Catalan Language
Catalan ( /kætəˈlæn/, /ˈkætəlæn/, or /ˈkætələn/; autonym: català or ) is a Romance language named for its origins in the historical region of Catalonia in the northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula and adjoining parts of what is now France. It is the national and only official language of Andorra, a European microstate, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian. It also has semi-official status in the city of Alghero (where the Algherese dialect is spoken) on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken with no official recognition in the autonomous communities of Aragon (in La Franja) and Murcia (in Carche) in Spain, and in the historic Roussillon region of southern France, roughly equivalent to the current French department of Pyrénées-Orientales (Northern Catalonia).
Although recognized as a regional language of the Pyrénées-Orientales department since 2007, Catalan has no official recognition in France, as French is the only official language of that country, according to the French Constitution of 1958.
Read more about Catalan Language: Classification, Geographic Distribution, Dialects, Writing System, Phonology, Grammar, Catalan Names, Catalan Loanwords in The English Language
Famous quotes containing the words catalan and/or language:
“The table kills more people than war does.”
—Catalan proverb, quoted in Colman Andrews, Catalan Cuisine.
“I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language to her, was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence, of as subtile feet,
As hath the youngest Hee,”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)