Is Catalan just a dialect of Spanish or French?/Learn Languages

🚀 If you are interested in learning Catalan, I highly recommend Ling app. It is my favorite tool to learn and review languages.

0:00 Introduction-Barcelona & Catalan
0:32 Suppression of Catalan
1:56 Debate: Closer to Spanish or French
3:16 Language or Dialect?
4:27 The Vocabulary
6:05 The Grammar
7:23 Pronunciation
8:47 Comparing Sentences
19:11 Conclusion

The video explores the linguistic and cultural revival of Catalan in Barcelona, a city renowned for its architectural marvel La Sagrada Familia, designed by Antoni Gaudí. It highlights Barcelona's role as a center for Catalan independence movements, emphasizing the region's efforts to preserve its language and culture, particularly after the suppression during Franco's regime. The video also discusses the similarities and differences between Catalan, French, and Spanish, showcasing how Catalan has evolved uniquely while maintaining a high degree of lexical similarity with its Romance language counterparts.

The video's creator shares personal observations from recent visits to Barcelona, noting the prevalence of Catalan signage and the significant linguistic shift since the late 1970s. It delves into the debate on whether Catalan is closer to French or Spanish, offering comparisons of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation among the three languages. The video aims to introduce Catalan to newcomers and foster discussion among speakers of Catalan, Spanish, and French regarding their linguistic similarities.

🌟 About Tim Keeley:
Tim Keeley, a seasoned professor and language enthusiast, brings four decades of experience living in Japan and mastering multiple Asian languages as well as many European languages.

[thierryf]

Catalan is not Spanish dialect, neither french dialect. it's a sister language of Occitan.

[RicardJ]

It's not la “Família Sagrada”, but “La Sagrada Família”.
Catalonia is not the unique place where Catalan is spoken. I was raised and born in Valencian Country, and I speak the same language. In terms of repression, we suffered the same type of wearing.

[LeoJaramaz]

Catalan is the closest to the Occitan language, that was historically spoken in southern France.

[jinengi]

The closest languages to Catalan are Occitan and Aragonese (the other Occitano-Romance languages that surround Catalan). French is a Galo-Romance language with a very distinct phonetic system and many Germanic loanwords. However, in many cases, the core of Catalan is closer to the Galo-Romance languages than to the Ibero-Romance languages, something that can be seen on the basic vocabulary and grammar of Catalan (the pronouns "en/hi", adverbs such as "gaire, gens, ...", verbs like "menjar, anar, voler, pujar..."). The Ibero-Romance languages, with Spanish as the most spoken language of the group, underwent a series of linguistic changes that Catalan didn't (most of them).

The thing here is, with a core closer to Galo-Romance languages (French, ...), the huge influence from Spanish has laid a thick cover above the Catalan core that brings it closer to the Ibero-Romance languages (Spanish, ...). Many words have been lost in favour of the Spanish ones, the grammar and phonetics are changing and the new technological words usually come through Spanish. This phenomenon is the result of the diglossia process and will end up with Spanish erasing Catalan if it isn't stopped.

As a Catalan person, I hope to see a day where Catalan's future isn't threatened by Spanish, wheather that is with independence or not.

[RicardJ]

Soc filòleg en llengua catalana a València. M'agradaria dir-vos que el català és una llengua codificada pel filòleg Pompeu Fabra i ratificada per un cercle extens d'acadèmics l'any 1913, gràcies a la institució acadèmica a la qual pertanyien, l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC). L'any 1932, unes normes molt properes al català van ser ratificades al País Valencià. L'any 1932 els valencians van fer les adaptacions morfològiques i lèxiques oportunes per adaptar les normes catalanes de 1913 sense pensar que parlaven una altra llengua diferent del català de Catalunya.

[eugenicasanovasolanes]

Why not Spanish and French dialects of Catalan? The title is absurd because Catalonia never had geapgraphical borders with Castilian (now called Spanish) and French, but with Aragonese and Occitan (I understand that for beginners if you haven't a State you doesn't exist). Furthermore, have you heard about the dialectal continuum in Latin languages? As for Slavics, Gernanics or Celtics? The problem, again, is that you just acknoledge languages that have an army.

[ArmagedonNoise]

In Spanish we also say "pieza", a cognate to French "pièce", to talk about a room. Just yesterday I called my mother, asked her what she was doing and she told me she was: "ordenando su pieza" which means tidying up her room. In the magazine example the article "la" is added in the Spanish translation so it reads: "revista de la mujer" but this doesn't sound quite right, it would sound we're talking about a magazine that's owned by a woman in particular. So we' d rather say "revista de mujer(es)" like in Catalan o "revista femenina" similarly to the French example.

[Rudiger-dxjw]

My mother tongue is German, and, amongst others, I am fluent in French. I studied Catalan for five months, mostly self-study but also using online tutors. Then I went to Catalonia (had never been to Spain before) and could comfortably live in the language.
Even though Catalan sounds more like a mix of Spanish and Italian to me, it is extremely close to French (as it is written). Let me put it that way: When I am speaking Catalan, I am basically speaking Old French with an Iberic accent. And, when I started to learn Catalan, I tried to climb the Catalan mountain from the Spanish side... this did not work well, perhaps because my Spanish is much weaker than my French. Since I am trying it from the French side, it works extremely well and I could go from level zero to admission to a B2.2 class in five months.
Typically, Catalan people are impressed, but when I tell them that I speak fluent French, they all say: "Oh, you already speak French, then it's so easy to learn Catalan".
For me, as for Catalan, vocabulary is closer to Spanish, phonetics closer to Italian, but structures, concepts and "mindset" closer to French.

[didierchaumet]

There is no point to compare to French language (derived from langue d'oyl) but it is much more relevant to compare with occitan (langue d'oc). Catalogne was part of Charlemagne's empire and called "la marche d'Espagne", a term that designate a peripheral territory geared to defense of the inland (from the arabs, then), and many of the leaders there were from the langue d'oc region...

[RicardJ]

Volem viure plenament en català! Tant de bo siga possible un dia!

[igubxyi]

The closest language is obviously occitan. Indeed, until the 19th century catalan was often referred to as llemosí (limousin in French), an occitan dialect which served as a koine during the middle ages.

[MarcPujolSolernou-zunp]

I just read a guy saying that castellano was always spoke in Catalunya, how hilarious.

[diegoortiz]

I speak both French and Spanish and to my ears, Catalan sounds more like a
SPANISH Tham French

[xobabe]

The debate has been closed for years. We know very well that Catalan is a dialect close to Occitan. It is neither Castilian (Spanish) nor French. Yes, there is a lot of Castilian vocabulary due to the obvious contact between the two languages and yes, many words resemble French; but it must be understood that Catalan is Catalan and not one or other of its sister languages.

[MM-qvfi]

A characteristic shared by both Catalan and Italian is that the possessive adjective is preceded by the article: el meu amic/il mio amico = my friend. This is not the case neither in Spanish (mi amigo) nor in French (mon ami).

[flaneurplus]

Catalan is indeed closer to Spanish in terms of vocabulary, but its grammar is more complex than that of Spanish. You have elements like "hi" used like the adverbial pronoun "y" in French. There's also an "n", like in the verb "anar-se'n" and another one similar to the French pronoun "en".

[Speechbound]

Very interesting video, thanks for providing such insight to this topic! I'd love to learn some Catalan in the future!

[pedrocosta]

My mother tongue is Portuguese and I speak some Spanish as well. In my experience, I can understand more less the half of what I hear in Catalan. Maybe it is closer to French than to the other Ibero Romance languages.

[cube]

I feel like if you have to ask if a language is a dialect of multiple languages (as in the title), then it’s definitely more far removed than a dialect. It’s like asking if Frisian is “just a dialect of English or Dutch”.

[direct-vfff]

Catalan cannot be a dialect as it is older than French. Not so long ago, French (langue d'oïl) was spoken in the Northern half of France only, so not much influence between these 2 romance languages. Occitan (langue d'oc), now replaced by French, is very similar to Catalan, and people could understand each other from Poitiers in France to Alicante (Alacant) in Spain. Catalans used to say "OC" to say "YES". The Catalan language was born in present France, then crossed the Pyrenees and spread south.