Catalan language - characteristic features. Where they speak Catalan

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

General information and brief description

In the XVIII century, Catalan speech had many names due to the fact that it was used in different territories. To this day, there are still two terms that denote this language, Catalan-Valencian-Balearic (used primarily in the scientific literature) and Valencian. The latter option is used exclusively by the peoples who live in the autonomous community of Valencia (part of Spain). There is also a rare name "Mallorquin", which is used in unofficial 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. The Catalan language is on the 14th place in the European Union for the purity of use in everyday speech.

For writing, the adapted Latin script is used: for example, the letters -ny-, -l ∙ l-, -ig, which are not found anywhere else. The characteristic features of the language, related to phonetics and grammar, are the number of vowel sounds (in the Romance group there are seven, in Catalan - eight) and in the use of special articles before the names.

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

History of origin and development

It is believed that the Catalan language began to form in the distant X century, because the earliest monuments using the dialect of "Sermons of the Organ", 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 the Catalan was considered prestigious and was often used in literature (poets preferred to write in Occitan), philosophy and even science.

Since the XIII century, the dialect gradually strengthens its position in order to become an independent language. At that time, Ramon Lull with the use of Catalan created works on theological, philosophical and artistic themes. A truly golden age for the language was the fifteenth century. The most unsurpassed and bright master, who was one of the first to use this language in poetry, became Ausias Mark. The primacy in prose, of course, belongs to the novels "Tyrant White" and "Curial and Guelph", whose author was Joanot Martorell.

At the beginning of the XIX 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 simple people and the clergy, who continued to use Catalan in everyday life, the language did not become dead.

After the Civil War of 1936-1939. And Franco's victory was forbidden the use of dialect in colloquial and written speech. In Spain at that time there even existed a law according to which a person using Catalan was subject to criminal punishment. The emergence of democracy in the country led to the autonomization of certain areas, resulting in the language once again received the status of state.

Spelling

The Catalan script uses the Latin alphabet with diacritical marks. Among the features of this spelling is the following:

• The use of an inter-point between the doubled letter l: intel • ligent - clever;
• Use the combination -ig-, which denotes the sound [ʧ] in words such as maig, faig, etc .;
• Use of the letter t, which denotes the following elongated consonant tl, tll, tn and tm: setmana - a week, bitllet - ticket;
• Combinations tz, ts, tj, tg are used to denote an affricate.

Characteristic features of vowels

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

Catalan differs from Spanish by preserving the open pronunciation of short percussion vowels of Latin origin Ŏ and . The combination of the letters -ACT in the middle of the words undergoes a reduction and goes to -ET. This feature is common to the Catalan and the languages of the Western Romance group (the Occitan and Langedok dialect).

Features of consonants

This type of sounds is characterized by the transition of the deaf -T, -C, -P to voiced -d-, -g-, -b. This feature unites the Catalan with the West Romanesque subfamily. With the Gallo-Romance group, this language is related to the preservation of the initial sounds FL, PL, CL, the replacement of the voiceless consonants with the corresponding voiced ones if the subsequent word begins with a consonant or a vowel. The process of falling out of the intervocal -N, which resembles vulgar Latin and the stunning of the final consonant of sound unites the Catalan with the Occitan and Langedian dialect.

• Consider the original features that do not occur in the languages of the Romance group:
• The Latin consonant -D becomes the sound -u;
• The ending -TIS goes into -u (only for the second person plural);
• A combination of Latin finite sounds -C + e, i → -u (note CRUCEM → creu).

Varieties

At different times in the territories of those areas where they speak Catalan, under his influence different dialects appeared. Consider the most significant, as well as the place of their occurrence:

• Sicilian in southern Italy;
• Dialect of the patois, on which until the second half of the last century, immigrants spoke, and later - their descendants from the South of Valencia, Menorca. As for vocabulary, it was based on a part of Arabic and French words;

• The formation of the dialect of panitcho (autonomous community of Murcia) was influenced by the Catalan language. Country of origin - Spain;
• Sicilian, South Italy;
• Dialect churro, the territory of Hispanic areas of the autonomous community of Valencia;
• Neapolitan language, country - Italy.