Catalan Language
Catalan is a Romance language primarily spoken in Catalonia, a northeastern region of Spain, where it holds co-official status alongside Castilian Spanish. It is also used in Valencia, Andorra, and the Balearic Islands, as well as in parts of Sardinia, Italy, and among communities worldwide. With roots tracing back to Latin, Catalan emerged as a distinct language by the 9th century, gaining prominence in the 15th to 18th centuries. However, it faced significant repression under Spanish control, particularly during the Franco regime (1939-1978), when its use was outlawed.
Following Spain's transition to democracy in the late 1970s, the Catalan language experienced a resurgence and is now integral to the cultural and national identity of its speakers. Approximately ten million people use or understand Catalan, with many being bilingual in both Catalan and Spanish. In contemporary society, Catalan is taught in schools, used in legal settings, and represented in media, literature, and the arts. The language's survival and growth are seen as vital to the cultural heritage of Catalonia and its surrounding regions, fostering a strong sense of community among its speakers.
Catalan Language
Catalan is a Romance language spoken in Catalonia, a northeastern region of Spain. It is also spoken in other parts of the world. Catalonia is not a dialect of the Spanish language, which is spoken in most of Spain, but its own distinct language. As of 2015, the Catalan language is used or understood by roughly ten million people, and of these, half claim it as their mother tongue.
History and Classification
Catalan descends directly from Latin, the language of the region's original Roman colonizers. Catalan's earliest known occurrence is in the ninth century CE; the earliest known book written in Catalan is a collection of sermons believed to have been written in the twelfth or thirteenth century C.E.
The language was officially recognized as a tongue with its own geographical territory in the late 1200s near the end of the reign of James I, Lord of Montpellier. It became popular from the early 1500s to the early 1700s, when it was considered the everyday language, as opposed to Castilian Spanish, which was the language spoken in the courts.
In 1714, Spain took control of Catalonia, and the new rulers made Castilian Spanish the official language. Parameters were established restricting the use of Catalan. By the nineteenth century, however, a political and cultural movement within Spain allowed Catalan to once again be used in literature, song, and elsewhere. However, the reemergence of the Catalan language did not last long.
From 1939 to 1978, Spain was governed by a fascist regime. Under the leadership of Francisco Franco, Catalan was outlawed, and the only language allowed in the country was Castilian Spanish. The government threatened to severely punish citizens who spoke Catalan. When leadership again changed in Spain during the late 1970s, the Catalan language resurged across the region of Catalonia. As of 2015, Catalan continues to be used in Spain, with many people bilingual in Catalan and Spanish.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
While Catalan is not the native language of Spain, it is spoken exclusively in several regions—most frequently in Catalonia. Catalonia is a northeastern area of Spain, bordered by France on one side and the Pyrenees on the other side. Many consider Catalan to be similar to the Occitan language spoken in France, which has a similar status in relation to the French spoken throughout the small country.
Catalan is spoken in the regions of Valencia and Andorra as well as in a group of islands called the Balearic Islands, which is composed of Majorca (Mallorca), Minorca (Menorca), Ibiza (Eivissa/Ibiza) and Formentera. It is also spoken in Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy. The general area in which Catalan is spoken covers roughly 68,000 kilometers (more than 42,000 miles), encompassing a population of about ten million people. Catalan is either the official or the co-official language in these areas. In Catalonia, for instance, it shares official-language status with Castilian Spanish; many consider Barcelona, Catalonia's most popular city, a bilingual city for this reason. In Andorra, Catalan is the only official language, and in Sardinia, it shares official status with both Sardinian and Italian.
The Catalan language is used extensively in Spanish schools; for this reason, anyone who teaches elementary, middle, or high school is required to know how to speak it. In higher education, one can study Catalan, with varying degrees of depth, at more than one hundred universities across the globe.
Catalan is used in nearly half of the Spanish courts; this use depends on the parties involved in legal cases. If all the parties involved are native Catalan speakers, then the proceedings move forward in Catalan. Road signs and other public signs in Catalonia present both Castilian and Catalan words—this bilingual signage is required by law. Within the media, several newspapers, magazines, and radio stations throughout Spain use Catalan exclusively.
Catalan can be found as an accepted language in many forms of computer software. In the arts and humanities, many films, books, music albums, and theater companies employ the language. In the professional arena, it is important for people to know how to speak Catalan to facilitate business.
Within the community of Catalan speakers in Spain, the language is an important part of national and cultural identity. Because the language has been besieged by oppression from governments over several centuries, the decision to speak it and to uphold one's right to speak it is a unifying force for residents of Catalonia and other places where the language is spoken.
Historically, the governments of Catalonia and Valencia, for example, have had strained and very limited interaction—and yet the opposite is true with Andorra, where people have been proudly speaking only Catalan for more than seven hundred years. In addition to Castilian Spanish, the two other official languages in Spain are Basque and Galician, tongues with even more narrow boundaries.
Bibliography
"Barcelona's Languages." Barcelona.de. Barcelona.de. Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://www.barcelona.de/en/barcelona-languages.html
Burgen, Stephen. "Catalan: A Language that Has Survived Against the Odds." Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 22 Nov. 2012. Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/22/catalan-language-survived
"Catalan, Català." BBC. BBC. Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european‗languages/languages/catalan.shtml
"Catalan (Català)." Omniglot. Omniglot. Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/catalan.htm
"Catalan in Catalonia (Spain)." Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/catala/an/i1/i1.html
Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Print.