How different are Spanish and Catalan as languages?

Question

How different are Spanish and Catalan as languages?

Answer 1

Hola Harsh

Bienvenido al foro...

Welcome to the forum

I found this in net. Hope you find it useful.

As some people wrongly think, Catalan is not a dialect of Spanish or a mixture of Spanish and French. Catalan comes directly from Latin and is as old as any of these languages.

As an example. Portuguese is more similar to Spanish than Catalan. Whereas Catalan has common elements with French. Compare the translation of the sentence "I want to eat eight apples".

Spanish: quiero comer ocho manzanas

Portuguese: quero comer oito maçãs

Catalan: vull menjar vuit pomes

French. je veux manger huit pommes

In any case Catalan has a twin language, which is Occitan (also called Provençal), spoken in Southern France, on a valley in Catalonia (Aran) and some areas of the Piemont region in Italy.

Catalan is official in Catalonia, toghether with Spanish and it is also spoken in big cities, also Barcelona. Working class of urban areas is more Spanish-speaker, as most of them are immigrants or their children, who arrived in Catalonia in the 60s from other Spanish regions, whereas middle and upper classes from the cities speak more Catalan and in villages nearly everybody speaks Catalan.

All Catalan speakers can also speak fluent Spanish nowadays but not all Spanish navite speakers in Catalonia have learnt it, even if Catalan is the main language used at primary, secondary education and university.

Catalan is spoken not only on the autonomous region of Catalonia (capital Barcelona) but also:

• In Andorra, an independent state, where it is the only official language.

• In the Balearic Islands (Mallorca and rest of islands)

• In the Valencia region, where it is also called Valencia.

• In a stripe of territory in Aragon, neighbouring region to Catalonia.

• In the French Catalonia (Rousillon), on the other side of the Pyrenees.

• In Alguer (Alghero), a town in Sardinia (Italy).

The independence of Catalonia has never been voted (as some previous post wrote). It was the modificationof our statute of autonomy

Answer 2

Hi Harsh,welcome to the Forum. If you type 'Catalan' into the search area you will find a lot of info. Enjoy the site!