Useful information about Catalonia

You can find on this page some useful information on the Catalan and Catalan culture. These details are provided only for informational purposes and not as a promotion of the Catalan language and culture. We get customers from all cultures and all possible horizons, for who we provide some specifics elements to the geographical context of our region.

Some explanations about Catalan

The Catalan flag

Catalan (in Catalan: Català) is a Roman language that has between 9.1 and 11.5 million of speakers in Catalonia, the Valencian Community (Valencia where it is called) in the Balearic Islands, in a small part of Aragon (the All of Ponent), Andorra (where it is the only official language) in most of the Pyrenees-Orientales and Sardenya Alghero. The origin of the language comes from the basic Latin spoken in the Catalan Pyrenees (about 900 pc)

Since the fifteenth century, Catalan speakers in some areas (especially those built within the Spanish kingdom) were subjected to the influence of Castilian, as is visible in certain verbs .

The other Catalan emblem

Contrary to the Castilian which prevailed in most of Spain, Catalan was born in Catalonia and claims strongly its official recognition, which was raised after the death of Franco. This recognition was also asked by the Spanish government to the European Commission in 2004. Currently, within the institutions of the European Union and United Nations it can be used while Catalan is not an official language.

The equivalence (written and oral) between the different variants of Catalan is around 95%. Now distinguish two sets of main dialects: the whole East, including Central Catalan spoken in Barcelona and Girona, Catalan island, spoken in the Balearic Islands and Roussillon, spoken in the Pyrenees-Orientales. Moreover, the West set including Northwestern Catalan, spoken in the near Lleida, Valencian. Compression (oral and written) in Occitan is excellent. Apart from the Occitan, Catalan has common features with the old French and Castilian Romansh.

Writing and spelling

Catalan uses the Latin alphabet, which include digraphs, diacritics (acute accent, grave accent, the point 'ela geminate', cedilla, umlaut) and diacritical points (u after g and q, i before x and g). There are many diphthongs represented by pairs of vowels.

Here is the alphabet:

a (à), b, c (ç), d (dj), e (é, è), f, g (gu, ig), h, i (í, ï), j, k, l (ll, l·l), m, n (ny), o (ó, ò), p, q (qu), r (rr), s (ss), t (tg, tj, tx), u (ú, ü), v, w, x (ix), y, z

Pronunciation

Ne sont indiquées que les principales différences entre le français et le catalan central, proche de la variante barcelonaise. Il existe des différences phonologiques et phonétiques par rapport au bloc dialectal occidental du catalan (zones de Lleida et Valence) :