Catalan Language - Spanish Catalan

Catalan (/ˈkætəlæn/; autonym: català [kətəˈɫa] or [kataˈɫa]) is a Romance language named for its origins in Catalonia, in what is northeastern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only official language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community (where the language is known as Valencian, and there exist regional standards). It also has semi-official status in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken with no official recognition in parts of the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon (La Franja) and Murcia (Carche), and in the historic French region of Roussillon/Northern Catalonia, roughly equivalent to the department of Pyrénées-Orientales.

According to the Statistical Institute of Catalonia in 2008 the Catalan language is the second most commonly used in Catalonia, after Spanish, as a native or self-defining language. The Generalitat of Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories.

Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin around the eastern Pyrenees in the 9th century. During the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the other territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century. 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the officialization of the language during the Second Spanish Republic (1931â€"39). However, the Francoist dictatorship (1939â€"75) banned the language again.

Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975â€"1982), Catalan has been recognized as an official language, language of education, and language of mass media, all of which have contributed to its increased prestige. There is no parallel in Europe of such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community.

Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible. They are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms "Catalan" and "Valencian" (respectively used in Catalonia and the Valencian Community) are two different names for the same language. There are two institutions regulating two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in Valencia. The two standards are based on the same orthographical norms and the differences are similar to those between British and American English.

Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages. However, despite being mostly situated in the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan differs more from Iberian Romance (such as Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar than from Gallo-Romance (Occitan, French, Gallo-Italic languages, etc.). These similarities are most notable with Occitan.

Catalan has an inflectional grammar, with two genders (masculine, feminine), and two numbers (singular, plural). Pronouns are also inflected for case, animacy and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and gender. In terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages.

Etymology and pronunciation

The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology. The main theory suggests that Catalunya (Latin Gathia Launia) derives from the name Gothia or Gauthia ("Land of the Goths"), since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Catalonia theoretically derived.

In English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain (from French). It is attested a language name since at least 1652. Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/.

The endonym is pronounced /kə.təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, and /ka.taˈɫa/ in the Western dialects. In the Valencian Community, the term valencià (/va.len.siˈa/) is frequently used instead. The names "Catalan" and "Valencian" are two names for the same language. See also status of Valencian below.

Top 10 Fruits: Catalan vs Spanish

History

Middle Ages

By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south. From the 8th century onwards the Catalan counts extended their territory southwards and westwards at the expense of the Muslims, bringing their language with them. This process was given definitive impetus with the separation of the County of Barcelona from the Carolingian Empire in 988.

In the 11th century, documents written in macaronic Latin begin to show Catalan elements, with texts written almost completely in Romance appearing by 1080. Old Catalan shared many features with Gallo-Romance, diverging from Old Occitan between the 11th and 14th centuries.

During the 11th and 12th centuries the Catalan rulers expanded up to north of the Ebro river, and in the 13th century they conquered the Land of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The city of Alghero in Sardinia was repopulated with Catalan speakers in the 14th century. The language also reached Murcia, which became Spanish-speaking in the 15th century.

In the Low Middle Ages, Catalan went through a golden age, reaching a peak of maturity and cultural richness. Examples include the work of Majorcan polymath Ramon Llull (1232â€"1315), the Four Great Chronicles (13thâ€"14th centuries), and the Valencian school of poetry culminating in Ausiàs March (1397â€"1459). By the 15th century, the city of Valencia had become the sociocultural center of the Crown of Aragon, and Catalan was present all over the Mediterranean world. During this period, the Royal Chancery propagated a highly standardized language. Catalan was widely used as an official language in Sicily until the 15th century, and in Sardinia until the 17th. During this period, the language was what Costa Carreras terms "one of the 'great languages' of medieval Europe".

Martorell's outstanding novel of chivalry Tirant lo Blanc (1490) shows a transition from Medieval to Renaissance values, something that can also be seen in Metge's work. The first book produced with movable type in the Iberian Peninsula was printed in Catalan.

Start of the modern era

With the union of the crowns of Castille and Aragon (1479), the use of Spanish gradually became more prestigious. Starting in the 16th century, Catalan literature experienced a decline, the language came under the influence of Spanish, and the urban and literary classes became bilingual.

French state: 18th to 20th centuries

With the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), Spain ceded the northern part of Catalonia to France, and soon thereafter the local Catalan varieties came under the influence of French, which in 1700 became the sole official language of the region.

Shortly after the French Revolution (1789), the French First Republic prohibited official use of, and enacted discriminating policies against, the nonstandard languages of France (patois), such as Catalan, Alsatian, Breton, Occitan, Flemish, and Basque.

Following the French capture of Algeria (1833), that region saw several waves of Catalan-speaking settlers. People from the Spanish Alacant province settled around Oran, whereas Algiers received immigration from Northern Catalonia and Minorca. Their speech was known as patuet. By 1911, the number of Catalan speakers was around 100,000. After the declaration of independence of Algeria in 1962, almost all the Catalan speakers fled to Northern Catalonia (as Pieds-Noirs) or Alacant.

Nowadays, France only recognizes French as an official language. Nevertheless, on 10 December 2007, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan as one of the languages of the department and seeks to further promote it in public life and education.

Spanish state: 18th to 20th centuries

The decline of Catalan continued in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Catalan defeat in the War of Spanish Succession (1714) initiated a series of measures imposing the use of Spanish in legal documentation.

In parallel, however, the 19th century saw a Catalan literary revival (Renaixença), which has continued up to the present day. This period starts with Aribau's Ode to the Homeland (1833); followed in the second half of the 19th century, and the early 20th by the work of Verdaguer (poetry), Oller (realist novel), and Guimerà (drama).

In the 19th century, the region of Carche, in the province of Murcia was repopulated with Catalan speakers from the Land of Valencia.

The Second Spanish Republic (1931â€"1939) saw a brief period of tolerance, with most restrictions against Catalan being lifted.

Present day

Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975â€"1982), Catalan has been institutionalizated as an official language, language of education, and language of mass media; all of which have contributed to its increased prestige. In Catalonia, there is no parallel of a large, bilingual, European, non-state speech community. The teaching of Catalan is mandatory in all schools, but it is possible to use Spanish for studying in the public education system of Catalonia in two situations, if the teacher assigned to a class chooses to use Spanish, or during the learning process of one or some recently arrived students. There is also some intergenerational shift towards Catalan.

In Andorra, Catalan has always been the sole official language. Since the promulgation of the 1993 constitution, several Andorranization policies have been enforced, like Catalan medium education.

On the other hand, there are several language shift processes currently taking place. In Northern Catalonia, Catalan has followed the same trend as the other minority languages of France, with most of its native speakers being 60 or older (as of 2004). Catalan is studied as a foreign language by 30% of the primary education students, and by 15% of the secondary. The cultural association La Bressola promotes a network of community-run schools engaged in Catalan language immersion programs.

In the Alicante province Catalan is being replaced by Spanish, and in Alghero by Italian. There are also well ingrained diglossic attitudes against Catalan in the Valencian Community, Ibiza, and to a lesser extent, in the rest of the Balearic islands.

Classification and relationship with other Romance languages

The ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists and philologists, particularly among Spanish ones, such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal.

According to Pèire Bèc, its specific classification is as follows:

• Romance languages
  • Italo-Western languages
    • Western Romance languages
      • Gallo-Iberian languages
        • Gallo-Romance languages (alternatively classified as Ibero-Romance language)
          • Occitano-Romance languages (alternatively classified as 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.

Relationship with other Romance languages

Catalan shares many traits with the other neighboring Romance languages (Italian, Sardinian, Occitan, and Spanish). However, despite being mostly situated in the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Ibero-Romance group (Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; showing instead its closest affinity with Occitan and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance (French, Franco-Provençal, Gallo-Italian).

According to Ethnologue, the lexical similarity between Catalan and other Romance languages is: 87% with Italian; 85% with Portuguese; 80% with Spanish; 76% with Ladin; 75% with Sardinian; and 73% with Romanian.

During much of its history, and especially during the Francoist dictatorship (1939â€"1975), the Catalan language has often been degraded as a mere dialect of Spanish. This view, based on political and ideological considerations, has no linguistic validity. Spanish and Catalan have important differences in their sound systems, lexicon, and grammatical features, placing the language in a number of respects closer to Occitan (and French).

There is evidence that, at least from the a.d. 2nd century, the vocabulary and phonology of Roman Tarraconensis was different from the rest of Roman Hispania. Differentiation has arisen generally because Spanish, Asturian, and Galician-Portuguese share certain peripheral archaisms (Spanish hervir, Asturian/Portuguese ferver vs. Catalan bullir, Occitan bolir "to boil") and innovatory regionalisms (Sp novillo, Ast nuviellu vs. Cat torell, Oc taurèl "bullock"), while Catalan has a shared history with the Western Romance innovative core, especially Occitan.

The Germanic superstrate has had different outcomes in Spanish and Catalan. For example, Catalan fang "mud" and rostir "to roast", of Germanic origin, contrast with Spanish lodo and asar, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan filosa "spinning wheel" and pols "temple", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish rueca and sien, of Germanic origin.

The same happens with Arabic loanwords. Thus, Catalan alfàbia "large earthenware jar" and rajola "tile", of Arabic origin, contrast with Spanish tinaja and teja, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan oli "oil" and oliva "olive", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish aceite and aceituna. However, the Arabic element in Spanish is generally much more prevalent.

Situated between two large linguistic blocks (Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance), Catalan has many unique lexical choices, such as enyorar "to miss somebody", apaivagar "to calm down somebody", or rebutjar "reject".

Geographic distribution

Catalan-speaking territories

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 speakers

The number of people known to be fluent in Catalan varies depending on the sources used. A 2004 study did not count the total number of speakers, but estimated a total of 9â€"9.5 million by matching the percentage of speakers to the population of each area where Catalan is spoken. The web site of the Generalitat de Catalunya estimated that as of 2004 there were 9,118,882 speakers of Catalan. These figures only reflect potential speakers; today it is the native language of only 35.6% of the Catalan population. According to Ethnologue, Catalan had four million native speakers and five million second-language speakers in 2012. The most important social characteristic of the Catalan language is that all the areas where it is spoken are bilingual in practice: together with the French language in Roussillon, with Italian in Alghero, with Spanish and French in Andorra and with Spanish in the rest of the territories.

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.

Level of knowledge of the Catalan language

(% of the population 15 years old and older).

Social use

(% of the population 15 years old and older).

Native language

Phonology

The Catalan phonology varies depending on the dialect. Notable features include:

• Marked contrast of the vowel pairs /É› e/ and /É" o/, like in other Western Romance languages, except Spanish.
• Lack of nasalized vowels, unlike Portuguese or French.
• Lack of diphthongization of Latin short Ä•, ŏ, like in Galician and Portuguese, and unlike French, Spanish and Italian.
• Abundance of diphthongs containing /w/, like in Galician and Portuguese.

In contrast with other Romance languages, Catalan has many monosyllabic words; and those ending in a wide variety consonants and some consonant clusters. Also, Catalan has final obstruent devoicing, thus featuring many couplets like amic "(male friend") vs. amiga ("female friend").

Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language. The descriptions below are mostly for this variety. For the differences in pronunciation of the different dialects, see the section pronunciation of dialects in this article.

Vowels

Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes: /a É› e i É" o u/, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed /É™/. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair /É› e/.

In Central Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to three: /a e É›/ > [É™]; /o É" u/ > [u]; /i/ remains distinct. The other dialects have different vowel reduction processes (see the section pronunciation of dialects in this article).

Consonants

The consonant system of Catalan is rather conservative, shared with most modern Western Romance languages.

• /l/ has a velarized allophone in syllable coda position in most dialects. However, /l/ is velarized irrespective of position in Eastern dialects like Majorcan and standard Eastern Catalan.
• /v/ occurs in Balearic, Alguerese, standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia. It has merged with /b/ elsewhere.
• Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing: /b/ > [p], /d/ > [t], /É¡/ > [k].
• Voiced stops become lenited to approximants in syllable onsets, after continuants: /b/ >[β], /d/ > [ð], /É¡/ > [É£]. Exceptions include /d/ after lateral consonants, and /b/ after /f/. In coda position, these sounds are realized as stops, except in some Valencian dialects where they are lenited.
• There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of /ʃ/, /Ê'/, /tʃ/, /dÊ'/. Some sources describe them as "postalveolar". Others as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ Ê' tÉ• dÊ'⟩ would be more accurate. However, in all literature only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use ⟨ɕ Ê'⟩ for other languages like Polish and Chinese.
• The distribution of the two rhotics /r/ and /ɾ/ closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast, but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset, [r] appears unless preceded by a consonant. Dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring [ɾ] and Central Catalan dialects featuring a weakly trilled [r] unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case [ɾ] appears.
• In careful speech, /n/, /m/, /l/ may be geminated. Geminated /ÊŽ/ may also occur. Some analyze intervocalic [r] as the result of gemination of a single rhotic phoneme. This is similar to the common analysis of Spanish and Portuguese rhotics.

Phonological evolution

Dialects

Overview

The dialects of the Catalan language feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between dialects is very high, estimates ranging from 90% to 95%. The only exception is the isolated idiosyncratic Alguerese dialect.

Catalan is split in two major dialectal blocks: Eastern Catalan, and Western Catalan. The main difference lies in the treatment of unstressed a and e; which have merged to /É™/ in Eastern dialects, but which remain distinct as /a/ and /e/ in Western dialects. There are a few other differences in pronunciation, verbal morphology, and vocabulary.

Western Catalan comprises the two dialects of Northwestern Catalan and Valencian; the Eastern block comprises four dialects: Central Catalan, Balearic, Rossellonese, and Alguerese. Each dialect can be further subdivided in several subdialects.

Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language and has the highest number of speakers. It is spoken in the densely populated regions of the Barcelona province, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona, and most of the province of Girona.

Pronunciation

Vowels

Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes: /a É› e i É" o u/, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed /É™/. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair /É› e/.

In Eastern Catalan (except Majorcan), unstressed vowels reduce to three: /a e É›/ > [É™]; /o É" u/ > [u]; /i/ remains distinct. There are a few instances of unreduced [e], [o] in some words. Alguerese has lowered [É™] to [a].

In Majorcan, unstressed vowels reduce to four: /a e É›/ follow the Eastern Catalan reduction pattern; however /o É"/ reduce to [o], with /u/ remaining distinct, as in Western Catalan.

In Western Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to five: /e É›/ > [e]; /o É"/ > [o]; /a u i/ remain distinct. This reduction pattern, inherited from Proto-Romance, is also found in Italian and Portuguese. Some Western dialects present further reduction or vowel harmony in some cases.

Central, Western, and Balearic differ in the lexical incidence of stressed /e/ and /É›/. Usually, words with /É›/ in Central Catalan correspond to /É™/ in Balearic and /e/ in Western Catalan. Words with /e/ in Balearic almost always have /e/ in Central and Western Catalan as well. As a result, Central Catalan has a much higher incidence of /e/.

Consonants

Morphology

In verbs, 1st person present indicative desinence is -e (∅ in verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugation), or -o.
E.g. parle, tem, sent (Valencian); parlo, temo, sento (Northwestern). In verbs, 1st person present indicative desinence is -o, -i or ∅ in all conjugations.
E.g. parlo (Central), parl (Balearic), parli (Northern), ('I speak').

In verbs, the inchoative desinences are -isc/-ixo, -ix, -ixen, -isca. In verbs, the inchoative desinences are -eixo, -eix, -eixen, -eixi.

In nouns and adjectives, maintenance of /n/ of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words.
E.g. hòmens 'men', jóvens 'youth'. In nouns and adjectives, loss of /n/ of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words.
E.g. homes 'men', joves 'youth'.

Vocabulary

Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Standards

Standard Catalan, virtually accepted by all speakers, is mostly based on Eastern Catalan, which is the most widely used dialect. Nevertheless, the standards of Valencia and the Balearics admit alternative forms, mostly traditional ones, which are not current in eastern Catalonia.

The most notable difference between both standards is some tonic ⟨e⟩ accentuation, for instance: francès, anglès (IEC) â€" francés, anglés (AVL). Nevertheless, AVL's standard keeps the grave accent ⟨è⟩, without pronouncing this ⟨e⟩ as /É›/, in some words like: què ('what'), or València. Other divergences include the use of ⟨tl⟩ (AVL) in some words instead of ⟨tll⟩ like in ametla/ametlla ('almond'), espatla/espatlla ('back'), the use of elided demonstratives (este 'this', eixe 'that') 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. 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- /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

Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the northwestern varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (provinces of Lleida and the western half of Tarragona). The various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible (ranging from 90% to 95%)

Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian Community, the Valencian Academy of Language (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) declares the linguistic unity between Valencian and Catalan varieties.

The AVL, created by the Valencian parliament, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian, and its standard is based on the Norms of Castelló (Normes de Castelló). Currently, everyone who writes in Valencian uses this standard, except the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses for Valencian an independent standard.

Despite the position of the official organizations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority of the Valencian people consider Valencian different from Catalan. This position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicates that younger generations educated in Valencian are much less likely to hold these views. A minority of Valencian scholars active in fields other than linguistics defends the position of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses for Valencian a standard independent from Catalan.

This clash of opinions has sparked much controversy. For example, during the drafting of the European Constitution in 2004, the Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Galician, Catalan, and Valencian, but the latter two were identical.

Vocabulary

Word choices

Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Literary Catalan allows the use of words from different dialects, except those of very restricted use. However, from the 19th century onwards, there is a tendency of favoring words of Northern dialects in detriment of others, even though nowadays there is a greater freedom of choice.

Latin and Greek learned words

Like other languages, Catalan has a large list of learned words from Greek and Latin. This process started very early, and one can find such examples in Ramon Llull's work. On the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Catalan had a number of Greco-Latin learned words much superior to other Romance languages, as it can be attested for example in Roís de Corella's writings.

Word formation

The process of morphological derivation in Catalan follows the same principles as the other Romance languages, where agglutination is common. Many times, several affixes are appended to a preexisting lexeme, and some sound alternations can occur, for example elèctric [əˈlɛktrik] ("electrical") vs. electricitat [ələktrisiˈtat]. Prefixes are usually appended to verbs, for as in preveure ("foresee").

There is greater regularity in the process of word-compounding, where one can find compounded words as much as in English.

Writing system

Catalan uses the Roman alphabet, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan orthography is systematic and largely phonologically based.

Grammar

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

• Use of definite and indefinite articles.
• Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles are inflected for gender (masculine and feminine), and number (singular and plural). There is no case inflexion, except in pronouns.
• Verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, and mood (including a subjunctive).
• There are no modal auxiliaries.
• Word order is freer than in English.

Gender and number inflection

In gender inflection, the most notable feature is (compared to Portuguese, Spanish or Italian), the loss of the typical masculine suffix -o. Thus, the alternance of -o/-a, has been replaced by ø/-a. There are only a few exceptions, like minso/minsa ("scarce"). Many not completely predictable morphological alternations may occur, such as:

• Affrication: boig/boja ("insane") vs. lleig/lletja ("ugly")
• Loss of n: pla/plana ("flat") vs. segon/segona ("second")
• Final obstruent devoicing: sentit/sentida ("felt") vs. dit/dita ("said")

Catalan has few suppletive couplets, like Italian and Spanish, and unlike French. Thus, Catalan has noi/noia ("boy"/"girl") and gall/gallina ("cock"/"hen"), whereas French has garçon/fille and coq/poule.

There is a tendency to abandon traditionally gender-invariable adjectives in favour of marked ones, something prevalent in Occitan and French. Thus, one can find bullent/bullenta ("boiling") in contrast with traditional bullent/bullent.

As in the other Western Romance languages, the main plural expression is the suffix -s, which may create morphological alternations similar to the ones found in gender inflection, albeit more rarely. The most important one is the addition of -o- before certain consonant groups, a phonetic phenomenon that does not affect feminine forms: el pols/els polsos ("the pulse"/"the pulses") vs. la pols/les pols ("the dust"/"the dusts").

Determiners

The inflection of determinatives is complex, specially because of the high number of elisions, but is similar to the neighboring languages. Catalan has more contractions of preposition + article than Spanish, like dels ("of + the [plural]"), but not as many as Italian (which has sul, col, nel, etc.).

Central Catalan has abandoned almost completely unstressed possessives (mon, etc.) in favour of constructions of article + stressed forms (el meu, etc.), a feature shared with Italian.

Personal pronouns

The morphology of Catalan personal pronouns is complex, specially in unstressed forms, which are numerous (13 distinct forms, compared to 11 in Spanish or 9 in Italian). Features include the gender-neutral ho and the great degree of freedom when combining different unstressed pronouns (65 combinations).

Catalan pronouns exhibit Tâ€"V distinction, like all other Romance languages (and most European languages, but not Modern English). This feature implies the use of a different set of second person pronouns for formality.

This flexibility allows Catalan to use extraposition extensively, much more than French or Spanish. Thus, Catalan can have m'hi recomanaren ("they recommended me to him"), whereas in French one must say ils m'ont recommandé à lui, and Spanish me recomendaron a él. This allows the placement of almost any nominal term as a sentence topic, without having to use so often the passive voice (as in French or English), or identifying the direct object with a preposition (as in Spanish).

Verbs

Like all the Romance languages, Catalan verbal inflection is more complex than the nominal. Suffixation is omnipresent, whereas morphological alternations play a secondary role. Vowel alternances are active, as well as infixation and suppletion. However, these are not as productive as in Spanish, and are mostly restricted to irregular verbs.

The Catalan verbal system is basically common to all Western Romance, except that most dialects have replaced the synthetic indicative perfect with a periphrastic form of anar ("to go") + infinitive.

Catalan verbs are traditionally divided into three conjugations, with vowel themes -a-, -e-, -i-, the last two being split into two subtypes. However, this division is mostly theoretical. Only the first conjugation is nowadays productive (with about 3500 common verbs), whereas the third (the subtype of servir, with about 700 common verbs) is semiproductive. The verbs of the second conjugation are fewer than 100, and it is not possible to create new ones, except by compounding.

Syntax

The grammar of Catalan follows the general pattern of Western Romance languages. The primary word order is SVO (subjectâ€"verbâ€"object).

Catalan names

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

Sample text

Selected text from Manuel de Pedrolo's 1970 novel Un amor fora ciutat ("A love affair outside the city").

Catalan loanwords in the English language