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Catalan language
Catalan pronounced /ˈkætəˌlæn/ (català IPA: [kətəˈla] or [kataˈla]) is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian) and in the city of Alghero in the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken, although with no official recognition, in the autonomous communities of Aragon (in La Franja) and Murcia (in Carche) in Spain, and, officially recognised to some extent, in the historic Roussillon region of southern France, roughly equivalent to the current département of the [] (Northern Catalonia). Though Catalan bears many similarities to Spanish (as well as to other Romance languages), the two are not mutually intelligible. HistoryThe Catalan language developed from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern part of the Pyrenees mountains (counties of Rosselló, Empúries, Besalú, Cerdanya, Urgell, Pallars and Ribagorça). It shares features with Gallo-Romance, Ibero-Romance, and the Gallo-Italian speech types of Northern Italy. Though some hypothesize a historical split from languages of Occitan typology, the entire area running from Liguria on the present Italian coast to at least Alicante in Spain is more scientifically viewed as a classic dialect continuum, with some eventual perturbation as a result of political divisions and overlay of standard national languages. As a consequence of the Aragonese and Catalan conquests from Al-Andalus to the south and to the west, it spread to all present-day Catalonia, Balearic Islands and most of Valencian Community. During the 15th century, during the Valencian Golden Age, the Catalan language reached its highest cultural splendor, which was not matched again until La Renaixença, 4 centuries later.
After the Treaty of the Pyrenees, a royal decree by Louis XIV of France on 2 April 1700 prohibited the use of Catalan language in present-day Northern Catalonia in all official documents under the threat of being invalidated. Since then, the Catalan language has lacked official status in the Catalan-speaking region in France. On 10 December 2007, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized the Catalan language as one of the languages of the department in the ARTICLE 1 (a) of its Charte en faveur du Catalan (b), and seek to further promote it in public life and education. (a) <<ARTICLE 1 : The General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognizes, beside the French language, the Catalan as language of the department. (Le Conseil Général des Pyrénées-Orientales reconnaît officiellement, au côté de la langue française, le catalan comme langue du département.')>> (b) Carta a favor del Català
After the Nueva Planta Decrees, administrative use and education in Catalan was also banned in the territories of the Spanish Kingdom. It was not until the Renaixença that use of the Catalan language started to recover. In Francoist Spain (1939–1975), the use of Spanish over Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was discouraged by official propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned. During later stages of the Francoist regime, certain folkloric or religious celebrations in Catalan were resumed and tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media was forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s in the theatre. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship. There was no official prohibition of speaking Catalan in public or in commerce, but all advertising and signage had to be in Spanish alone, as did all written communication in business. Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy, the use of Catalan increased partly because of new affirmative action and subsidy policies and the Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the Catalan 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); and the television channels of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC): TV3, the main channel, and Canal 33/K3 (culture and cartoons channel) as well as a 24-hour news channel 3/24 and the TV series channel 300; in València canal 9 and Punt 2; in the Balearic islands IB3; there are also many local channels available in region in Catalan, such as BTV and Td8 (in the metropolitan area of Barcelona), Canal L'Hospitalet (L'Hospitalet de Llobregat), Canal Terrassa (Terrassa), Televisió de Sant Cugat TDSC (Sant Cugat del Vallès), Televisió de Mataró TVM (Mataró). ClassificationThe ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists. According to the Ethnologue, its specific classification is as follows: Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to languages subsumed under the cover term Occitan. (See also Occitan language: Differences between Occitan and Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages.) As would be expected of closely cognate languages, Catalan also shares numerous features with other Romance languages, with similarities generally decreasing with physical distance. (Read more) |
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