Català
Webpages concerning "Català"
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Wikipedia-Article "Català"
| Catalan, Valencian (català, valencià) | ||
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| Spoken in: | Spain, France, Andorra and Italy | |
| Region: | Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands, Roussillon, Aragon, Murcia, Sardinia and Andorra | |
| Total speakers: | More than 7.5 million | |
| Genetic classification: | Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance East Iberian Catalan, Valencian |
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| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Andorra; Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia in Spain | |
| Regulated by: | Institut d'Estudis Catalans Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ca | |
| ISO 639-2: | cat | |
| ISO/DIS 639-3: | cat | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
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Catalan (Català) or Valencian (Valencià) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra and co-official in several regions of Spain. Spain has the majority of active Catalan speakers, and Catalan is the country's second most widely spoken language. It is spoken or understood by as many as 12 million people who live not only in Andorra and Spain, but also in parts of France and Italy.
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Classification
Catalan is a Romance language. According to the Ethnologue, its specific classification is a member of the East Iberian branch of the Ibero-Romance branch of the Gallo-Iberian branch of the Western sub complex of the Italo-Western complex of the Romance group of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. It shares many features with both Spanish and French, and is the language nearest to Occitan, and is often thought of as a sort of "transitory" language between the Iberian and Gallic languages when comparing the modern descendants of Latin.
Geographic distribution
- Main article: Catalan countries
Estimates of the number of Catalan speakers vary from four million to twelve million. [1] (pdf), [2], [3], [4], [5].
Catalan is spoken in:
- Catalonia in Spain.
- An adjacent strip of Aragon, Spain, in particular the comarques of Baixa Ribagorça, Llitera, Baix Cinca, and Matarranya.
- Balearic Islands in Spain.
- Andorra.
- Part of the Land of Valencia in Spain, where the language is officially named Valencian.
- Northern Catalonia in France.
- The city of Alghero (l'Alguer) on Sardinia, an island in Italy.
- A small region in Murcia, Spain, known as el Carche in Castilian and el Carxe in Catalan.
All these areas are informally called Catalan countries (Catalan Països Catalans), a denomination based originally on cultural affinity and common heritage, that some have subsequently interpreted politically.
Official status
Catalan is the official language of Andorra. It is co-official in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia. It has no official status in the parts of Aragon where it is spoken, but has gained some recognition by Aragonese laws since 1990. It has no official status in the other places where it is spoken.
Number of Catalan speakers
Territories where Catalan is official
| Region | Understands | Can speak |
| Catalonia (Spain) | 5,837,874 | 4,602,611 |
| Land of Valencia (Spain) | 3,512,236 | 1,972,922 |
| Balearic Islands (Spain) | 733,466 | 504,349 |
| Andorra | 62,381 | 49,519 |
| TOTAL | 10,145,957 | 7,129,401 |
Other territories
| Region | Understands | Can speak |
| Alghero (Sardinia, Italy) | 20,000 | 17,625 |
| Roussillon (France) | 203,121 | 125,622 |
| Aragonese Fringe (Spain) | 47,250 | 45,000 |
| Carche (in Castilian) or Carxe in Catalan/Valencian (Murcia, Spain) | No data | No data |
| Rest of World | No data | 350,000 |
| TOTAL | 270,371 | 538,247 |
World
| Region | Understands | Can speak |
| Catalan Countries (Europe) | 10,416,328 | 7,317,648 |
| Rest of World | No data | 350,000 |
| TOTAL | 10,416,328 | 7,667,648 |
Notes: The number of people who understand Catalan includes those who can speak it.
Sources: Catalonia: Statistic data of 2001 census, from Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, Generalitat catalana [6]. Land of Valencia: Statistical data from 2001 census, from Institut Valencià d'Estadística, Generalitat Valenciana [7]. Balearic Islands: Statistical data from 2001 census, from Institut Balear d'Estadística, Govern de les Illes Balears [8]. Northern Catalonia: Media Pluriel Survey commissioned by Prefecture of Languedoc-Roussillon Region done in October 1997 and published in January 1998 [9]. Andorra: Sociolinguistic data from Andorran Government, 1999 [10]. Aragon: Sociolinguistic data from Euromosaic [11]. Alguer: Sociolinguistic data from Euromosaic [12]. Rest of World: Estimate for 1999 by the Federació d'Entitats Catalanes outside the Catalan Countries.
Dialects
In 1861, Manuel Milà i Fontanals proposed a dialectal division of Catalan in two major blocks: Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan.
There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect and another because there is nearly always a dialect transition zone of some size between pairs of geographically identified dialects, (except for dialects specific to an island). The main difference between both blocks is:
- Western Catalan (Bloc o Branca del Català Occidental):
- Unstressed vowels: [a] [e] [i] [o] [u]. Distinctions between e and a and o and u.
- Initial or post-consonatic x is affricate /tʃ/. Between vowels or final preceded of i, /jʃ/.
- 1st person of Indicative's present desinence is -e or -o.
- Inchoative in -ix, -ixen, -isca
- Maintenance of medieval nasal plural in proparoxiton words: hòmens, jóvens
- Specific Vocabulary: espill, xiquet, granera, melic...
- Eastern Catalan (Bloc o Branca del Català Oriental):
- Unstressed vowels [ə] [i] [u]. The unstressed vowels e and a becomes /ə/ and o and u becomes /u/.
- Initial or post-consonatic x is fricative /ʃ/. Between vowels or final preceded of i is also /ʃ/.
- 1st person of Indicative's present desinence is -o, -i or ø.
- Inchoative in -eix, -eixen, -eixi.
- The -n- of medieval nasal plural falls in proparoxiton words: homes, joves.
- Specific Vocabulary: mirall, noi, escombra, llombrígol...
In addition, neither dialect is completely homogenous: any dialect can be subdivided into several sub dialects. Catalan can be subdivided in two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects:
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See Catalan dialect examples for examples of each dialect.
The status of Valencian
The official language academy of the Land of Valencia (the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua) considers Catalan and Valencian simply to be two names for the same language. There is a roughly continuous set of idiolects covering the various regional forms of Catalan/ Valencian, with no sharp break at the border between Catalonia and Valencia, and the various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible. All universities teaching Romance languages, and virtually all linguists, consider these all to be linguistic variants of the same language (similar to Canadian French versus Metropolitan French).
Nevertheless, differences do exist: the accent of a Valencian is recognisable, there are differences in subjunctive terminations, and there are a large number of words unique to Valencian; but those 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).
The Valencian language has often been seen as a dialect of Catalan due to their mutual intelligibility. However, the issue of language versus dialect is as much a matter of politics as of linguistics. By the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Valencian and other varieties of Catalan are dialects of a single language; but according to this criterion, Galician and Portuguese are also dialects of the a single language, a contentious conclusion; a similar argument can be made about the Scandinavian languages, especially Norwegian and Swedish. A language is defined by several factors, political ones among others.
What gets called a language is defined in part by mutual comprehensibility, but also by political and cultural factors. Historically, the perceived status of Valencian as merely a "dialect of Catalan" has had important political implications including bolstering Catalan nationalism and the idea of the Països catalans or "Catalan countries." Conversely, many Valencians who advocate distinguishing the languages do so to resist a perceived Catalan nationalist agenda aimed at absorbing Valencian language and identity, and incorporating Valencians into a constructed nationality centered in Catalonia.
The concept of a "linguistic Catalan diasystem" was developed at the beginning of the 20th century as part of Catalan nationalist discourse; prior to that, Catalan was generally considered a dialect of Occitan and was included in the "linguistic Romanic-Occitanian diasystem". This newer "linguistic Catalan diasystem" would incorporate Valencian into the Catalan system, instead of both Catalan and Valencian being considered as dialects under the former "Romantic-Occitanian diasystem." This system brings Catalan nationalism the benefit of an increase in the official number of Catalan speakers. The term "Western Catalan" ("catalá occidental") was developed as part of this discourse, based on some lexical and phonetic similarities that the speech of the zone of Lleida (Lérida) had with that of Valencia.
Similarly to Serbian and Croatian, 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. 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 the Autonomous Land of Valencia refers to the language as Valencian. In practice, the Catalan, Valencian, and Balearic versions of the EU constitution are identical, although some compromises over spelling may have been involved in making them so.
Most current (21st century) Valencian speakers and writers use spelling conventions (Normes de Castelló, 1932) that allow for several diverse idiosyncrasies of Valencian, Balearic, North-Western Catalan, and Eastern Catalan.
Sounds and writing system
- Main article: Catalan phonology and orthography
Grammar
- Main article: Catalan grammar
History
Catalan developed by the 9th century from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern part of Pyrenees mountains (counties of Roussillon, Empuries, Besalú, Cerdagne, Urgell, Pallars and Ribagorça). It shares features with Gallo-romance and Ibero-romance, and it could be said to be in its beginnings no more than an eccentric dialect of Occitan (or of Western Romance). The language was spread to the south by the Reconquista in several phases: Barcelona and Tarragona, Lleida and Tortosa, the ancient Kingdom of Valencia, and transplanted to the Balearic Islands and l'Alguer (Alghero).
Catalan was exported in the 13th century to the Balearic Islands and the newly created Valencian Kingdom by the Catalan and Aragonese invaders (note that the area of Catalan language still extends to part of what is now the region of Aragon). During this period, almost all of the Muslim population of the Balearic Islands were expelled, but many Muslim peasants remained in many rural areas of the Valencian Kingdom, as had happened before in the lower Ebro basin (or Catalunya Nova).
During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the Catalan language was important in the Mediterranean region. Barcelona was the pre-eminent city and port of the so-called Aragonese Empire, a confederation nominally ruled by the King of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Roussillon, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and — later — Sardinia and Naples). All prose writers of this era used the name 'Catalan' for their common language (e.g. the Catalan Ramon Muntaner, the Majorcan Ramon Llull, etc.) The matter is more complicated among the poets, as they wrote in a sort of artificial Langue d'Oc in the tradition of the troubadors. Italian resentment of this Catalan dominance appears to have been one of the wellsprings of the so-called "Black Legend".
During the 15th and 16th centuries the city of Valencia gains pre-eminence in the confederation, due to several factors, including demographic changes and the fact that the royal court moved there. Presumably as a result of this shift in the balance of power within the confederation, in the 15th century the name 'Valencian' starts to be used by writers from Valencia to refer to their language.
In the 16th century the name 'Llemosí' (that is to say, "the Occitan dialect of Limoges") is first documented as being used to refer to this language. This attribution has no philological base, but it is explicable by the complex sociolinguistic frame of Catalan poetry of this era (Catalan versus troubadoresque Occitan). Ausias March himself was not sure what to call the language he was writing in (it is clearly closer to his contemporary Catalan or Valencian than to the archaic Occitan).
Then, during the 16th century, most of the Valencian elites switched languages to Castilian Spanish, as can be seen in the balance of languages of printed books in Valencia city: at the beginning of century Latin and Catalan (or Valencian) were the main languages of the press, but by the end of the century Spanish was the main language of the press. Still, rural areas and urban working classes continued to speak their vernacular language.
During the first half of the 19th century Catalan and Valencian experienced a major revival among urban elites due to the Renaixença, a romantic cultural movement. The effects of this revival persist to this day.
According to language politics in Francoist Spain (1939-1975), the use of Castilian over Catalan was promoted, though thousands of books were published in Catalan. Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy, the use of Catalan increased and the Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the 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; El Periódico de Catalunya has Spanish-language and Catalan-language editions, with identical content) and the television channels of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC): TV3 and Canal 33/K3 (culture and cartoons channel) as well as a 24 hour news channel 3/24; there are also many local channels available in region in Catalan, such as BTV and CityTV (Barcelona), Canal L'Hospitalet (L'Hospitalet de Llobregat) and Canal Terrassa (Terrassa).
Examples
| Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Some common Catalan phrases (pronounced as in the Central dialect -Barcelona and outskirts-):
- Catalan: Català /kətəˈlɑ/
- hello: hola /ˈɔlə/
- good-bye: adéu /əˈðɛw/ (sing.); adéu siau /əˈðɛw siˈaw/ (pl.)
- please: si us plau /sisˈplɑw/
- thank you: gràcies /ˈgrɑsiəs/; mercès /mərˈsɛs/
- sorry: perdó /pərˈðo/
- that one: aquest /əˈkɛt/ (masc.); aquesta /əˈkɛstə/ (fem.)
- how much?: quant val? /ˈkwɑmˈbɑl/; quant és? /ˈkwɑnˈtes/
- yes: sí /ˈsi/
- no: no /ˈno/
- I don't understand: No ho entenc /ˈno wənˈteŋ/
- where's the bathroom?: on és el bany? /ˈonˈezəlˈβaɲ/; on és el lavabo? /ˈonˈezəlˈləˈβɑβu/
- generic toast: salut! /səˈlut/;
- Do you speak English?: Que parla l'anglès? /kə ˈparlə lənˈglɛs/
- Do you speak Catalan?: Que parla el català? /kə ˈparləl kətəˈlɑ/
Learning Catalan
- Digui, digui... Curs de català per a estrangers. A Catalan Handbook. — Alan Yates and Toni Ibarz. — Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura, 1993. -- ISBN 84-393-2579-7.
- Teach Yourself Catalan. — McGraw-Hill, 1993. — ISBN 0844237558.
- Colloquial Catalan. — Toni Ibarz and Alexander Ibarz. — Routledge, 2005. — ISBN 0415234123.
Catalan courses are given at many universities in the EU and USA.
English words of Catalan origin
- Allioli, from all i oli, a typical sauce.
- Barracks, from barraca, used for several kinds of buildings.
- Mayonnaise, one of the proposed etymologies is the name of the city of Maó/Mahón.
See also
- Common phrases in different languages
- Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Catalan Studies Institute)
- Pompeu Fabra
- Valencian
- Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
- Catalan literature
- Languages of France
- Languages of Italy
- Languages of Spain
- Catalan names
- New Catalan top-level domain .cat
External links
Institutions
About the Catalan language
- Ethnologue report for Catalan
- Catalan resources in the Web
- GRAMÀTICA CATALANA A Catalan grammar
Dictionaries and phrasebooks
- Catalan English Dictionary from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition
- Diccionari Català de l'IEC
- Online Catalan dictionary from Enciclopèdia Catalana
- Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear. In Catalan, published by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and Editorial Moll.
- Diccionari Invers de la Llengua Catalana
- DACCO. Open source English-Catalan / Catalan-English dictionary project.
- Wikitravel Catalan phrasebook
- Learn Catalan!. An introduction for the Catalonia-bound traveler.
Catalan-language media
- Televisió de Catalunya
- Diari Avui — Catalan-language daily newspaper
- Diari El Punt — Catalan-language daily newspaper
- VilaWeb The main Catalan online newspaper
- Catalan Wikibooks
Catalan-language web searching
- Yahoo! Català Searching in Catalan
- Nosaltres.com
- Google (Catalan language)
Catalan-language online encyclopedia
- Enciclopèdia Catalana (in Catalan)
- Viquipèdia (Wikipedia in Catalan)