- Official language in
- Andorra, Spain
- Also spoken in
- France, Italy
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Andorra's Constitution names Catalan as the official language of the State. In Spain, the Constitution establishes Castilian as the state's official language nationwide, while allowing the country's other languages to also be official within their own Autonomous Communities according to each Community's own Statute; the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia names Catalan as Catalonia's own language and, together with Spanish, an official language there. Outside Spain and Andorra, Catalan is also spoken without official status: Italian law protects the language and culture of Catalan-speaking communities as one of the country's historic linguistic minorities, and France's Ministry of Culture lists Catalan among the country's regional languages.
Sources
- Constitution of the Principality of Andorra (1993), English translation — WIPO Lex — Art. 2.1 — Catalan as the official language of the State
- Constitution of Spain (1978, rev. 2011), English translation — Constitute Project — Art. 3.1–3.2 — Castilian and the other Spanish languages
- Estatut d'autonomia de Catalunya, Edició 2025 — Parlament de Catalunya — Art. 6.1–6.2, p.22 — llengua pròpia and official status
- Legge 15 dicembre 1999, n. 482, "Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche" — Art. 2.1 — Catalan-speaking minority protected as historic linguistic minority
- Ministère de la Culture (France) — "Langues régionales" — Lists catalan among regional languages spoken in metropolitan France
Script & pronunciation
Catalan is written in the Latin alphabet. Catalan's official orthography prescribes a geminated l, written l·l with a middle dot between vowels, for a long, doubled [l] sound, as in al·lot, col·legi, il·lusió, novel·la, and tranquil·litat. This app's card for the compliment El vostre català és excel·lent shows the same spelling in excel·lent, and its own note calls the middle dot Catalan's "l geminada" (geminated l). This app's romanization also marks the stressed syllable in capital letters, as in that same card's ek-se-LEN for excel·lent and es-TAS for the greeting Com estàs?
Sources
- Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2017). Ortografia catalana — §2.5.2, p.44 — l·l (ela geminada)
Grammar essentials
An academic study of Catalan sentence negation gives the example No van trobar cap banc enlloc, in which the adverb no appears directly before the verb van trobar. The same study also gives examples where an object clitic pronoun comes between no and the verb, as in No m'imagino que no es vulgui tornar a presentar. This app's cards show the same no-before-verb pattern: No em toqui! ("Don't touch me!") and No ho entenc ("I don't understand").
Sources
Politeness & etiquette
Catalan distinguishes an informal tu from more formal ways of addressing someone. The polite vostè (plural vostès) refers to the person being spoken to but takes the verb in the third person, as in the examples Triï vostè mateix and Vostès mengin i callin, given in a public grammar guide from the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística, the public body that teaches Catalan to adults in Catalonia. Another formal pronoun, vós, instead takes the verb in the second-person plural, as in the same guide's example Senyor Andreu, vós compreu el diari cada dia? This app's cards mark a similar distinction: the casual Com estàs? is for acquaintances, while Com està vostè?, with a third-person verb, is used with strangers.
Sources
- Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística — "36. Els pronoms personals forts" — vostè/vostès with 3rd-person verb; vós with 2nd-person plural