Catalan or Catalan language. Catalan language in Spain

Catalan language coverage map

Catalan language (self-named. català) belongs to the Occitan-Romance subgroup of the Romance languages ​​of the Indo-European family. It is spoken by about 11 million people in the so-called. Catalan lands in Spain (autonomous communities Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands), France (department Eastern Pyrenees), Andorra and Italy(G. Alghero on the island of Sardinia).

History of the formation of the Catalan language.

It is believed that the formation of an independent Catalan language began in the 9th century, during the Reconquista. The language originated from Vulgar Latin in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. In the late Middle Ages, Catalan was a literary language and had prestige.

In the first half of the 19th century, a resistance movement began to form, the so-called Renaissance ( Renaixença ). At first it did not go beyond the literary movement, but over the course of the century it acquired political and national features.

Catalan is an inflected language.

In the 20th century, General Franco, who came to power, completely banned the Catalan language in all spheres of public life. Only 8 years after the death of the dictator, in 1983, a law was passed "On linguistic normalization in Catalonia", which officially secured Catalan the status of the second official language in the autonomous region of Catalonia.

Information about dialects. Spread of language.

• An independent dialect is Mallorquin, a dialect of the Balearic Islands.
• In the Valencian Community, the local dialect of Catalan is called Valencian language. There has been a long discussion about whether Valencian should be considered an independent language or one of the dialects. Compromise opinion: "there is one language, which in Catalonia is called Catalan, and in Valencia - Valencian."

Highlight:

• Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan dialects. The east of Catalonia, the south of Catalan-speaking France, the Balearic Islands and Sardinia are classified as Eastern Catalan dialects. Other areas of distribution of the Catalan language are classified as Western Catalan dialects. The main criterion for this division into dialects is the pronunciation of unstressed O, e And A. In Western Catalan these sounds are pronounced in the same way as they are expressed in writing, while in Eastern Catalan dialects O in an unstressed position it is pronounced as [u], and e And A- like weak English [ə].

Catalan has retained many features of the language in which the troubadours composed their songs and is very close to the Provençal or Occitan language, which is still spoken in the south of France.

Catalan is an independent language and not a variant of Spanish.

Flag of the province of Catalonia

It is a mistake to think that since Catalan is most widespread in Spain, it means that it once broke away from Spanish and was modified over the centuries. This is not so: they originated from different ancestors (that is, from different dialects of Latin) and never intersected in their development. In addition, they were subject to completely different foreign influences.

In the 8th century, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by the Moors, and the Spanish-speaking territories remained under Muslim rule for seven long centuries. This could not but affect the language, which had acquired a substantial stock of borrowings from Arabic. Catalonia was soon returned to the Christian world by the Franks, having won it from the Saracens, and the Gallic influence on the Catalan language turned out to be so significant that many linguists classify it not as an Ibero-Roman language (like Spanish), but as a Gallo-Roman language (like French).

Linguistic features.

• Ultimate -d often pronounced as unvoiced: autoridat('autoridad'), verdat('verdad'), amistat('amistad'), Madrit('Madrid').
• The main differences are in pronunciation - although Catalan pronunciation resembles Spanish, this is caused by a long period of coexistence, and not by original characteristics. Catalan lacks interdental s(z), Spanish ll, but there is a hissing x, sonorous z, tz. Quite strong differences in grammar, ranging from verb conjugation to many forms of adverbs and prepositions, closer to Provençal and French. For example, in Spanish "please" - por favor, in French - s’il vous plaite, in Catalan - si us plau.
• In general, the pronunciation of a Catalan is more reminiscent of French - consonant sounds such as J (“zh”), Z (“z”) and X (“w”), characteristic of Catalan speech, are generally absent in modern Spanish, but are present in French, as well as Portuguese and Galician.
• With a general grammatical structure close to Spanish, Catalan infinitives end not in -er, -ar, -ir, but in -e. For example, “to sell”: vender (Spanish) - vendre (Cat. and French)

Where to learn Catalan.

In Catalonia itself catala spoken everywhere... except in the capital. Of course, all Barcelona residents speak it, but as an official one, not a colloquial one. Thus, doctoral dissertations are defended in Catalan almost every day, but hearing, say, a street quarrel in it is almost unthinkable: the language of “tram squabbles” and everyday communication in Barcelona remains Spanish. It's a shame...

It’s a pity that they hardly translate from Catalan here, and many of today’s talented Catalan authors are not known to us, although the province publishes more than 6 thousand books annually... There is only one way out - to teach yourself.

In Moscow, Catalan is taught only at the Moscow State University Romgerm. In St. Petersburg - at the philological department of St. Petersburg State University, along with the main Spanish. But in Barcelona - on every corner. For example, in language schools Inlingua Barcelona, BCN Languages, Barna House, Center d'estudis Adams, in the language centers of the University of Barcelona and the University Abat Oliba. And in France, in the city of Perpignan, there is a whole Center for Catalan culture - Center Cultural Catala.

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The only state in the world where Catalan is the official language is Andorra. In addition to this picturesque country in the heart of the Pyrenees, whose population is extremely small, Catalan coexists with Spanish in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia (total number of speakers is about 8.5 million). However, there are many places where the Catalan language is not officially recognized, despite its active use: this is the situation in Aragon (105 localities), in “Northern Catalonia” with the capital Perpignan (or in the department of Eastern Pyrenees, according to the French territorial division), in Murcia and in Sardinia. In total, Catalan is spoken by about 14 million people in 4 countries (Spain, Andorra, France, Italy).
The sociolinguistic status of the Catalan language varies from province to province. On the northern slopes of the Pyrenees and in large cities (especially Valencia and Alicante), Catalan is a minority language and is not very popular. At the same time, in Catalonia, on the islands and in the rural part of Valencia, it is the main language of communication, which also serves as a sign of national unity. Interestingly, Catalan is one of the most used languages ​​on the Internet (ranked 26th among the languages ​​of the world), in particular, the bulk of Wikipedia articles intended for Spaniards are written in it (according to the University of Oxford).
It is worth noting that not all Catalan-speaking people use the name “Catalan language” - el català. The Catalan-speaking population of Valencia prefers the self-name “Valencian language” (el valencià) and most of them share the false belief that Valencian and Catalan are two different languages. Unfortunately, this division, which is in no way justified by linguistics, is actively used by political parties and movements that benefit from the “divide and conquer” principle.

Dialects

Catalan has far fewer dialects than, say, Spanish or Basque - although dialectal differences can be quite significant, especially in Menorca, whose dialect is not always understood by "continental" Catalans. Traditionally, Catalan is considered to be divided into two main dialects: eastern (Tarragona, Barcelona, ​​Girona, Perpigna and the Balearic Islands) and western (Andorra, Leida, Tortosa, Aragon and Valencia). Their differences manifest themselves in different ways:

• Phonetics: in eastern dialects there is a reduction of vowels [a], [e] and [ԑ] (open e) into a neutral sound [ә] of the middle rise, as well as a reduction of closed [o] and open [ᴐ] into [u]. This reduction is not observed in Western dialects.
• Verb morphology: first person opposition parle (West)/ parlo (East), patisc/ pateixo and the opposition of the suffix –ix (west) / –eix (east). Subjunctive mood: que parle (west) / que parli (east).
• Demonstrative pronouns and adverbs of place: the Valencian dialect retains a three-member division of space according to degree of proximity - adverbs açò, això, allò and pronouns este, eixe, aquell(closeness to the speaker, to the interlocutor, to a third person), while in other regions it disappears - adverbs això, allò and pronouns aquest, aquell corresponds to the Russian division into close and distant.
• Vocabulary: numerous differences, e.g. espill, roig, melic(zap.) / mirall, vermell, llombrígol(Eastern).

Often dialectal differences manifest themselves locally and in rather bizarre ways. So, in the Balearic Islands - and for some reason in Tarben and Cadaques - the definite article is used es/sa, going back to Latin IPSU/IPSA: es llibre, s’oli, sa dona, ses taules. This is the only case in the entire group of Romance languages, except Sardinian.
It is interesting to note that the first person singular. present vr. a verb in different dialects can take 6 different endings (5 vowels + zero ending). Among the grammatical features, it is worth highlighting the “periphrastic past tense,” which is formed using the verb anar (to go): yes, form va parlar does not mean “will speak” at all (cf. French. va parler or Spanish va a hablar), and “he spoke”. Along with this unique past tense for the Romanesque group, synthetic forms also coexist, which, however, are used only in book speech and in certain regions of Valencia.

Story

Since Paleolithic times, the Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited by tribes of non-Indo-European origin: in particular, the Iberians and Proto-Basques (in the Pyrenees). Subsequently, the east coast was colonized by the Greeks and Carthaginians. In 218 BC. Roman troops invade the peninsula and subjugate it to the Roman Empire. Their dominance lasted for about 7 centuries. A direct consequence of this dominance was the Romanization of the peninsula, divided into three provinces: Betica, Lusitania and Tarracona (including modern Catalonia and Valencia).
The Catalan language can be considered Gallo-Romance, since all linguistic innovations coming from Rome to Gaul were assimilated by Catalan: in this sense, it is a direct relative of Occitan and French, and is in many ways similar to Italian. Examples of these innovations in folk Latin are: arribar, bullir, cama, formatge, llit, malalt, menjar, parlar, por, taula, trobar, voler– can be easily contrasted with the vocabulary of the Ibero-Roman group llegar, hervir, pierna, queso, cama, enfermo, comer, hablar, miedo, mesa, encontrar / hallar, querer, dating back to classical Latin. However, the influence of Spanish did not pass without a trace, and the indigenous Catalan vocabulary in many cases gave way to Spanish borrowings: cf. outdated frare, sor, jaquir, ociure, orb, pus with modern germà, germana, deixar, matar, cec, més. This tendency is especially pronounced in Western dialects.
The invasion of the Visigothic tribes in the 5th century did not significantly change the linguistic picture, since the conquerors assimilated and adopted folk Latin. Therefore, the Germanic superstrate is reduced to individual words (often military vocabulary and onomastics): blanc, blau, bru, esquena, anca, fresc, estona, gaire, guerra, guanyar, Bernat, Guillem, Arnau, Llofriu, Guimerà, ...
In the 8th century, Arab tribes landed on the peninsula and in a matter of months conquered most of modern Spain. In 732 they lose the battle to Charlemagne, and the French capture the north of the peninsula. In the 9th century, the Catalan principalities gained independence and rallied around Barcelona. We can say that it was there that the Catalan language was born in close connection with Occitan (at that time, practically no different from Catalan). Commercial ties with the south of modern France support its European aspirations, while modern Valencia is under Arab rule and adopts a fairly significant lexical layer from Arabic. Subsequently, this vocabulary, associated primarily with agriculture, will enter Catalan and from there spread to other European languages: albergínia, albercoc, carxofa, garrofa, taronja, safrà, sucre, sofre, cotó, magatzem, duana.
In the 12th century, the Catalan-Aragonese kingdom (in modern terms, the confederation of Catalonia and Aragon) begins to expand, seeks access to the sea, and captures adjacent areas: Tarragona (1128), Leida (1238) and, a century later, Mallorca (1229) and Valencia ( 1238). The aggressive policy leads the Catalans in the 14th century to Sardinia and Sicily, to Naples and Athens.
The first literary monuments of Catalonia were four chronicles - some of the best examples in all of Europe - la Cronica de Jaume I or Libre dels feits, la Cronica de Bernat Desclot, la Cronica de Ramon Muntaner and la Cronica de Pere el Cerimoniós. From the XII-XIII centuries. the poetry of the Catalan troubadours was preserved, and at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries. It is worth noting the figure of the brilliant thinker, inventor and poet Ramon Llull.
The political flourishing of Catalonia was accompanied by the flourishing of Catalan literature: the 15th century, called the “golden age,” gave birth to a whole galaxy of brilliant writers and poets - Bernat Metge, Ausiàs March, Jordi de Sant Jordi, Joan Roís de Corella, Jaume Roig, Joanot Martorell. Marturel became famous for writing a wonderful chivalric novel Tirant lo blanc (Tyrant White, translated into Russian) is the only book that Don Quixote does not burn.
After centuries of prosperity, the unequal union of Aragon with Castile in 1479 gradually changed the geopolitical situation and led to the repression of the Catalan language until its official prohibition at the state level subsequently. The expulsion of the Arabs in 1609 led to massive population migrations and was the first step to consolidate the boundaries of the Catalan language (in particular, Murcia was settled by people from Spanish-speaking areas and lost the Catalan language). The expulsion of Catalan from the official sphere accelerated after the war of succession to the throne: having captured Aragon, the Bourbons passed a decree banning the Catalan language (Decret de la Nova Planta) in 1707 in Valencia and in 1716 in Barcelona. Napoleon captured Catalonia in 1808 and annexed it to France for some time. By the end of the 19th century, it became fashionable among the aristocracy to speak Spanish. In this regard, the Catalan language is being pushed into the sphere of informal and everyday communication of the middle and lower classes, and the prestige of the language is falling sharply. At the same time, a counter-nationalist movement, the Renaixença, emerged among the growing bourgeoisie. In 1859, in Barcelona (and decades later in Valencia), literary competitions typical of the 14th century were resurrected - els Jocs Florals (flower games), designed, in particular, to raise the prestige of the Catalan language. But only towards the end of the 19th century, a new wave of remarkable writers and poets began to create in the Catalan language: we are talking about Catalan modernism (Santiago Rusiñol, Joan Maragall, Eugeni d´Ors), a movement that was especially clearly manifested in architecture (Antoni Gaudí). In 1913, Pompeu Fabra published a huge work on the study and normalization of the Catalan language, which later served as the basis for the creation of modern grammar. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new galaxy of remarkable authors appeared: Mercé Rodoreda, Josep Pla, Salvador Espriu and many others, who were subsequently forced to emigrate during the years of Francoism.
In the 20th century, the growing industrialization of Catalonia led to a huge increase in immigration, mainly from poor Spanish-speaking areas. Immigrant families in many cases tried to maintain their native language, which led to a decrease in the role of Catalan in large cities - Barcelona, ​​Valencia and, especially, Alicante. But the main blow to the language was dealt by the dictatorship of General Franco, who for 35 years tried to mercilessly suppress all manifestations of a thousand-year-old culture. Not allowed in the media, the Catalan language gradually lost its position, despite the fact that families continued to speak their native, albeit prohibited, language. Entire generations of Catalans were forced to study in a non-native Spanish language, which led to the virtual complete disappearance of monolinguals. This situation, however, changed with the adoption of the Constitution in 1978, recognizing the Catalan language as a legitimate means of communication. At the moment, three systems of education coexist in Catalan schools: predominantly in Catalan (Spanish as a foreign language), predominantly in Spanish (Catalan as a foreign language) and half and half.
Unfortunately, the struggle to support the Catalan language often takes a purely political turn, and autonomous governments abuse this. It should be noted that the linguistic situation in Valencia differs in this sense from Catalonia, which is seeking to gain greater self-government rights and even possibly secede from Spain. However, for many Catalan-speaking people in Spain, their status as “Spaniards” is imposed and unwelcome, as is the obligation to know and speak Spanish.

• Amell Guiomar (1994): Breu història dels catalans, Barcelona, ​​Generalitat de Catalunya.
• Borja de Riquer (dir.) (1999): Cronologia dels Països Catalans. història i societat, economia, cultura, ciència, Barcelona, ​​Portic.
• Casanova, Emili i Abelard Saragossà (2010): El valenciano: nombre, historia, situación sociolingüística y características básicas, Valencia, Ed. Denes.
• Ferrando, Antoni i Miquel Nicolàs (2005): Historia de la llengua catalana, Barcelona, ​​Pòrtic, Editorial UOC.
• Veny, Joan (1978): Els parlars catalans, Palma, Ed. Raixa.

- Oh, do you speak Catalan? Wow. Is this a rare language?
— Actually, Catalan is spoken by about 11 million people in Romanesque Europe: in Spain (Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands), in France on the border with Spain (Eastern Pyrenees), throughout Andorra and a little in Italy (about . Sardinia). It is the language of the Occitan-Romance subgroup of the Romance languages ​​of the Indo-European family.

— Where is Catalonia?
— Catalonia is a region in the north of Spain, on the border with France. It is the center of the Catalan language and culture. The capital of Catalonia, as you know, is Barcelona, ​​and to the right of it is the Mediterranean Sea. Yes, officially this is Spain, but the region is very distinctive. Barcelonans are not very similar to the people of Madrid (this is in the center of Spain), and even more so the Andalusians (this is in the south). The people here are more northern, European or something, calm, for bullfighting and flamenco - this is not the place.

— So Catalan is a dialect of Spanish?
- God forbid you say such a thing in front of a Catalan! It is considered to be a language in its own right: there is great literature in Catalan, a great history of Catalonia, and now numerous Internet resources (Catalan Wikipedia: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada). Yes, it is similar to Spanish, but no more than Ukrainian is similar to Russian. That is, a resident of Madrid begins to understand Catalan decently only after living here for a couple of months. And he can speak only if he starts to study it seriously. Modern Catalan retains many roots from Old Spanish, so to a Spaniard it may sound a little archaic and literary.

The Catalans have long dreamed of separating, and therefore sacredly honor and support their native language. And also because it was banned during Franco’s time - all media, advertising, etc. should have been published in Spanish (although it is believed that there are at least 5 languages ​​in Spain). In the 70s the proud people began to actively inculcate the Catalan language (dictionaries, by the way, give both options - Catalan and Catalan) first within themselves, and then among visitors. The generation of Catalans who lived their entire adult lives under Franco practically learned the language all over again, and the younger ones learned it from childhood. Now there are a lot of language courses in Catalonia. This is a state policy: anyone who wants to learn a language can do it without problems (the first stages of learning are free for everyone). This is especially true for visiting students: have you seen the film “Spanish Flu”, where the professor refused to give a lecture in Spanish? Same thing. And this really happens, not everywhere, but still sometimes in a store they basically speak to you in Catalan, as if not noticing that you are trying to switch to Spanish. I came - learn our language, my friend.

- But does it sound like Spanish?
- No, the phonetics are still different. Something between Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. When I spoke to Italians in Catalan, they understood me, better than in Spanish. It also has common roots with French, because in the south of France they also speak Catalan in some places. And in Andorra this is the only official language! In France and Spain, in some regions it is the second native language - almost all Catalans are bilingual, and in the Spanish north and French south there are many mixed French-Spanish families. And the Catalans and the French have similar traditions, even in bakeries - similar delicious pastries and confectionery: croissants, baguettes, flans.

— Do they teach Catalan in Russia?
— Yes, you can even take official exams (like TOEFL or DELE). Of course, there are very few such university or simply language courses, but you can learn Catalan if you wish. After all, such a language, you understand: Dali, Gaudi, Miro...

More information about the history and culture of Catalonia can be found, for example, on the website
Generalitat de Catalunya.

It is spoken by about 11 million people in the so-called. Catalan lands in Spain (autonomous communities of Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands), France (Eastern Pyrenees department), Andorra and Italy (Alghero on the island of Sardinia).

Catalan is the official language in the above mentioned provinces of Spain (along with Spanish) and in Andorra.

Name

Some Valencian organizations advocate for the recognition of Valencian as an independent language, but most scholars consider Valencian and Catalan to be one language.

In the latter case, there are several options for the name of the entire language and its individual parts:

• Catalan language with several dialects, one of which is Valencian;
• Catalan-Valencian language (less commonly Catalan-Valencian-Balearic) with Catalan and Valencian variants;
• a single language with different names: in Catalonia - Catalan, in Valencia - Valencian.

Story

It is believed that the formation of an independent Catalan language began in the 9th century, during the Reconquista. The first monuments of the Catalan language date back to this century.

The language originated from Vulgar Latin in the north of the Iberian Peninsula.

In the late Middle Ages, Catalan was a literary language and had prestige. Although the language of poetry in Catalonia until the 15th century. Occitan remained, Catalan - the first of the Romance languages ​​- opened such areas as philosophy and science.

After the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon to Isabella I of Castile in 1469, the Catalan nobility began to switch to the Castilian (Spanish) language, which led to a constant narrowing of the scope of the Catalan language and the formation of a situation of diglossia, which is still observed today.

The repressive language policy of the Bourbons in the 18th century had a very negative impact; its reason was that the Catalans fought on the side of the Habsburgs in the War of the Spanish Succession.

By the beginning of the 19th century. The Catalan language was finally forced out of most areas of use.

However, its position was more favorable than, for example, the Galician language.

Although the political and social elite (nobility, writers) stopped using the language during the decline of the language (XVI-XIX centuries), it was spoken by the common people and the clergy, which allowed the language to maintain a certain social prestige.

In the first half of the 19th century. A resistance movement, the so-called Renaissance (Renaixença), begins to form. At first it did not go beyond the bounds of a literary movement, but over the course of the century it acquired political and national features.

By the beginning of the 20th century. include the first victories in language policy.

In the 1930s, Catalan even received the status of a second official language in Catalonia. But the success did not last long.

After Franco's victory in the Civil War (1936-39), the use of the Catalan language was prohibited. The legislation of Francoist Spain provided for criminal liability for its use.

This situation remained until the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1975. The democratization of Spain led to greater autonomy in certain areas, and in 1979 the Catalan language again received official status.

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Useful information

Catalan
Valencian language
self-described català
Spanish Idiom catalan

Linguistic characteristics

Writing

The Latin alphabet is used as the graphic basis of Catalan-Valencian-Balearic with the addition of a number of special idigraph letters.

Further periodization is developed only for literary written language. It distinguishes the early period - from the 9th to the 15th centuries; middle - from the 16th to the 19th centuries; and the newest one - from the 19th century. to this day.

Phonological information

Seven vowel phonemes can be in the stressed position: front-lingual and, e open, e closed, a, u, o open and o closed. In unstressed position, the vocalization system varies depending on the dialect. In the central dialect it includes i, u, ə. In Western dialects - a, e, o, u, i.

Syllable

Basic syllable types: V, VC, VCC, CV, CVC, CVCC, CCVC.

Morphology

Catalan is an inflected language.

Composition and nature of morphological categories

Information about dialects

An independent dialect is "Mallorquin" - a dialect of the Balearic Islands.

In the Valencian Community, the local dialect of Catalan is called Valencian.

Catalan is understood by approximately 10 million people in Spain (Catalonia, Valencia), the Balearic Islands, the south of France, Italy (Alghero in Sardinia) and Andorra.

The area where the Catalan language is spoken is called Paisos Catalans (Catalan countries). Approximately 7.7 million speakers actively use this language, and 4.4 million call Catalan their main language of communication. There are Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan dialects.

The east of Catalonia, the south of Catalan-speaking France, the Balearic Islands and Sardinia are classified as Eastern Catalan dialects.

Other areas of distribution of the Catalan language are classified as Western Catalan dialects. The main criterion for this division into dialects is the pronunciation of unstressed o, e and a.

In Western Catalan these sounds are pronounced in the same way as they are expressed in writing, while in Eastern Catalan dialects o in unstressed position is pronounced as [u], and e and a as weak English [ə].

Catalan belongs to the Occitan-Romance subgroup of the Indo-European family. It is the state government of the Principality of Andorra. The total number of people who speak Catalan is approximately 11 million. Most often, this language can be heard in the autonomous communities of Spain (Balearic Islands and Valencia), Italy (the city of Alghero, which is located on the island of Sardinia) and France (Eastern Pyrenees).

General information and brief description

In the 18th century, the Catalan language had many names due to the fact that it was used in different territories. To this day, two more terms have been preserved to denote this language - Catalan-Valencian-Balearic (used mainly in scientific literature) and Valencian. The last option is used exclusively by peoples who live in the Autonomous Community of Valencia (part of Spain). There is also a rare name "Mallorquin", which is used in informal cases (Balearic Islands, Kingdom of Mallorca).

Catalan takes an honorable sixth place in the Romance group in terms of the number of speakers (at least 11.6 million people). It is ahead of Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian. Catalan is the 14th language in the European Union in terms of clarity of use in everyday speech.

For writing, an adapted Latin alphabet is used: for example, letter combinations -ny-, -l∙l-, -ig, which are not found anywhere else. Characteristic features of the language regarding phonetics and grammar are the number of vowel sounds (there are seven in the Romance group, eight in Catalan) and the use of special articles before names.

In January 2009, a record was set for the longest monologue in the world (124 hours of continuous speech). Most of it was spoken in Catalan. The author of the record was Perpignan resident Lewis Coulet.

History of origin and development

It is generally accepted that the Catalan language began to form in the distant 10th century, since the earliest monuments using the dialect “Sermons of Organya”, which were found earlier, date back to this century. It arose on the basis of folk Latin in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. During the late Middle Ages, Catalan was considered prestigious and was often used in literature (poets preferred to write in Occitan), philosophy and even science.

Starting from the 13th century, the dialect gradually strengthened its position in order to become an independent language. At that time, Ramon Lull wrote works on theological, philosophical and artistic topics using Catalan. The 15th century was truly a golden age for the language. The most unsurpassed and brilliant master, who was one of the first to use this language in poetry, was Ausias Mark. The primacy in prose, of course, belongs to the novels “Tirant the White” and “Curial and Guelfa”, the author of which was Juanot Martorell.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Catalan language lost its former greatness. The reason for this was the social and political elite, which began to actively use Castilian (the ancient name of Spanish). Thanks to the common people and the clergy who continued to use Catalan in everyday life, the language did not become dead.

After the Civil War 1936-1939. and Franco's victory, the use of dialect in spoken and written speech was prohibited. In Spain at that time there was even a law according to which a person using Catalan was subject to criminal punishment. The emergence of democracy in the country led to the autonomy of some areas, as a result of which the language again received the status of the state language.

Spelling

Catalan writing uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics. Among the features of this spelling, the following stands out:

• the use of an interpunct between the double letter l: intel.ligent - smart;
• the use of the combination -ig-, which denotes the sound [ʧ] in words such as maig, faig, etc.;
• the use of the letter t, which denotes the following extended consonant tl, tll, tn and tm: setmana - week, bitllet - ticket;
• combinations tz, ts, tj, tg are used to denote affricates.

Characteristics of vowels

One of the features of this type of sounds is the disappearance of vowels at the end of words of Latin origin except for the letter -a. This feature primarily distinguishes Catalan from the languages ​​of the Italo-Romance and West Iberian subgroups. The languages ​​of these subfamilies retain all final vowels. Catalan and Occitan share a number of monosyllabic words and numerous diphthongs. The difference between the two above-mentioned languages ​​is the reduction of the AU diphthong to an open O sound.

Catalan differs from Spanish in maintaining the open pronunciation of the short stressed vowels of Latin origin Ŏ and Ĕ. The combination of letters -ACT in the middle of words is reduced and becomes -ET. This feature is common to Catalan and (Occitan and Languedoc dialects).

Features of consonants

This type of sounds is characterized by the transition of voiceless -T, -C, -P to voiced -d-, -g-, -b. This trait shares Catalan with the Western Romance subfamily. What this language has in common with the Gallo-Roman group is the preservation of the initial sounds FL, PL, CL, the replacement of voiceless consonants with corresponding voiced ones if the subsequent word begins with a voiced consonant or vowel. The process of dropping the intervocalic -N, which comes from Vulgar Latin, and devoicing the final consonant unites Catalan with the Occitan and Languedoc dialects.

• Let's look at the original features that are not found in the Romance languages:
• the Latin consonant -D becomes the sound -u;
• the ending -TIS becomes -u (exclusively for the second person plural);
• combination of Latin final sounds -C + e, i → -u (approx. CRUCEM → creu).

Varieties

At different times, in the territories where the Catalan language is spoken, various dialects appeared under its influence. Let's consider the most significant ones, as well as the places of their occurrence:

• Sicilian in Southern Italy;
• the patouet dialect, which until the second half of the last century was spoken by immigrants, and later by their descendants from the south of Valencia, Menorca. As for vocabulary, it was based on some Arabic and French words;

• The formation of the Panotcho dialect (autonomous community of Murcia) was influenced by the Catalan language. Country of origin - Spain;
• Sicilian language, Southern Italy;
• Churro dialect, territory of the Spanish-speaking regions of the Autonomous Community of Valencia;
• Neapolitan language, country - Italy.