què és el català?

comparing spanish and catalan

The Flag of Catalunya (Source: Wikipedia)

Spanish, with around 600 million speakers, is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. However, unbeknownst to many, Spanish is not the only language spoken in Spain, as there are a variety of dialects and closely related languages that originated in the peninsula as well.

Of these other languages, Catalan is the most spoken, with roughly 4 million speakers. It also has official language status in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia (Catalunya), Balearic Islands (Illes Balears), and Valencia (Comunitat Valenciana).

As a Romance language, it is closely related to Spanish and Occitan, and although it has had centuries of contact with Spanish and endured conquest by the Castilians, it has maintained many differences that make it unique. Let’s dive in and compare Spanish and Catalan!

Sound Changes

As both Spanish and Catalan descended from Vulgar Latin, much of their vocabulary consists of cognates, but they have undergone different sound changes that allow us to differentiate the words.

Diphthongization

In Spanish, the short ‘e’ and ‘o’ of Latin often became diphthongs. Take the following words for earth and school, respectively.

EARTH
La. terra
Sp. tierra
Ca. terra

SCHOOL
La. schola
Sp. escuela
Ca. escola

In Catalan, the Latin vowel was preserved, but in Spanish, the ‘e’ was transformed into the diphthong ‘ie’, whereas ‘o’ was transformed into the diphthong ‘ue’. This pattern is common across the languages, as the Latin vowels were mostly conserved in Catalan but diphthongized in Spanish.

Changing of Latin ‘ct’

The Latin consonant cluster ‘ct’ [kt] was changed in both languages. In Spanish, the consonants were palatalized, turning into ‘ch’ [t͡ʃ]. On the other hand, the cluster became ‘t’ in Catalan, a much less drastic change.

MILK
La. lactem
Sp. leche
Ca. llet

F → H

In Spanish, the ‘f’ of Latin often became the silent ‘h’ sound. Catalan did not undergo this sound change.

TO DO
La. facere
Sp. hacer
Ca. fer

IRON
La. ferrum
Sp. hierro
Ca. ferro

In the example for iron, the diphthongization of short Latin ‘e’ to ‘ie’ can also be seen in Spanish hierro.

Plurals

The plurals of Spanish and Catalan are formed a little differently, although they may look similar at first.

Spanish

In Spanish, the formation of the plural is pretty straightforward:

If the word ends with a vowel, simply add an “-s”. This turns libro (book) into libros (books).

If the word ends with a consonant, add “-es”. This turns habitación (room) into habitaciones (rooms).

If the word ends with ‘z’ specifically, change it to a ‘c’ and add “-es” as usual. This maintains the [s] sound orthographically, turning feliz (happy) into felices (also happy, but plural).

Catalan

Catalan’s plural formation is a little more complex than that of Spanish. When deciding how to make something plural, you must consider the stress or quality of the vowel or consonant at the end of the word.

When there is an unstressed ‘a’ or ‘e’ at the end, you add an “-s” like in Spanish, but the ‘a’ always becomes an ‘e’. For example, casa (house) becomes cases in the plural.

The stressed vowels each have their own ending, but generally you remove the accent and add “-ns”. Here are each of the transformations below:

à → ans
è / é → ens
í → ins
ò / ó → ons
ú → uns

Note that the grave accent (⟨è ò⟩) marks an open-mid vowel (/ɛ ɔ/), whereas the acute accent (⟨é ó⟩) marks a close-mid vowel (/e o/).

Words already ending with ‘s’ add “-sos”. For example, interès (interest) becomes interessos.

There are also many other consonant endings that you just need to know, but make sense in pronunciation:

ix → ixos
tx → txos
ig → itjos
aig → ajos

In addition to that, many endings have orthographic changes to maintain the sound that already existed, similar to the ⟨z⟩ to ⟨c⟩ chance in Spanish.

-ca → -ques
-ga → -gues
-qua → -qües
-gua → -gües
-tja → -tges
-ça → -ces

For words ending in consonants not listed above, you simply add an “-s” like in Spanish. This makes gat (cat) into gats (cats). Similarly, amic (friend) becomes amics (friends).

Conjugation

Spanish and Catalan both have three types of verbs: -ar, -er, and -ir verbs (with Catalan having -re as an alternate for -er as well).

In some cases, the conjugation between the languages are similar, with the first-person singular conjugation usually ending with “-o,” but there are still many differences. Take the conjugations for the word servir, meaning to serve in both Spanish and Catalan.

Spanish

SERVIR
1-sg → sirvo
2-sg → sirves
3-sg → sirve

1-pl → servimos
2-pl → servís
3-pl → sirven

Catalan

SERVIR
1-sg → serveixo
2-sg → serveixes
3-sg → serveix

1-pl → servim
2-pl → serviu
3-pl → serveixen

In Spanish, the conjugations are mostly consist across verb types and dialects, but Catalan verb conjugations tend to vary by location. In the example above, I chose the Central Catalan dialect, but take a look at this table below to show the verb’s true extent.

Part of the conjugation chart for “servir” (Source: Wikipedia)

Learning the verbs in Catalan is, in my opinion, harder, but nothing a little dedication can’t fix :) If you speak a closely related language like Spanish or Occitan, however, it may be a little easier.

Overall, Spanish and Catalan may have a lot of similarities, but their differences really set them apart. For any Spanish native speakers or learners, Catalan is definitely a fun challenge! It’s often complex phonology and conjugation in comparison to Spanish could throw you off, but personally, it’s been really interesting to learn about.

Bona sort (good luck) on your Català learning journey!

Sources

Plural: Catalan Plural, Wikibooks
Orthography: Catalan Orthography, Wikipedia
Conjugation: Catalan Verbs, Wikipedia