Overview of the Catalan Language

Catalan is a language spoken in northeastern Spain, in the Balearic Islands, in Andorra, and in the province of Pyrénées-Orientales (formerly Roussillon) in France. Historically, it was the language of Catalonia, the region in Spain that includes Barcelona. However, today its speakers have spread throughout the region, beyond the original borders. The Catalan language is a co-official language in the Spanish communities of Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. It is also the only official language of Andorra.

Catalan is a Romance language, descended from Latin. Because of the history of Roman settlement and location of the region of Catalonia, it is most similar to French and Spanish.

The Catalan Alphabet and Catalan Pronunciation

Catalan is written in a variation of the Latin alphabet, which is also used by English and many other languages. Catalan letters will therefore look familiar to English speakers who are learning Catalan, although the pronunciation of various letters is not always the same as that of their English counterparts. The Catalan alphabet has twenty-seven letters. It includes the twenty-six letters used in English plus the letter Ç, which appears between C and D in the Catalan alphabet. The letters K, W, and Y are used almost exclusively in words of foreign origin.

Written Catalan uses acute accents, grave accents, and the dieresis mark (two dots above a letter) over vowels to indicate certain aspects of pronunciation, such as stress. In most Catalan words, the stress falls on either the second-to-last or the last syllable, depending on the word ending. An accent will mark the stressed syllable in words which do not follow the expected pattern.

Catalan Vocabulary

Because Catalan is a Romance language, much of its vocabulary shares the same origins as words in French, Spanish, and other related languages. It has also borrowed words from its neighboring languages over time, increasing its apparent similarity. However, Catalan vocabulary differs from that of Spanish in that it lacks many of the Arabic loanwords that were incorporated into Spanish during the time of Muslim rule, and it has absorbed more words from Germanic sources than Spanish has.

Catalan Grammar

All Catalan nouns are either masculine or feminine. Masculine nouns generally end in e and feminine nouns generally end in a, but this rule does not apply to all instances. Most nouns also have singular and plural forms. Definite articles and adjectives must agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. Catalan adjectives usually come after nouns. Catalan verbs in generally fall into one of three conjugations, and the remainder are irregular. The type of conjugation can be determined by the ending of the infinitive form of the verb.

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