Catalan Language

I

Introduction

Catalan Language, language that originated in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain. Catalan is spoken in Spain, in the autonomous regions of Catalonia and València and in the Balearic Islands; in France, in nearly the whole of the Pyrénées-Orientales; in Andorra, where it is an official language; and in the city of Alghero in Sardinia.

II

History of Catalan

The Catalan language is a Romance language and was the official language of the Kingdom of Aragón in the 12th century. Its literary tradition dates from that period. The 14th century saw the formation of the Generalitat de Catalunya, a body that, among other things, oversaw the standardization of Catalan. In 1714 Philip V stopped all official use of Catalan in Catalonia, and Castilian Spanish was made the official language.

After the Second Republic was formed in Spain in 1931, Catalan was restored as an official language. The Generalitat de Catalunya was reestablished, but the rule of General Francisco Franco following the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) ended any promotion of the use of Catalan. After the end of Franco’s rule the Generalitat was brought back in 1977 to standardize Catalan as a literary language and to promote written usage of standard Catalan.

Today, Catalan holds official status (along with Spanish) in the autonomous regions of Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Catalan is the main language of instruction in schools in Catalonia, and several Catalonian radio and television stations broadcast in Catalan. In Valencia, where Catalan is also referred to as Valencià, the language has resisted the process of standardization somewhat. It is the language of instruction in some schools and a compulsory subject in Catalan-speaking districts of the region. Island Catalan, the name given to the Catalan spoken in the Balearics, is in danger of being replaced by Spanish. Although it is taught in all schools, the culture of the islands is predominantly Spanish.

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III

Characteristics of Catalan

For years some philologists believed that Catalan was merely a dialect or offshoot of Provençal (see Occitan) and that during the Middle Ages it had raised itself for a time to the dignity of a literary language. Subsequent research led other scholars to claim the complete independence of Catalan as a language. Ranged in the group of Hispanic languages, Catalan has a character as distinctive as that of Castilian, Portuguese, and Galician.

Among the characteristics of Catalan are the following: A number of perfect participles are formed from the perfect stem instead of from the infinitive stem; the pronunciation of b and v has not merged; the voiced sound of intervocalic s has persisted; in unaccented final vowels, a is retained and other vowels are dropped; the Latin au is changed to o as in Castilian; final dentals are vocalized, which is held to be the essential characteristic of classic Catalan; noun declensions are totally absent; and the original pronunciation of the Latin ū is retained in cases in which French and Provençal use ü.

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