Name	Catalan, Valencian
Nativename	català, valencià
Pronunciation	or
Familycolor	Indo-European
States
Speakers	11.5 million (2006)
Fam2	Italic
Fam3	Romance
Fam4	Italo-Western
Fam5	Western Romance
Fam6	Gallo-Iberian
Fam7	Gallo-Romance
Fam8	Occitano-Romance
Stand1	Catalan
Stand2	Valencian
Script	Catalan alphabet (Latin script)
Nation	AndorraSpain: Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands.Italy: AlgheroLatin Union
Agency	Institut d'Estudis CatalansAcadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaAcadèmia Aragonesa del Català
Iso1	ca|iso2=cat|iso3=cat|lingua=51-AAA-e
Map	Global Catalan Countries.svg
Notice	IPA}}

Catalan (, , ; Catalan: català, or ) is a Romance language, the national and the only official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian (valencià, ), as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken, with no official recognition, in the autonomous communities of Aragon (in La Franja) and Murcia (in Carche) in Spain, and in the historic Roussillon region of southern France, roughly equivalent to the current département of the Pyrénées-Orientales (Northern Catalonia).

Although recognized as a regional language of the department Pyrénées-Orientales since 2007, Catalan has no official recognition in France, as French is the only official language of that country, according to the French Constitution of 1958.

History

Middle Ages: origin

The Catalan language developed from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern end of the Pyrenees mountains (counties of Rosselló, Empúries, Besalú, Cerdanya, Urgell, Pallars and Ribagorça). It shares origin and features with Gallo-Romance, Ibero-Romance, and the Gallo-Italian speech types of Northern Italy. Though some hypothesize a historical split from languages of Occitan typology, the area from Liguria on the present Italian coast to Alicante in Spain can be viewed as a classic dialect continuum, with some perturbation as a result of political divisions and overlay of standard national languages.

As a consequence of the Aragonese and Catalan conquests from Al-Andalus to the south and to the west, it spread to present-day Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and most of the Valencian Community.

In the 15th century, during the Valencian Golden Age, Catalan literature reached its apex, which was not matched again until La Renaixença, 4 centuries later.

18th century to the present: France

After the Treaty of the Pyrenees, a royal decree by Louis XIV of France on 2 April 1700, prohibited the use of Catalan language in present-day Northern Catalonia in all official documents under the threat of being invalidated.

Right after the Kingdom of France, the centralized French Republic prohibited official use of, and enacted discriminating policies against, the nonstandard languages of France (patois); such as Catalan, Breton, Occitan and Basque.

The deliberate process of eradicating non-French vernaculars in modern France and disparaging them as mere local and often strictly oral dialects was formalized with Abbé Grégoire's Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language, which he presented on June 4, 1794 to the National Convention; thereafter, all languages other than French were officially banned in the administration and schools for the sake of linguistically uniting post-Bastille Day France.

Up to this day, France does not recognize other official languages besides French. Nevertheless, on 10 December 2007, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan as one of the languages of the department in the Article 1 (a) of its Charte en faveur du Catalan and seek to further promote it in public life and education.

:Article 1: "The General Council of Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognizes, along with the French language, Catalan as a language of the department. :()."

18th century to the present: Spain

After the Nueva Planta Decrees, administrative use of Catalan, and Catalan language education was also banned in the territories of the Kingdom of Spain. It was not until the Renaixença that use of the Catalan language started to recover.

In Francoist Spain (1939–1975), the use of Spanish in place of Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was initially repressed and discouraged by official propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned. During later stages of the Francoist regime, certain folkloric or religious celebrations in Catalan were resumed and tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media was initially forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s in the theatre. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship. There was no official prohibition of speaking Catalan in public or in commerce, but all advertising and signage had to be in Spanish alone, as did all written communication in business.

Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy, the use of Catalan increased significantly because of new affirmative action and subsidy policies and the Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the media, including the newspapers Avui ("Today"), El Punt ("The Point"), Ara ("Now"), La Vanguardia and El Periódico de Catalunya (sharing content with El Periòdic d'Andorra, printed in Andorra); and the television channels of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC): TV3, the main channel, and Canal 33 (culture channel), Super3/3XL (cartoons channel) as well as a 24-hour news channel 3/24 and the sports channel Esport 3; in Valencia Canal 9, 24/9 and Punt 2; in the Balearic islands IB3; in Catalonia there are also some private channels such as 8TV and Barça TV. Furthermore, everywhere in the Catalan-speaking territories, there are local channels available in Catalan.

Classification

The ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists, particularly those from Spanish-speaking areas; furthermore, many modern linguists consider any internal classification of the Romance languages a pointless task.

According to Pierre Bec, its specific classification is as follows:

Indo-European languages

*Italic languages

**Romance languages

***Italo-Western languages

****Western Romance languages

*****Gallo-Iberian languages

******Gallo-Romance languages (alternatively classified as an Ibero-Romance language)

*******Occitano-Romance languages (alternatively classified as an East Iberian language)

********Catalan language

Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to the linguistic varieties subsumed under the cover term Occitan language (see also differences between Occitan and Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages). Thus, as it should be expected from closely related languages, Catalan today shares many traits with other Romance languages.

Geographic distribution

Catalan-speaking territories

Catalan is spoken in:

Andorra (Principat d'Andorra), a sovereign state where Catalan is the national and only official language.

Catalonia (Catalunya), in Spain.

Most of the Valencian Community (Comunitat Valenciana, also known as País Valencià), in Spain, where it is called Valencian (valencià).

La Franja, an adjacent strip of Aragon, in Spain (in particular the comarques of Ribagorça, Llitera, Baix Cinca, and Matarranya).

Balearic Islands (Illes Balears), in Spain.

Northern Catalonia (Catalunya Nord: name used officially for the first time on 10 December 2007 by the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales), in France.

The city of Alghero (L'Alguer) in Sardinia, Italy.

A small region of Murcia, Spain, known as Carche (El Carxe).

These territories are sometimes referred to as the Països Catalans (Catalan Countries), 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 Catalan speakers

The number of persons fluent in Catalan varies depending on the sources used. The 2004 language study cited below in this article does not indicate the total number of speakers, but an estimate of 9-9.5 million can be made, by matching the percentage of speakers to the population of each area where Catalan is spoken ("Sociolinguistic Situation in Catalan-speaking Areas." cited in the Section, External Links, of this article). The web site of the Generalitat de Catalunya gives the number, as of June 2007, as 9,118,882 speakers of Catalan. And according to Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Catalan has a total of 11,530,160 speakers.

SpainSpainFranceAndorraSpainItalySpain

Territory !! State !! Understand !! Can speak
	Spain	6,502,880
	|	3,448,780	2,407,951
	|	852,780	706,065
Northern Catalonia	|	203,121	125,621
	|	75,407	61,975
La Franja (Aragon)	|	47,250	45,000
Alghero (Sardinia)	|	20,000	17,625
Carche (Region of Murcia	Murcia)	|	No data	No data
colspan=2	Total Catalan-speaking territories	11,150,218
colspan=2	Rest of World	No data
colspan=2	Total	11,150,218

:Notes: :1. The number of people who understand Catalan includes those who can speak it. :2. Figures relate to all self-declared capable speakers, not just native speakers.

Dialects

In 1861, Manuel Milà i Fontanals proposed a division of Catalan into two major dialect blocks: Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan. The different Catalan dialects show deep differences in lexicon, grammar, morphology and pronunciation due to historical isolation. Each dialect also encompasses several regional varieties.

There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect and another because there is nearly always a transition zone of some size between pairs of geographically separated dialects (except for dialects specific to an island). The main difference between the two blocks is their treatment of unstressed vowels, in addition to a few other features:

Eastern Catalan (bloc or branca del català oriental):

Latin long and short have become ; e.g. sec 'dry' (though in most of Balearic Catalan it has become a stressed ; e.g. sec , while in Alguerese; sec ).

The vowels , and reduce to when unstressed, and , and reduce to , while stays unchanged (in most of Majorcan, also appears in unstressed position).

Initial or post-consonantal ‹x› is the fricative . Between vowels or when final and preceded by ‹i› it is also ; e.g. caixa ('box').

*1st person present indicative is -o, -i or there is no marker: parlo, temo, sento (Central Catalan); parl, tem, sent (Balearic) and parli, temi, senti (Northern Catalan).

*Inchoative verbs in -eixo, -eix, -eixen, -eixi.

The syllable beginning of medieval nasal plural is lost in words that were historically proparoxytonic: homes 'men', joves 'youth'.

*Specific lexicon: mirall 'mirror', noi 'boy', escombra 'broom', llombrígol 'navel/belly button', etc.

Western Catalan (bloc or branca del català occidental):

Latin long and short have become ; e.g. sec ('dry').

The vowels and reduce to when unstressed, and and reduce to , while , and stay unchanged. Distinction between unstressed ‹e› / ‹a› and ‹o› / ‹u› (though, in some subvarieties unstressed vowels may merge into different realizations in some instances).

Initial or post-consonantal ‹x› is affricated (however there are many unpredictable exceptions; e.g. Xàtiva 'Xàtiva', xarxa –also spelled xàrcia– 'net', xilòfon 'xilophone', etc. where it is a fricative ). Between vowels or when final and preceded by ‹i›, it is ; e.g. caixa ('box').

*1st person present indicative is -e (elided in verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugation) or -o: parle, tem, sent (Valencian); parlo, temo, sento (North-Western Catalan).

*Inchoative verbs in -isc/-ixo, -ix, -ixen, -isca.

*Maintenance of medieval nasal plural in historical proparoxytone words: hòmens 'men', jóvens 'youth'.

*Specific lexicon: espill 'mirror', xiquet 'boy', granera 'broom', melic 'navel/belly button', etc.

In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Catalan can be subdivided into two major dialect blocks and those blocks into individual dialects: {| border=0 cellspacing=10 cellpadding=10 |- | style="vertical-align:top; width:50%; background:#e7e7ff;"| Western Catalan

North-Western Catalan

* Ribagorçan -ribagorçà- (from Ribagorça)

* Pallarès (from Pallars)

* Lleidatà (from Lleida)

* Transitional Valencian -tortosí- (from Tortosa)

South-Western Catalan (Valencian)

* Northern Valencian -castellonenc- (from region of Plana)

* Central Valencian -apitxat-

* Southern Valencian

* Alacantí (from the Alicante/Alacant's metropolitan area and most of Vinalopó valley)

* Majorcan Valencian (from Tàrbena and La Vall de Gallinera)

| style="vertical-align:top; width:50%; background:#e7e7ff;"| Eastern Catalan

Northern Catalan -rossellonès- (from Roussillon)''

Central Catalan

* Salat (from some coastal areas of Girona)

* Barceloní (from Barcelona)

* Tarragoní (from Tarragona)

* Xipella (transitional Western–Eastern Catalan)

Balearic

* Majorcan -mallorquí- (from Majorca)

* Minorcan -menorquí- (from Minorca)

* Ibizan -eivissenc- (from Ibiza/Eivissa and Formentera)

Alguerese -alguerès/alguerés- (from the Italian Sardinian city of Alghero/L'Alguer)

| style="vertical-align:top; width:50%; background:#e7e7ff;"| |}

Standards

Catalan is a pluricentric language with two main standards; one regulated by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), general standard, with Pompeu Fabra's orthography as axis, keeping features from Central Catalan, and the other regulated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL), restricted scale standard, focused on Valencian standardization on the basis of Normes de Castelló, that is, Pompeu Fabra's orthography but more adapted to Western Catalan pronunciation and features of Valencian dialects.

IEC's standard, apart from the basis of Central Catalan features, takes also other dialects' features in consideration as standard. Despite this, the most notable difference between both standards is some tonic ‹e› accentuation, for instance: francès, anglès (IEC) – francés, anglés (AVL) ('French, English'), cafè (IEC) – café (AVL) ('coffee'), conèixer (IEC) – conéixer ('to know'), comprèn (IEC) – comprén (AVL) ('he understands'). This is because of the different pronunciation of some stressed ‹e›, especially tonic (long ‹ē›) and (short ‹ĭ›) from Latin, in both Catalan blocks ( in Eastern Catalan and in Western Catalan). Nevertheless, AVL's standard keeps the grave accent ‹è›, without pronouncing this ‹e› as , in some words like: què ('what'), València, èter ('ether'), sèsam ('sesame'), sèrie ('series') and època ('age').

There are also some other divergences like the digraph ‹tl› used by AVL in some words instead of ‹tll› like in ametla/ametlla ('almond'), espatla/espatlla ('back' an.) or butla/butlla ('bull'), the use of elided demonstratives (este 'this', eixe 'that' -near-) in the same level as reinforced ones (aquest, aqueix) or the use of many verbal forms common in Valencian, and some of these common in the rest of Western Catalan too, like 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 (-ar verbs): jo compre instead of jo compro ('I buy').

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, Govern de les Illes Balears's consultative organ. In this way, for instance, IEC says it is correct writing cantam as much as cantem ('we sing') 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 ('I buy'), jo tem ('I fear'), jo dorm ('I sleep').

In Alghero, the IEC has adapted its standard to the Alguerese dialect. In this standard one can find, among other features: the definite article lo instead of el, special possessive pronouns and determinants la mia ('mine'), lo sou/la sua ('his/her'), lo tou/la tua ('yours'), 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 Alguerese: manco instead of menys ('less'), calqui u instead of algú ('someone'), qual/quala instead of quin/quina ('which'), and so on; and the adaptation of weak pronouns.

In 2011, the Aragonese government passed a decree for the establishment of a new language regulator of Catalan in La Franja (the so-called Catalan-speaking areas of Aragon). The new entity, designated as Acadèmia Aragonesa del Català, shall allow a facultative education in Catalan and a standardization of the Catalan language in La Franja.

Status of Valencian

The official language academy of the Valencian Community (the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua) considers Catalan and Valencian simply to be two names for the same language. All universities teaching Romance languages, and virtually all linguists, consider these two to be linguistic variants of the same language (similar to Canadian French versus Metropolitan French, and European versus Brazilian Portuguese).

There is a roughly continuous set of dialects covering the regional forms of Catalan/Valencian, with no break at the border between Catalonia and the Valencian Community, and the various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible. This is not to say that there are no differences between them; the speech of Valencians is recognizable both in pronunciation as well as in morphological and lexical peculiarities. However, these differences are not any wider than among North-Western Catalan and Eastern Catalan. In fact, Northern Valencian (spoken in the Castelló province and Matarranya valley, a strip of Aragon) is more similar to the Catalan of the lower Ebro basin (spoken in southern half of Tarragona province and another strip of Aragon) than to apitxat Valencian (spoken in the area of L'Horta, in the province of Valencia).

What gets called a language (as opposed to a dialect) is defined partly by mutual comprehensibility as well as political and cultural factors. In this case, the perceived status of Valencian as a dialect of Catalan has historically had important political implications including Catalan nationalism and the idea of the Catalan Countries. Arguing that Valencian is a separate language may sometimes be part of an effort by Valencians to resist a perceived Catalan nationalist agenda aimed at incorporating Valencians into what they feel is a "constructed" nationality centered on Barcelona. As such, the issue of whether Catalan and Valencian constitute different languages or merely dialects has been the subject of adversarial discussions for over a century and political agitation several times since the end of the Franco era. The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of 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 Catalan and Valencian versions were identical. While professing the unity of the Catalan language, the Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community refers to the language as Valencian. In practice, the Catalan, Valencian, and Balearic versions of the EU constitution are identical: the government of Catalonia accepted the Valencian translation without any changes under the premise that the Valencian standard is accepted by the norms set forth by the IEC.

Catalan may be seen instead as a multi-centric language (much like English); there exist two standards, one regulated by the IEC, which is centered on Central Catalan (with slight variations to include Balearic verb inflection) and one regulated by the AVL, centered on Valencian.

The AVL accepts the conventions set forth in the Normes de Castelló as the normative spelling, shared with the IEC that allows for the diverse idiosyncrasies of the different language dialects and varieties. As the normative spelling, these conventions are used in education, and most contemporary Valencian writers make use of them. Nonetheless, a small minority mainly of those who advocate for the recognition of Valencian as a separate language, use in a non-normative manner an alternative spelling convention known as the Normes del Puig.

Vocabulary

The basic vocabulary shows more affinities with the Gallo-Romance group than with Ibero-Romance. These similarities are most notable with Occitan (examples below are from Languedocien).

> finestra 'window' (Oc. fenèstra/finèstra, Fr. fenêtre, It. finestra) vs > ventana (Sp.) vs > janela (Pt.) > menjar 'to eat' (Oc. manjar, Fr. manger, It. mangiare) vs > comer (Sp and Pt.) > matí 'morning' (Oc. matin, Fr. matin, It. mattino/mattina) vs > mañana (Sp.), manhã (Pt.) > parlar 'to speak' (Oc. parlar, Fr. parler, It. parlare) vs > hablar (Sp.), falar Pt.) > taula 'table' (Oc. taula, Fr. table, It. tavola) vs > mesa (Sp. and Pt.)

Writing system

The Catalan alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the basic Modern Latin alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y and Z. The letters K, W and Y are only used in loanwords, and in the case of Y also in the palatal digraph ‹ny›. Modified letters with diacritics include À, É, È, Í, Ï, Ó, Ò, Ú, Ü and Ç.

The Catalan spelling has a number of distinctive features. The graph ‹l·l› (named ela geminada 'geminate-l') is composed of an interpunct (or middot) between two ‹l› (e.g. intel·ligent 'intelligent', novel·la 'novel') and is used to distinguish phonetically from (written ‹ll› as in Spanish). Another special digraph is ‹ny› , found in Hungarian, Malay and in some African languages (e.g. banys 'baths'). Also of note is the final digraph ‹ig›, pronounced after a vowel (e.g. faig 'I do', maig 'May', raig 'ray', roig 'red', veig 'I see', puig 'hill') and after a consonant (e.g. mig 'half', desig 'desire'). The combination of ‹t› + nasal or lateral consonant is pronounced as a geminate of the second consonant: ‹tm› , ‹tn› , ‹tl› and ‹tll› (e.g. setmana 'week', cotna 'pork rind', Betlem 'Betlehem', bitllet 'bank note'), whereas ‹t› + sibilant consonant indicates affrication: ‹tx› , ‹ts› , ‹tz› , ‹tg› and ‹tj› (e.g. potser 'maybe', dotze 'twelve', jutge 'judge', platja 'beach'). Other digraphs are ‹rr› and ‹ss› .

Catalan spelling utilizes ‹ç› (called ce trencada, literally 'broken-c') when ‹c› takes the soft sound before ‹a›, ‹o› and ‹u› (e.g. caça 'hunt'), and word-finally (e.g. dolç 'sweet'). The letter ‹x› is pronounced normally as a voiceless fricative (or affricate in some instances in Western Catalan dialects); e.g. xic 'a little'. In Latin and Greek learned words it represents (e.g. fixar 'fix') and (e.g. exacte 'exact'), as in other closely related languages. The digraph ‹ix› instead, always represents (e.g. calaixos 'drawers').

Phonology

Vowels

s of Standard Eastern Catalan, from ]]

Standard Catalan and Valencian has the typical seven-vowel system from Vulgar Latin (). Notable features: While Central Catalan has both and , the relation of these two sounds to the corresponding Proto-Romance sounds is quite complex. In most cases, in fact, original Proto-Romance and actually swapped places, with an intermediary step being a separate phoneme that still exists in the Balearic Islands (in Western Catalan, most original turned into ). Catalan is notable for vowel reduction in unstressed syllables: Eastern Catalan vowels reduce to three (}}; }}; and }}, except for most of Majorcan where a fourth unstressed vowel may appear, that is, unstressed and normally merge with ), while Western Catalan vowels reduce to five (}}; }}; }}; }}; and }}).

Consonants

+Catalan consonants			Bilabial consonant>Bilabial	Labiodental consonant>Labio-dental	! Dental consonant	Palatal	Velar consonant>Velar
! colspan=2
! rowspan=2	voice (phonetics)>voiceless
voice (phonetics)>voiced
! rowspan=2	voice (phonetics)>voiceless
voice (phonetics)>voiced
! rowspan=2	voice (phonetics)>voiceless
voice (phonetics)>voiced		()
! colspan=2
! colspan=2
! colspan=2
! colspan=2

The consonant system of Catalan is rather conservative, shared with most modern Western Romance languages. Notable features: Most occurrences of are heavily velarized: (feature shared with European Portuguese).

Voiced obstruents are devoiced word-finally (feature shared with Occitan).

Voiced plosives are lenited ]}} after a continuant. Exceptions include after lateral consonants and after (feature shared with Ibero-Romance languages, such as Spanish, Galician or European Portuguese). Phonetic work done by Daniel Recasens shows the postalveolar sibilants to be alveolo-palatal (palatalized postalveolars): , , and , respectively (however, since ‹ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ› are overwhelmingly used in the linguistic literature on Catalan and Valencian, those characters are also used at Wikipedia). In standard Catalan, original remains as word-finally, and elsewhere splits lexically into and (cf. French and Portuguese, where never occurred word-finally and with uniform reduction to elsewhere). In standard Valencian instead, the presence of for reflects the historical change and the failure for to become (feature shared with Occitan and standard Italian). Unlike elsewhere, no native ever arose in the medieval period. Current are largely due to late strengthening of in certain Catalan dialects (and in words borrowed from them into standard Catalan), or in foreign borrowings. Unlike most other Western Romance languages, Catalan has phonemic geminate consonants. These are restricted to nasals, laterals and the voiced plosives and .

Phonological evolution

Catalan is one of the Western Romance languages, which forms a dialect chain running across Iberia from Portuguese through Astur-Leonese, Spanish and Aragonese. From there, the chain runs across the Pyrenees to various Occitan dialects: either northwest to Gascon and Limousin, or north to Languedocien; then from Languedocien, either north to Auvergnat and eventually French, northeast to Franco-Provençal and the Rhaeto-Romance languages, or east through Provençal and across to Ligurian and the other Gallo-Italian languages.

As a result, Catalan shares many of the basic features of the Western Romance languages, and more specifically evinces linguistic features similar to those of its closest neighbors (Occitan, Aragonese, Sardinian, Spanish and Italian). Catalan is most closely related to Occitan, only diverging from it towards the end of the first millenium AD. Since then, the Ibero-Romance languages have exerted a large conservatizing force over Catalan, preventing it from taking part in many later Occitan changes.

The following sections list: #The most important features grouping Catalan with the Western Romance languages against the Italo-Romance languages. #The main features shared with Occitan, usually considered the closest relative to Catalan. #Features not shared with Occitan, but shared with one or more Ibero-Romance language (often due to preservation where Occitan later innovated). #Features unique to Catalan.

Common features with Western Romance

Common features with Western Romance languages, but not Italo-Romance: Palatalization of all and consonants followed by yod (Latin or in hiatus with a following vowel): 'sky, heaven' → Old Catalan cel → modern (cf. Italian cielo ). Voicing and lenition of intervocalic obstruents --, - and --: 'goat' → cabra, 'chain' → cadena, 'safe' → segur (cf. Italian capra, catena, sicuro). Degemination of stop consonants: 'mouth' → boca, 'fourteen' → catorze (cf. Italian bocca, quattordici). Development of in --, -- into palatal (vs. , and in Italian). Apico-alveolar pronunciation of and , except for Valencian where they may be either apico-alveolar or lamino-alveolar (such minimal distinction was once common to all Western Romance languages, but has since disappeared from most).

Common features with Occitan

Common features with Occitan, but not French and Spanish: Development of late final into : 'ship' → nau (cf. French nef, Spanish non-final nave). Loss of word-final (originally intervocalic) : 'bread' → pa, 'wine' → vi (cf. French pain, vin; Spanish pan, vino; some Occitan dialects –e.g. Provençal– also keep the ).

Common features with Southern Occitan but not Northern Occitan: Reduction of consonant cluster -- to -n-: 'to send' → manar, 'wave' → ona (cf. Gascon and Southern Languedocien manar, ona; standard Occitan mandar, onda).

Common features with Occitan and French, but not Spanish or Portuguese: Loss of final unstressed vowels except -, and devoicing of newly final obstruents: 'wall' → mur, 'head' → cap, 'cold' → fred ~ (cf. Spanish muro, cabeza, frío; Portuguese muro, cabeça, frio). Conditioned diphthongization of Latin stressed -- and -- (short ‹ĕ› and ‹ŏ› ) before palatal consonants: 'thigh' → cuixa, 'eight' → vuit/huit, but 'done' → *feyt → fet (cf. Spanish cojo 'lame', ocho, hecho; Portuguese coxa –earlier coixa, but oito, feito). Epenthesis of in syllable-final position after clusters: 'temple' → temple, 'four' → quatre (cf. Spanish templo, cuatro; Portuguese templo, quatro). Preservation of initial -, -, -: 'fold' → aplegar 'to reach', 'key' → clau, 'flame' → flama (cf. Spanish llegar, llave, llama; Portuguese chegar, chave, chama).

Common features with Occitan, French, Galician and Portuguese, but not Spanish: Initial Vulgar Latin and palatalized , → → , rather than Spanish , and preserved in all cases, rather than lost in unstressed syllables: 'ice' → gel, 'to throw' → gitar 'to throw (out/up), lay down' (cf. Spanish hielo, echar). Old intervocalic remains as modern (Eastern and North-Western Catalan dialects) or (Valencian).

Voiced sibilants remain as such, whereas in Spanish they merge into voiceless sibilants.

Initial remains as such, whereas in Spanish it became then silent before a vowel (i.e. unless preceding ): 'iron' → ferro; 'hunger' → fam (cf. Spanish hierro, hambre; Gascon actually develops into in all circumstances, even before consonants or semivowels). Western Romance (from Latin --, --, -- and --) remains rather than becoming Old Spanish (modern ): 'wife' → muller, 'ear' → orella, 'old' → (cf. Spanish mujer, oreja, viejo). Development of -- to (then into in most cases), rather than further development to (many Occitan dialects, in fact, also have ): → *lleyt → llet, → lluita (cf. Spanish leche, lucha; Gascon lèit, luta; standard Occitan lach, lucha).

Common features with Occitan, Galician and Portuguese, but not French and Spanish: Preservation (non-diphthongization) of Vulgar Latin stressed -- and -- (short ‹ĕ› and ‹ŏ› ): 'honey' → mel, 'strong' → fort (cf. Spanish miel, fuerte; French miel, but fort).

Features not common with Occitan

Common with Spanish: Development of -- to ( in Spanish) and -- to : 'cabbage' → col, 'laity' → llec –also laic– (cf. Spanish col, lego –also laico–, Occitan caulet, laic). Reduction of consonant cluster -- to -m-: 'leg' → cama, 'lead' (metal) → plom, 'dove' → colom (cf. Spanish cama 'bed', lomo, paloma; Portuguese cama 'bed', but lombo, pombo. In standard Occitan is kept in intervocalic position: camba , while it is reduced to word-finally: colomb , plomb . In Southern Occitan dialects, such as Gascon or Southern Languedocien, intervocalic is simplified to as in Catalan or Spanish). Palatalization of intervocalic -- and -- to -ll- and -ny- : 'horse' → cavall, 'year' → any (cf. Spanish caballo, año; Portuguese cavalo, ano; Occitan caval, annada). In a few cases, appears as a result of early simplification of -- after a long vowel: 'town' → vila, 'star' → Western Catalan estrela, Eastern estrella –also estel– (cf. Spanish villa, estrella; Portuguese vila, estrela; Occitan vila, estela).

Common with Astur-Leonese but not Portuguese or Spanish: Palatalization of initial -: 'moon' → lluna, 'wolf' → llop (cf. Asturian lluna, llobu; Occitan luna, lop).

Common with Astur-Leonese, Portuguese and Spanish but not French Preservation of Western Romance long and short as and , rather than Gallo-Romance and : 'moon' → lluna , 'double' → doble (cf. Spanish luna , doble ; Portuguese lua , dobro –also duplo– ; Occitan luna , doble ).

Common with Astur-Leonese, Portuguese and Italian but not Spanish or French: Palatalization of --, -- and -- before -- and -- to : 'to loosen' (later 'to let') → deixar, 'fish' → peix (cf. Astur-Leonese dexar, pexe; Portuguese deixar, peixe; Gascon deishar, peish; standard Occitan daissar/laissar, peis). Especially visible in verbs of the third conjugation (-) that took what was originally an inchoative infix (--/--): Vulgar Latin (Classical Latin ) 'suffers' (present tense, 3rd person singular indicative) → pateix/patix (cf. Italian patisce, Occitan patís).

Unique features not found elsewhere

Unusual development of early , resulting from merger of Proto-Western-Romance (from intervocalic --) and (from intervocalic --, --, --); see note above about a similar merger in Occitan. In early Old Catalan, became finally or before a consonant, remained as between vowels. In later Old Catalan, lost between vowels:

'foot' → *petz → peu

'cross' → *crotz → (*crou) → creu and 'he believes' → *creu → (ell) creu

Verbs in second-person plural ending in -: 'you (pl.) look' → *miratz → mirau → mireu/mirau

'reason' → *razó → raó

'neighbor' → *vezí → veí

'to receive' → *rezebre → rebre

Nevertheless, has been retained in intervocalic position in some fewer cases (from Latin , , followed by yod):

'twelve' → dotze

'thirteen' → tretze

'sixteen' → setze

Partial reversal of Proto-Western-Romance and , according to the following stages:

(1) Stressed in most circumstances

(2) Stressed in most circumstances

(3) Stressed maintained as such (in Balearic Catalan); (in Central Catalan); (in Western Catalan).

Secondary development of doubled resonant consonants (): 'week' → setmana , from 'skin' → cotna 'pork rind', atleta , 'mold' → motlle 'mold, a spring' (however, does not occur in Valencian and Balearic Catalan: motle , instead of motlle).

Grammar

The first descriptive and normative grammar book of modern Catalan was written by Pompeu Fabra in 1918. In 1995, a new grammar by Antoni Maria Badia i Margarit was published, which also documents the Valencian and Balearic varieties.

The grammar of Catalan follows the general pattern of Western Romance languages. The primary word order is SVO (subject–verb–object).

Substantives and adjectives are not declined by case, as in Classical Latin. There are two grammatical genders—masculine and feminine.

Grammatical articles developed from Latin demonstratives. The form of the article depends on the gender and the number of the subject and the first sounds of the word and can be combined with prepositions that precede them. A unique feature of Catalan is a definite article that may precede personal names in certain contexts. Its basic form is en and it can change according to its environment (note clitic en has also other lexical meanings). One of the common usages of this article is in the word can, a combination of la casa shortened to ca ('house', as French chez) and en, which here means 'the'. For example la casa d'en Sergi becomes Can Sergi meaning 'the house of Sergi', 'Sergi's house'. Note here, other articles (el, la, els, les) can also be used with personal names like in Portuguese, as la Maria (or na Maria).

Verbs are conjugated according to tense and mood similarly to other Western Romance languages—present and simple preterite are based on classical Latin, future is formed from infinitive followed by the present form of the auxiliary verb haver (written together and not considered periphrastic), and periphrastic tenses are formed from the conjugated auxiliary verbs haver ('to have') and ésser ('to be') followed by the past participle. A unique tense in Catalan is the "periphrastic simple preterite," which is formed of vaig, vas (or vares), va, vam (or vàrem), vau (or vàreu) and van (there is the usual wrong idea these forms are the conjugated forms of anar, which means 'to go'), which is followed by the infinitive of the verb. Thus, jo vaig parlar (or more simply vaig parlar) means 'I spoke'.

Nominative pronouns are often omitted, as the subject can be usually derived from the conjugated verb. The Catalan rules for combination of the object pronoun clitics with verbs, articles and other pronouns are significantly more complex than in most other Romance languages; see Weak pronouns in Catalan.

Morphology

The definite articles el, la, els, les derive from Latin demonstratives , . The older forms lo (m. s.) and los (m. pl.) are still common nowadays in some western dialects and in Algherese. Several varieties of the Catalan language (Balearic Islands, Costa Brava, and Tàrbena) have maintained an article called salat (< Latin , → es, sa), probably formed before the variants of developed. Singular articles are elided before vowel-initial words, in speech and writing: el + home > l'home 'the man', la + hora > l'hora 'the time'.

Possessive adjectives are formed with the definite article (el meu gos 'my dog') like in Italian (il mio cane), Portuguese (o meu cão) and in many Occitan dialects (Languedocien and Pyrenean Gascon). Weak forms of possessive adjectives (mon, ma, mos, mes, etc.) are fossilized for certain usages, as close familiar relatives or in order to express a high degree of affection (for instance: mon pare 'my dad', ma mare 'my mum'; in Valencian ma casa 'my home', ma vida 'my life'). Also note the postposition of the possessive to express particular nuances, e.g. casa meva ('my home', literally 'a house of mine') as different from la meva casa ('my house').

Plurals are formed in a number of ways:

* -a becomes -es (e.g. casa 'house' > cases).

*Most consonant- and vowel-final words (except -a) add -s: noi 'boy' > nois, detall 'detail' > detalls

*Words ending in sibilants (-s, -ç, -x, -ig) form plurals with -os: gos 'dog' > gossos, peix 'fish' > peixos. Some plural words with -ig may alternate forming plural by adding -os or a silent -s: raig 'ray' > rajos/raigs.

*Words ending in sibilant clusters (-sc, -st, -xt) may form plurals by adding -os or -s: bosc 'forest' > boscos/boscs, aquest 'this' > aquestos/aquests.

Words ending in a stressed vowel often take -ns: pi 'pine' > pins, cinturó 'belt' > cinturons (but esquí 'ski' > esquís, tabú 'taboo' > tabús). In Western Catalan dialects, some particular words ending in unstressed vowels may also form plural by adding -ns: home 'man' > hòmens (from Latin > ).

Partitive: While Catalan patterns with Ibero-Romance in the lack of a partitive article (e.g. vull pa 'I want some bread', cf. Spanish quiero pan but French je veux du pain), it does have a partitive pronoun, like in Gallo-Romance languages: jo en tinc tres 'I have three of them' (Spanish tengo tres but French j'en ai trois).

The construction used to express punctual/perfective aspect in the past tense is one of the most distinctive features of Catalan. It is a periphrasis formed with a special conjugation of anar ('to go'), that comes from the Latin verb , plus the infinitive form of the main verb. For example: jo vaig dir ('I said'). This construction has almost completely replaced the historical simple past form (jo diguí), which corresponds to the Spanish preterit or French passé simple.

Catalan names

Catalan naming customs are similar to those of Spain and Portugal; people receive two last names–their father's and their mother's–which are separated by the particle i, meaning 'and' (in Spanish the equivalent particle is written y, but often omitted altogether).

For example, the full name of the architect Antoni Gaudí is Antoni Gaudí i Cornet after his parents: Francesc Gaudí i Serra and Antònia Cornet i Bertran, meaning he was son of Gaudí and Cornet.

Examples

Catalan / Valencian català / valenciàanglès / angléssínoa reveure, fins després, fins aviat / fins promptesi us plau, per favorgràcies, mercèsmerci (colloquialde res perdó, em sap greu, ho sento / ho sent qui? què? quan? on? per què? quin(a)? com? quant? com et dius/diuen? (register (sociolinguistics)perquè a causa de no ho entenc ''estic d’acord salut! on és el bany?, on és el lavabo?, on és el servei / servici? que parles català / valencià? (register (sociolinguistics)no parlo català / no parle valencià sí, parlo català com va (això)?, com anem?, com estàs (register (sociolinguistics)(molt) bé, gràcies

English	|	IPA pronunciation (Catalan)	IPA pronunciation (Valencian)
	Catalan / Valencian	|
	English	|
	Hello		hola!
	Yes	|
	No	|
	Good morning		bon dia!
	Good afternoon		bona tarda! / bona vesprada!
	Good evening		bon vespre!, bon capvespre! (register (sociolinguistics)
	Good night		bona nit!
	Goodbye		adéu!, adéu-siau!déu! ([[colloquial>coll.)
	See you (later/soon)	|
	Please/if you please	|
	Thank you	coll.) ||
	You are welcome	|
	I am sorry	|
	Who?	|
	What?	|
	When?	|
	Where?	|
	Why?	|
	Which?	|
	How?	|
	How much?	|
	What is your name?	inf. with tu)com es diu? (frm. with vostè / vosté)com us / vos dieu/diuen? (inf. with vosaltres)com es diuen? (frm. with vostès / ''vostès) ||
	Because	|
	Because of	|
	I do not understand (it)	|
	I agree	|
	Generic toast	|
	Bless you	(after sneezing)	Jesús!, salut!
	Where are the toilets?	|
	Do you speak Catalan/Valencian?	inf. with tu)que parla català / valencià? (frm. with vostè / vosté) que parleu català / valencià? (inf. with vosaltres)que parlen català / valencià? (frm. with vostès / vostés) ||
	I do not speak Catalan/Valencian	|
	Yes, I speak Catalan/Valencian	|
	How are you (doing)?	inf.) / està (frm.)?, què hi ha? ||
	I am fine, thanks	|

English words of Catalan origin

Aubergine, from Catalan albergínia or albergina through French. Barracks, from Old Catalan barraca ('hut') through French baraque. Another term barracoon, from Catalan barraca ('hut') through Spanish barracón. Surge, from Middle French, which took it from Old Catalan surgir. Paella, Valencian Catalan, via Old French paele, ultimately from Latin patella (small dish).

See also

Catalan orthography

Catalan phonology

Catalan conjugation

Catalan literature

Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Catalan Studies Institute)

Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (Valencian Academy of the Language)

Pompeu Fabra

Normes de Castelló

Alguerese

Central Catalan

Northern Catalan

Balearic

Valencian

Languages of France

Languages of Italy

Languages of Spain

Names of Catalan language

Òmnium Cultural

Plataforma per la Llengua

Spanish (Spain) keyboard layout (used to type Catalan)

.cat (the first top-level domain based on the Catalan language and culture)

References

External links

Sociolinguistic situation in Catalan-speaking areas. Tables. Official data about sociolinguistic situation in Catalan-speaking areas: Catalonia (2003), Andorra (2004), the Balearic Islands (2004), Aragonese Border (2004), Northern Catalonia (2004), Alghero (2004) and Valencia (2004).

Institutions

Institut d'Estudis Catalans

Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua

Secretaria de Política Lingüística de la Generalitat de Catalunya

About the Catalan language

Ethnologue report for Catalan

Gramàtica de la Llengua Catalana (Catalan grammar)

verbs.cat (Catalan verb conjugations with online trainers)

Monolingual dictionaries

Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, from the Institut d'Estudis Catalans

Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, from Enciclopèdia Catalana

Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear d'Alcover i Moll

Diccionari Valencià online

Diccionari Invers de la Llengua Catalana (dictionary of Catalan words spelled backwards)

Bilingual and multilingual dictionaries

Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana Multilingüe from Enciclopèdia Catalana (Catalan < > English, French, German and Spanish)

DACCO open source, collaborative dictionary (Catalan < > English)

Webster's Online Dictionary, The Rosetta Edition (Catalan < > English)

Catalan–English–Catalan dictionary

Automated translation systems

Traductor automated, online translations of text and web pages (Catalan < > English, French and Spanish)

SisHiTra automated, online translations of text and web pages (Catalan < > Spanish)

apertium.org Apertium (free software) translates text, documents or web pages, online or offline, between Catalan and Aranese, English, Esperanto, French, Occitan, Portuguese and Spanish

Phrasebooks

Catalan phrasebook on Wikitravel

Basic Catalan phrases (with audio)

Learning resources

Catalan Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words, from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix

Learn Catalan Online with volunteers

Interc@t, set of electronic resources for learning the Catalan language and culture

Learn Catalan!, an introduction for the Catalonia-bound traveler

On-line Catalan resources

parla.cat

Catalan-language online encyclopedia

Enciclopèdia Catalana

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Category:Languages of Andorra Category:Languages of France Category:Languages of Sardinia Category:Languages of Spain Category:SVO languages

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