Catalan (English pronunciation: /kætəˈlæn, ˈkætəlæn, ˈkætələn/[1]; Catalan: català, pronounced [kətəˈla] or [kataˈla]) is a Romance language extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, , the national A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country. National language may alternatively be a designation given to one or more and official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language a legal status, even if that language is not of Andorra Andorra /ænˈdɒrə/ , officially the Principality of Andorra (Catalan: Principat d'Andorra), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, (Catalan: Principat de les Valls d'Andorra), is a small country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in, and a co-official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language a legal status, even if that language is not in the Spanish autonomous communities An autonomous community is the first-level political division of the Kingdom of Spain, established in accordance with the Spanish Constitution. The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "regions and nationalities" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation" of Catalonia Catalonia is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of the Kingdom of Spain. Its capital city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,504,881. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east (580 km, the Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula and Valencian Community The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia. The region is divided into three provinces: Alicante, Castellón and Valencia - and thirty four counties, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian Valencian is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Valencian Community of Spain to refer to the region's native language, known elsewhere as Catalan (català)), as well as in the city A city is a relatively large and permanent urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law of Alghero Alghero , is a town of about 42,000 inhabitants (down from 54,300 inhabitants since early 20th century) in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea on the Italian Italy (pronounced /ˈɪtəli/ ; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine island Categories: Mediterranean islands | Lists of islands | Mediterranean of Sardinia Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily and before Cyprus). It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are (clockwise from north) the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands. It is also spoken in the autonomous communities An autonomous community is the first-level political division of the Kingdom of Spain, established in accordance with the Spanish Constitution. The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "regions and nationalities" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation" of Aragon Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the region comprises three provinces from north to south: Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza (also called Saragossa in English) (in La Franja The term La Franja ("The Strip", more properly Franja de Aragón in Spanish; Franja d'Aragó or Franja de Ponent in Catalan; and Francha d'Aragón or Francha de Lebán (Eastern Strip) in Aragonese) is a term that refers to the territory comprising the Catalan-speaking territories of Aragon bordering Catalonia (Spain). Usually La Franja) and Murcia Murcia , a city in south-eastern Spain, is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country, with a population of 436,870 inhabitants in 2009 (about one third of the total population of the Region). The population of the metropolitan area was 638,217 in 2008. It is (in Carche El Carche , is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park (parque regional). Three villages border the park: Raspay, La Alberquilla, and Carche with a) in Spain Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for, and, officially recognised to some extent, in the historic Roussillon Roussillon is one of the historical counties of the former Principality of Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales (Eastern Pyrenees). It may also refer to French Catalonia or Northern Catalonia, the latter term used particularly by the Catalan-speaking community region of southern France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian,, roughly equivalent to the current département The departments of France and many of its former colonies are administrative divisions. The 100 French departments are grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas regions, all of which have identical legal status as integral parts of France. The departments are subdivided into 342 arrondissements, which in turn, are divided into cantons. Each of the Pyrénées-Orientales Pyrénées-Orientales is a department of southern France adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish enclave Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain (Northern Catalonia Northern Catalonia is a term which is sometimes used, particularly in Catalan writings, to refer to the territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The equivalent term in French, Catalogne du Nord, is only rarely used: the term Roussillon (in reference to the pre-Revolutionary province) is usually).

Contents

History

See also: History of Catalonia The territory that now constitutes the autonomous community of Catalonia in Spain, and the adjoining Catalan region of France, was first settled during the Middle Palaeolithic. Like the rest of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, it was colonized by Ancient Greeks and Carthaginians and participated in the pre-Roman Iberian culture and Language politics in Spain under Franco Decree banning the Catalan language

The Catalan language developed from Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin on both sides of the eastern part of the Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a range of mountains in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain. They separate the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe, and extend for about 430 km (267 mi) from the Bay of Biscay (Cap Higuer) to the Mediterranean Sea (Cap de Creus) mountains (counties of Rosselló Roussillon is one of the historical counties of the former Principality of Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales (Eastern Pyrenees). It may also refer to French Catalonia or Northern Catalonia, the latter term used particularly by the Catalan-speaking community, Empúries Empúries is a town on the Mediterranean coast of the Catalan comarca of Alt Empordà (Spain). It was founded in 575 BC by Greek colonists from Phocaea with the name of Εμπόριον (Emporion — "market"). It was later occupied by the Romans, but in the Early Middle Ages, when its exposed coastal position left it open to marauders,, Besalú Besalú is a town in the comarca of Garrotxa, in Catalonia, Spain, Cerdanya Cerdanya is a small region of the eastern Pyrenees divided between France and Spain and which is historically one of the counties of Catalonia, Urgell Urgell is one of the historical Catalan counties, bordering on the counties of Pallars and Cerdanya. Its maximal extension territory was between the Pyrenees and the taifa of Lleida, that is, the current comarques of Alt Urgell (or Urgellet), Noguera, Solsonès, Pla d'Urgell, Baix Urgell and the still independent country of Andorra. The historical, Pallars The County of Pallars or Pallás was a de facto independent petty state, nominally within the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia during the ninth and tenth centuries, perhaps one of the Catalan counties, originally part of the Marca Hispanica in the ninth century. It was coterminous with the upper Noguera Pallaresa valley from the crest of and Ribagorça Ribagorçan is the eastern dialect of Aragonese spoken in the western part of the county. Municipalities in the eastern part, bordering Catalonia, are part of La Franja, a geo-linguistic area, where the local language is a variety of Catalan. However, Aragonese and Catalan form a dialectal continuum here and the geographical limit of both). It shares features with Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages includes French , the Langues d'oc, Franco-Provençal, and several other languages spoken in modern France, Northern Italy and east Spain. The Gallo-Romance languages, along with the Ibero-Romance and Rhaeto-Romance groups, form Western Romance. Like all Romance languages, the Gallo-romance languages, Ibero-Romance This article is about a subdivision of the Romance language family. For the broader group of languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, see Iberian languages, and the Gallo-Italian Northern Italian or Padanian (recent name) or Cisalpine (infrequently used name) is a linguistic set with different definitions. Gallo-Italic (occasionally Gallo-Italian ) is imprecise, as it refers to just part of the Northern Italian complex (see Subdivisions below) speech types of Northern Italy. Though some hypothesize a historical split from languages of Occitan Occitan is a Romance language spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain. It is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese . It is a co-official language in Catalonia, Spain (known as Aranese in Aran Valley). Modern Occitan is the closest relative of Catalan typology, the entire area running from Liguria on the present Italian coast to at least Alicante in Spain is more scientifically viewed as a classic dialect continuum A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the continuum are no longer mutually intelligible. The, with some eventual 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 The Reconquista was a period of nearly 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking (and repopulating) the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Al-Andalus Province. The Islamic conquest of the Christian Visigothic kingdom in the eighth century (begun 710–12) extended over almost to the south and to the west, it spread to all present-day Catalonia Catalonia is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of the Kingdom of Spain. Its capital city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,504,881. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east (580 km, Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula and most of Valencian Community The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia. The region is divided into three provinces: Alicante, Castellón and Valencia - and thirty four counties.

During the 15th century, during the Valencian Golden Age, the Catalan language reached its highest cultural splendor, which was not matched again until La Renaixença The Renaixença was an early 19th century late romantic revivalist movement in Catalan language and culture, akin to the Galician Rexurdimento or the Occitan Félibrige movements, 4 centuries later.

After the Treaty of the Pyrenees The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed to end the 1635 to 1659 war between France and Spain, a war that was initially a part of the wider Thirty Years' War. It was signed on Pheasant Island, a river island on the border between the two countries. The kings Louis XIV of France and Philip IV of Spain were represented by their prime ministers,, a royal decree A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for this concept may vary from country to country—the executive orders made by the President of the United States, for example, are decrees (although a decree is not by Louis XIV of France Louis XIV , known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil), was King of France and of Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch on 2 April 1700 prohibited the use of Catalan language in present-day Northern Catalonia Northern Catalonia is a term which is sometimes used, particularly in Catalan writings, to refer to the territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The equivalent term in French, Catalogne du Nord, is only rarely used: the term Roussillon (in reference to the pre-Revolutionary province) is usually in all official documents under the threat of being invalidated.[2] Since then, the Catalan language has lacked official status in the Catalan-speaking region in France.

On 10 December 2007, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized the Catalan language as one of the languages of the department in the ARTICLE 1 (a) of its Charte en faveur du Catalan[3] (b), and seek to further promote it in public life and education.

(a) <<ARTICLE 1 : The General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognizes, beside the French language, the Catalan as language of the department. (Le Conseil Général des Pyrénées-Orientales reconnaît officiellement, au côté de la langue française, le catalan comme langue du département.')>>

(b) Carta a favor del Català[4]

See also Language policy in France

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

In Francoist Spain (1939–1975), the use of Spanish over Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was 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 forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s[5] in the theatre. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship.[6] 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.[7]

Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy, the use of Catalan increased partly because of new affirmative action and subsidy policies and the Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the Catalan media, including the newspapers Avui ("Today"), El Punt ("The Point") and El Periódico de Catalunya (sharing content with its Spanish release and with El Periòdic d'Andorra, printed in Andorra); and the television channels of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC): TV3, the main channel, and Canal 33/K3 (culture and cartoons channel) as well as a 24-hour news channel 3/24 and the TV series channel 300; in València Canal 9, 24/9 and Punt 2; in the Balearic islands IB3; there are also many local channels available in region in Catalan, such as BTV and 8TV (in the metropolitan area of Barcelona), Barça TV, Canal L'Hospitalet (L'Hospitalet de Llobregat), Canal Terrassa (Terrassa), Televisió de Sant Cugat TDSC (Sant Cugat del Vallès), Gandia Televisió (Gandia, Valencian Country), Televisió de Mataró TVM (Mataró) and Catalan-dubbed television programs.

The number of persons fluent in Catalan varies depending on the sources used. The figures given below in the boxes were taken from the Wikipedia Catalan language site: The total of just over 9 million fluent speakers approximates the 9+ million speakers counted by the Catalan government in 2007.

The Wikipedia Catalan language site in Spanish uses a different method of counting by enumerating people who consider Catalan to be their mother tongue or language of identity, which gives a lower number than the actual number of people who can speak the language fluently. The number of habitual speakers given as 4.4 million and speakers as 7.7 million. In the face of evidence to the contrary, the figures are too low on the Spanish language site.

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 gives the number as of June 2007 as 9,118,882 speakers of Catalan.

Classification

The ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists. According to the Ethnologue, its specific classification is as follows:[8]

Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to languages subsumed under the cover term Occitan. (See also Occitan language: Differences between Occitan and Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages.) As would be expected of closely cognate languages, Catalan also shares numerous features with other Romance languages, with similarities generally decreasing with physical distance.

Geographic distribution

Catalan is spoken in:

All these areas are referred to by some as Catalan Countries (Catalan: Països Catalans), a denomination based on cultural affinity and common heritage, that has also had a subsequent political interpretation but no official status.

Number of Catalan speakers

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be and removed. (April 2009)

Territories where Catalan is official (or co-official)

Region Understands Can speak
Catalonia (Spain) 6,502,880 5,698,400
Balearic Islands (Spain) 852,780 706,065
Valencian Community (as Valencian) (Spain) 3,448,780 2,407,951
Andorra 75,407 61,975
Northern Catalonia (France) 203,121 125,621
TOTAL 11,082,968 9,000,012

Figures relate to all self-declared capable speakers, not just native speakers.

Other territories

Region Understands Can speak
Alguer (Sardinia, Italy) 20,000 17,625
Franja de Ponent 47,250 45,000
El Carxe (Murcia) No data No data
Rest of World No data 350,000
TOTAL 417,250 412,625

Figures relate to all self-declared capable speakers, not just native speakers.

World

Region Understands Can speak
Catalan-speaking territories (Europe) 11,082,968 9,000,621
Rest of World No data 350,000
TOTAL 11,082,968 9,412,637

Notes: The number of people who understand Catalan includes those who can speak it.

[9]

Dialects

Dialectal Map of Catalan Language Eastern dialects: █ Northern Catalan █ Central Catalan █ Balearic and Alguerese Western dialects: █ North-Western Catalan █ Valencian

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).[citation needed] The main difference between the two blocks is their treatment of unstressed vowels, in addition to a few other features:

In addition, neither dialect is completely homogeneous: any dialect can be subdivided into several sub-dialects. Catalan can be subdivided into two major dialect blocks and those blocks into individual dialects:

Western Catalan

  • North-Western Catalan
  • Transitional Valencian or Ebrenc
  • Valencian
    • Castellonenc (from region of Plana)
    • Apitxat, or Central Valencian
    • Southern Valencian
    • Alacantí (from the Alicante's metropolitan area and most of Vinalopó valley)
    • Majorcan from Tàrbena and la Vall de Gallinera Valencian municipalities

Eastern Catalan

Standards

There are two main standards for Catalan language, 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 considering 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 tonic "e", especially tonic Ē (long "e") and Ǐ (breves "i") from Latin, in both Catalan blocks ([ɛ] in Eastern Catalan and [e] in Western Catalan). Despite this, AVL's standard keeps grave accent "è", without pronouncing this "e" [ɛ], in some words like: què (what), València, èter (ether), sèsam (sesame), sèrie (series) and època (age).

There are also some other divergences like the 'tl use by AVL in some words instead of tll like in ametla/ametlla (almond), espatla/espatlla (back) 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" (I buy) instead of "jo compro".

In Balearic Islands, IEC's standard is used but adapted into 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) and University says that priority form in Balearic Islands must be "cantam" in all fields. Another feature of Balearic standard is the non-ending in 1st person singular in present indicative: "jo cant" (I sing), "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 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.

Status of Valencian

Main article: Valencian
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be and removed. (October 2009)

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.[10] 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 various regional forms of Catalan/Valencian, with no break at the border between Catalonia and the Valencian Community,[citation needed] and the various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible even between the most eastern and western varieties.[citation needed] This is not to say that there are no differences between the two and 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 Països Catalans or 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 around Barcelona.[citation needed] As such, the issue of whether Catalan and Valencian constitute different languages or merely dialects has been the subject of political agitation several times since the end of the Franco era.[citation needed] 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.[11] 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.[citation needed]

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

Sounds and writing system

Main articles: Catalan phonology and Catalan orthography

Consonants

Catalan consonants[12]
Bilabial Labio- dental Dental/ Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t (c) ~ k
voiced b d (ɟ) ~ ɡ
Affricate voiceless (ts) (tɕ)
voiced (dz) (dʑ)
Fricative voiceless f s ɕ
voiced (v) z ʑ
Trill r
Tap ɾ
Approximant j w
Lateral l ʎ

Phonetic notes: Among the coronal consonants, /t/ and /d/ are denti-alveolar, having both dental and alveolar contact with the tongue. /n/, /l/, and /ɾ/ are "front alveolar;" /s/ and /r/ are "back alveolar" (or postalveolar); /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ are "front alveolo-palatal"; and /ɕ/, /ʑ/, /tɕ/, and /dʑ/ are "back alveolo-palatal."[13]

Vowels

Vowels of Standard Eastern Catalan, from Carbonell & Llisterri (1999:62)

Grammar

Main article: Catalan 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 M. Badía i Margarit was published, which also documents the Valencian and Balearic varieties.

The grammar of Catalan mostly follows the general pattern of Western Romance languages.

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

Grammatical articles originally developed from Latin demonstratives. The actual form of the article depends on the gender and the number 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 (the word "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) and en, which here means "the". For example "la casa d'en Sergi" becomes "Can Sergi" meaning "the house of Sergi", "Sergi's house".

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 person 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.

Catalan names

Catalan naming customs are similar to those of Spain; a person receives two last names—their father's and their mother's. The two last names are usually 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

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Some phrases in the Central dialect -Barcelona and outskirts-:

The same phrases pronounced as in the standard Valencian:

Learning Catalan

Catalan courses are offered at a number of universities in Europe and North America.

Voluntaris per la Llengua is a Catalan language learning programme.

English words of Catalan origin

See also

Catalan language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

References

  1. ^ Catalan. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Catalan (accessed: March 20, 2010).
  2. ^ L'interdiction de la langue catalane en Roussillon par Louis XIV; taken from the website "CRDP de l'académie de Montpellier"
  3. ^ "Charte en faveur du Catalan". Cg66.fr. 2004-07-28. http://www.cg66.fr/culture/patrimoine_catalanite/catalanite/charte.html. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  4. ^ "Carta a favor de la llengua i la cultura catalanes". Cg66.fr. 2004-07-28. http://www.cg66.fr/culture/patrimoine_catalanite/catalanite/index.html. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  5. ^ Marc Howard Ross, "Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict", page 139. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  6. ^ The Resurgence of Catalan Earl W. Thomas Hispania, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Mar., 1962), pp. 43–48 doi:10.2307/337523
  7. ^ Orden del Excmo. Sr. Gobernador Civil de Barcelona. EL USO DEL IDIOMA NACIONAL EN TODOS LOS SERVICIOS PÚBLICOS. 1940.
  8. ^ "Ethnologue Report". Ethnologue.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cat. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  9. ^ Sources:
    • Catalonia: Statistic data of 2001 census, from Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya [1].
    • Land of Valencia: Statistical data from 2001 census, from Institut Valencià d'Estadística, Generalitat Valenciana [2].
    • Land of Valencia: Statistical data from 2001 census, from Institut Valencià d'Estadística, Generalitat Valenciana [3].
    • Balearic Islands: Statistical data from 2001 census, from Institut Balear d'Estadística, Govern de les Illes Balears [4].
    • Northern Catalonia: Media Pluriel Survey commissioned by Prefecture of Languedoc-Roussillon Region done in October 1997 and published in January 1998 [5].
    • Andorra: Sociolinguistic data from Andorran Government, 1999.
    • Aragon: Sociolinguistic data from Euromosaic [6].
    • Alguer: Sociolinguistic data from Euromosaic [7].
    • Rest of World: Estimate for 1999 by the Federació d'Entitats Catalanes outside the Catalan Countries.
  10. ^ Dictamen de l'Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua sobre els principis i criteris per a la defensa de la denominació i l'entitat del valencià - Report from Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua about denomination and identity of Valencian.
  11. ^ Isabel I Vilar, Ferran. “Traducció única de la Constitució europea.” I-Zefir. 30 Oct. 2004. 29 Apr. 2009 <http://www.mail-archive.com/infozefir@listserv.rediris.es/msg00442.html>.
  12. ^ Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1999), "Catalan", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 61–65, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
  13. ^ Recasens, Daniel and Pallarès, Maria Dolores (2001). "Coarticulation, Assimilation and Blending in Catalan Consonant Clusters". Journal of Phonetics 29(3): 273–301. doi:10.1006/jpho.2001.0139.
  14. ^ a b c Philip Babcock Gove, ed (1993). Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, inc.. ISBN 3-8290-5292-8.
  15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins Publishers. 1991. ISBN 0-00-433286-5.

External links

Institutions

About the Catalan language

Monolingual dictionaries

Bilingual and multilingual dictionaries

Automated translation systems

Phrasebooks

Learning resources

Catalan-language online encyclopedia

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Categories: Catalan language | Languages of France | Languages of Sardinia | Languages of Spain | Languages of Andorra

 

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