anar + infinitive.
Catalan verbs are traditionally divided into three conjugations, with vowel themes -a-, -e-, -i-, the last two being split into two subtypes. However, this division is mostly theoretical. Only the first conjugation is nowadays productive, whereas the third is semiproductive. The verbs of the second conjugation are fewer than 100, and it is not possible to create new ones, except by compounding.

Syntax

The grammar of Catalan follows the general pattern of Western Romance languages. The primary word order is subject–verb–object. However, word order is very flexible. Commonly, verb-subject constructions are used to achieve a semantic effect. The sentence "The train has arrived" could be translated as Ha arribat el tren or El tren ha arribat. Both sentences mean "the train has arrived", but the former puts a focus on the train, while the latter puts a focus on the arrival. This subtle distinction is described as "what you might say while waiting in the station" versus "what you might say on the train".

Catalan names

In Spain, every person officially has two surnames, one of which is the father's first surname and the other is the mother's first surname. The law contemplates the possibility of joining both surnames with the Catalan conjunction i.

Sample text

Selected text from Manuel de Pedrolo's 1970 novel Un amor fora ciutat.

Works cited

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