r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Aug 18 '14

Benvinguts - This week's language of the week: Catalan

Welcome to the language of the week. Every week we'll be looking at a language, its points of interest, and why you should learn it. This is all open discussion, so natives and learners alike, make your case! This week: Catalan.

Language of the Week is here to give people exposure to languages that they would otherwise not have heard, been interested in or even known about. With that in mind, I'll be picking a mix between common languages and ones I or the community feel needs more exposure. You don't have to intend to learn this week's language to have some fun. Just give yourself a little exposure to it, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.

Catalan

Grammar:

From Wikipedia:

Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages. However, despite being mostly situated in the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan shows greater differences with Ibero-Romance (Spanish, Portuguese) in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar than it does with Gallo-Romance (French, Italian, Occitan, 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.

History:

From Languagesgulper:

Catalan is a Romance language developed from a variety of Vulgar Latin spoken in a small area on either side of the eastern Pyrenees. After centuries of Visigothic and Moorish domination, this territory was politically consolidated during the Carolingian empire as a buffer zone between it and the Muslim kingdom of Al-Andalus. Later, this region gained independence, starting with the separation of the county of Barcelona in 988 CE.

Incorporated into the kingdom of Aragon, Catalonia became a maritime power expanding into Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia. But after the union of Aragon with Castile, initiated in the 15th century, Catalonia lost its autonomy and Catalan came under increasing pressure from Spanish, being influenced by it at many levels. It was not until the 19th century that a Renaissance of the Catalan language and culture, promoted by Romanticism, took place which, despite periods of repression (particularly during the Franco regime), still continues today.

Catalan's history explains its geographical distribution and close relation to the Occitan language of southern France and to Spanish.

Facts:

From Languagesgulper:

Catalan is spoken in eastern and northeastern Spain (Catalonia and Valencia, La Franja in Aragon, and the Balearic Isles), France (Roussillon region), Andorra, and in Alghero, a city of northwestern Sardinia, Italy.

Media

/u/Luzaleugim provided us with this week's language:

Hey there! I thought it would be nice if you featured Catalan as the language of the week!

This is a video of the news channel from Catalonia, in Catalan dialect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA4U5d9omYU

This one is from the Balearic islands, in Majorcan dialect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJQSapCuElQ

And this one of the Valencian one, in Valencian dialect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9AjscmHTEQ

Online (written) news in Catalan: http://www.ara.cat/

I hope those are enough resources, It'd be awesome if you featured it, thanks!

A video teaching phrases

/r/catalan

What now?

This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.

Previous Languages of the Week

German | Icelandic | Russian | Hebrew | Irish | Korean | Arabic | Swahili | Chinese | Portuguese | Swedish | Zulu | Malay | Finnish | French | Nepali | Czech | Dutch | Tamil | Spanish | Turkish | Polish | Frisian | Navajo | Basque | Zenen (April Fools) | Kazakh | Hungarian | Greek | Mongolian | Japanese | Maltese | Welsh | Persian/Farsi | ASL | Anything | Guaraní

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6

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

Incorporated into the kingdom of Aragon, Catalonia became a maritime power expanding into Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia. But after the union of Aragon with Castile, initiated in the 15th century, Catalonia lost its autonomy

Sorry that this isn't a linguistic question, but I'd be interested to know... this description makes it sound as if the County of Barcelona was an autonomous part of the region of Aragon (until Aragon and Castile joined), if I'm reading it right. Is that correct?

Catalan is spoken in eastern and northeastern Spain (Catalonia and Valencia, La Franja in Aragon, and the Balearic Isles), France (Roussillon region), Andorra, and in Alghero, a city of northwestern Sardinia, Italy.

Are you including Valencian in this? Because my friends from Valencia get quite annoyed if you say they speak Catalan!

Very interesting to learn that Algherese Catalan exists, I had no idea! Thanks for the write-up.

7

u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It Aug 18 '14

Yes, the article is including Valencian as a variety of Catalan. That seems to be as it is considered, regardless of the feelings of some people in Valencia.

9

u/HappyReaper Catalan L1 | Spanish L1 | French B1 | German A1 Aug 18 '14 edited Aug 18 '14

Yes, the article is including Valencian as a variety of Catalan. That seems to be as it is considered, regardless of the feelings of some people in Valencia.

As someone from Valencia, this is correct. Catalan has two varieties that we regard as "constitutive" (i.e. some relevant differences that were there since the language's origin): western (from what is currently the province of Lleida) and eastern (from the rest of Catalonia).

When the region currently known as "Valencian Community" was conquered by the Aragonese kingdom, the coast was mostly repopulated with citizens from western Catalonia, and the inner lands were with people from Aragon. Historically, that's a good part of the reason why, today, people who speak Catalan as their mother tongue are much more common in the east of the Valencian Community (the coast) than in the west, and also why the current dialects spoken there (there are several, which we call "consecutive") are much more similar to those of Lleida than to those derived from the eastern variety, even if those regions are geographically closer.

Even between eastern and western dialects, the differences are in the same range as those between American and European Spanish. Personally, I've never had any difficulty understanding any Catalan speaker, even those dialects that I'd never heard before. We usually refer to the set of Catalan varieties spoken in Valencia as "Valencian" ("Valencià"), so if you hear the term that doesn't necessarily mean that the speaker thinks those are different languages. It's true, though, that the "debate" is currently absurdly tied to politics, and many people either don't know about the history of the language, or are convinced that the differences have somehow grown big enough to warrant a stronger linguistical divide.

9

u/Roto2esdios ESP (N) ENG (B2) FR (A2) GE (A1) Aug 18 '14

I from Valencia and this is true. Many people here think their language is different/better than the Catalonian's one. They have a strong nacionalism against Catalonia, despite many of them don't even speak catalonian/valencian.

The fact is the same with slightly differencies. The influence of castillian (spanish) and the Franco's repression has made the valencian slowly dissapear.

There are a very few people (most old people) who speak valencian in the capital of province of Valencia. The most people who really speak it there are settled on towns around it

7

u/HappyReaper Catalan L1 | Spanish L1 | French B1 | German A1 Aug 18 '14

I think most of that denial comes from the thought that Valencian being the same language as Catalan would somehow imply a "subordination" to the "main" branch of the language. They don't understand that every variety of Catalan spoken today is just as much a derivation from older versions of the language (and other languages before that) as any other, and that there can never be "main" and "subordinated" versions of a language.

1

u/lefike Aug 18 '14

In early medieval times, when Arabs still occupied large parts of what is Spain today, there was a "Crown of Aragon" made up of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia and some other holdings all over the Levante, like Mallorca or Sardinia.

1

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Sorry that this isn't a linguistic question, but I'd be interested to know... this description makes it sound as if the County of Barcelona was an autonomous part of the region of Aragon (until Aragon and Castile joined), if I'm reading it right. Is that correct?

Aragon was a confederation of different kingdoms (and pricipalities) with the Capital in Barcelona, Catalonia. So, in fact, you might say it was the Aragon kingdom the one which was the autonomous part, as the capital was in the pricipality of Catalonia... :-)

-2

u/hablador Aug 18 '14 edited Aug 18 '14

Well the article is quite inexact I suspect for political reasons. Catalonia was never an autonomous entity. The county of Barcelona was an important region of the Kingdom of Aragon, but Barcelona was never the capital of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Aragon was an independent political entity not Catalunya. Saying “Catalonia became a maritime power” is completely nonsense. Imagine someone in 3 centuries saying ”Incorporated into the USA, Massachusetts became a maritime power expanding to the West Coast up to Alaska”. Complete nonsense.

4

u/Toc_a_Somaten Catalan N1, English C2, Korean B1, French A2 Aug 18 '14

Please go back to school, if you ever went there in the first place. The kingdom of aragon was, like the Principality of Catalonia, part of the Crown of Aragon. Catalonia was not incorporated to the kingdom of aragon, king Ramiro gave the kingdom of aragon to the count of Barcelona as a dowry for her daughter petronilla. The site of the royal chancillery (government and archives) was in Barcelona, and the kings were proclaimed in saragossa. The ruling dynasty was catalan, the main language of the dynasty was catalan, the settlers that went to settle the maritime and peninsular posessions were catalan (as in baleares and valencia), most of the documents that werent in latin were in catalan.

The different countries that formed the crown of aragon mantained their separate institutions, laws, measures and currencies, mainly sharing the sovereign (from the house of Barcelona, so catalan) whose main function was legitimazing and military leadership.

To speak about "regions" in a political entity (the crown of aragon) you know so little about takes a lot of courage, or just utter ignorance.

Parece que va a ser verdad aquello de muy hablador, poco leedor

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

By the way, to work in the royal chancillery you had to know latin, catalan and aragonese.

1

u/Toc_a_Somaten Catalan N1, English C2, Korean B1, French A2 Aug 18 '14

Absolutely, aragonese was one of the official languages of the crown, i was just stressing the fact that catalan was the main language of the dynasty and, at least in the first part of the crown's history, of the whole country

2

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '14

Yes, I wasn't saying you were wrong or something. I just put it as a curiosity. After all, catalan was the language of the majority of the crown subjects.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

Em, nope. The Crown of Aragón is not the same as the Kingdom of Aragón. The Crown was formed by the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca and the Kingdom of Aragón. Catalonia had its own institutions and laws, including the Generalitat (catalan government). The Crown of Aragón wasn't an unified kingdom, but a confederation of sovereign entities under the same king.

1

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Excuse me? Where did the kings live? Where was the court?

There were three autonomous entities, Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, as that was a confederation. They shared the king, but mostly that's all. The Kingdom Aragon didn't even reach the sea, by the way.

12

u/goodintent eng/fr (fluent) es/de (B2) swahili/dansk (A2) Aug 18 '14

I speak French and Spanish and I always find Catalan startlingly easy to understand both in spoken and written form. It's always especially weird to hear a language and understand it but not be able to reply.

3

u/Cidraque Aug 25 '14

HI, I speak Spanish and Catalan and mostly I can understand the written French :)

2

u/3G6A5W338E Aug 31 '14

Same, but to be clear: The spoken language seems really cryptic.

I might consider studying the spoken language to some degree at some point. Seems like a waste not to.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14 edited Aug 18 '14

I find the way Catalan sounds to be extremely beautiful. I love those dipthongs in words like veure, viure, somriure. The word suau is the bomb, too. I also really like how adjectives sound that end in -at (tancat, recomanat, etc), I almost wish I didn't have to use the female ended ones. And words like més and menys, així, això, raó.. they just sound so good. I think Spanish is a pretty language, too, but Catalan accents are very cool sounding, I heard a lot of great voices while I was in catalunya. Also love the phrase "si us plau," it is like the french "si vous plait" but it just sounds funny to me.

I started watching Plats Bruts this year to keep up with practicing my listening skills and dear god I love it.

3

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

What about "xiuxiuejar"? I think it's one of the cooler words in the world.

6

u/GiantGlassOfMilk Aug 19 '14

Yay Catalan! You can watch Catalan television live or past episodes at www.tv3.cat . I recommend watching 'Pòlonia' a weekly comedy show about current events and politics in Catalunya and all of Spain.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

Are there many Catalan monolinguals or does everyone receive an education in Spanish? I've been to Barcelona and everyone spoke Spanish, generally using Catalan around people they felt more familiar with.

1

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

I don't think there are monolinguals, except very young kids or very old people. My grandma, who was born on 1900, was quite monolingual, I think.

Everyone speaks also Spanish, French or Italian.

11

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

I notice you have many language level ratings - where do you test?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

Interesting, thanks for the reply.

4

u/Vila-real English, Spanish, Catalan, Basic French and Esperanto Aug 21 '14

Jo soc de Castello pero bo, es mes o menys lo mateix que el catala, a mi me te igual una cossa que un altra!

3

u/Roto2esdios ESP (N) ENG (B2) FR (A2) GE (A1) Aug 22 '14

Poquets com tu o com jo quedem que pensem el mateix!

2

u/Vila-real English, Spanish, Catalan, Basic French and Esperanto Aug 22 '14

Eres de castello tambe??

2

u/Roto2esdios ESP (N) ENG (B2) FR (A2) GE (A1) Aug 23 '14

Valencia capital

11

u/Dwotci Русский N | English C2 | Español B1 | Français A1 Aug 18 '14

I'm currently in Barcelona, and man, I did not expect Catalan to be that popular here. I thought it's just a regional language that not many people even speak, but it's actually the primary language here, and that's kinda cool (I still got to use my Spanish skills though). I now want the Catalans to have their own country even more than before, considering they already got the most important part of national identity down.

3

u/MrScharfy Aug 18 '14

Any online resources? Catalan has been one of the languages I really want to learn but I've found pretty much no learning materials anywhere...

3

u/Gehalgod L1: EN | L2: DE, SV, RU Aug 18 '14

www.parla.cat

7

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

Una de les meues llengües favorites (encara n'estic aprenent).

5

u/craig643 Aug 18 '14

I'm a monolingual English speaker who decided recently to try to learn a second language. I chose Catalan because I was inclined towards a romance language and it seemed like an interesting hybrid (although I realize hybrid is a misleading term).

I'm working through a memrise course now, and have watched some instructional videos on youtube and begun Teach Yourself Catalan. Once I get a little grounded, I hope to take an on-line class (maybe on italki) if I can work out the time zone differential.

4

u/hyperforce ENG N • PRT A2 • ESP A1 • FIL A1 • KOR A0 • LAT Aug 18 '14

Curious, why choose a really specific one than one of the Big Five?

2

u/craig643 Aug 18 '14 edited Aug 18 '14

Two reasons -- one is just to be different (although the tradeoff is fewer resources available).

The other, which I hinted at above, is that Catalan seemed like sort of a "mid-point" among the romance languages (especially between French and Spanish). So I thought it would be a good intro to those languages and, perhaps down the road, I'd try to tackle one or both of them as well. In that regard, Catalan seemed to offer some of the features of romance-based conlangs, with the advantage of being a real language spoken by a lot of people.

I guess one more reason is that it will give me an excuse to visit Barcelona!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

I think this is a neat idea. I have to say that I've definitely found many helpful similarities with Catalan in my attempts to learn Italian. Unfortunately I find it difficult to find a lot of media resources in Catalan (for example, translations of disney movies and the like), although there are some big ones.

2

u/Roto2esdios ESP (N) ENG (B2) FR (A2) GE (A1) Aug 22 '14

Have you considered cartoons? The regional goverment make mandatory the translation on the regional TV.

Try the 80s and 90s animes like Dragon Ball.

1

u/Estre English/Spanish/Catalan | Norwegian/French/Swedish Aug 25 '14

I agree with /u/Roto2esdios. There are lots of cartoons.

This guy, for instance, posted a lot of Doraemon episodes in Catalan: https://www.youtube.com/user/Doraevideo.

This other guy has also posted a lot of episodes of various cartoons in Catalan: https://www.youtube.com/user/magiblot1

I'm sure there's plenty more once you're done with that, just try tv3!

8

u/itsmassive Aug 18 '14

My grandmother was born in Barcelona and spoke Catalan. Some interesting things I'd like to pint out: As a kid, it was illegal for her to speak Catalan. It was until the 70's where this changed. My dad speaks it but not me, he visited Barcelona last year and they were so impressed with his Catalan, they gave him free food at restaurants. When my dad went to Madrid, he tried to speak Spanish but it came out a lot like Catalan, and the Spaniards there were very angry with my dad because they hate Catalan.

Thought you might find this interesting.

4

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Where are you from?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 23 '14

[deleted]

4

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Just curiosity.

By the way, if you don't speak Catalan, nobody I know would consider you Catalan (even less if you don't know "Catalonian" doesn't exist as a word, is like saying Irelandian instead of Irish) ;-)

2

u/BatioKendall PL(N)|EN(C2)|DE(C1)|SV(C1)|EO(B2/C1)|RU(B2/C1)|ES(B1/B2)|FR(B1) Aug 25 '14

Here's a huge list of resources for anyone interested: http://www.languagelinksdatabase.com/catalan/

3

u/Endovelico Aug 18 '14

I was actually watching this movie in Catalan yesterday and found the language to be absolutely stunning, very unique sound to it even having Portuguese as my native language.

The movie is 'Barcelona, ciutat neutral', by the way.

1

u/Th3MetalHead Arabic N, Swedish C2, English C2, Spanish B1, Persian A1 Aug 18 '14

Is the influence of arabic as much as it is in spanish?

1

u/Roto2esdios ESP (N) ENG (B2) FR (A2) GE (A1) Aug 18 '14

I am not an expert but I can say is lower than castilian's. The most words are noums of towns: Benimodo, Benimamet... etc

Here I found an article that have a list of it. But it's in catalan. The english version is not the same.

http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabisme

1

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Quite lower than in Spanish. Higher than the mean in the southern part, lower in the northern. What is know as the "Catalunya Vella" (old Catalonia) was under muslim rule just for a century. The "Catalunya Nova" (new Catalonia) for a couple of centuries. Valencia and Balearic Islands for more than 3 centuries.

Looking on a map you can see it. No place names starting with bin- ben- al- vin-... in the older part. Many in the new one, as Benicarló, Benidorm, Vinaròs, Vinaixa, Albesa, Alberola, or even a village called La Poble de Mafumet, the Village of Mohammed! :-)

1

u/Iamswarly Aug 22 '14

Does anyone know any good catalan podcasts or tv shows?

2

u/viktorbir CA N|ES C2|EN FR not bad|DE SW forgoten|OC IT PT +-understanding Aug 23 '14

Try on http://tv3.cat Catalan public TV.

2

u/guisasolaa Aug 24 '14

Crackovia

4

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/digbybare Aug 25 '14

My girlfriend is from Menorca and it's amazing to me how, even on an island that small, with a total population of less than 100,000, the language varies a lot depending on the town. She's from Maó and can tell if someone's from Ciutadella just from how they speak.

1

u/VanSensei Aug 19 '14

Are there major differences in the ways Majorcans and people from Catalonia speak Catalan?