Try "see oos plow" in Barcelona

Like S'il vous plait. I notice that some Catalan looks like a variation of French, sometimes like a cross between French and Spanish. Interesting how language develops. I hope I didnt just insult. Catalan may be an older language than both, and I am uneducated

Jessica,
I, too, noticed the (apparent) similarity between si us plau and s'il vous plait. Of course, Catalunya is geographically close to France.

Yes, Ive looked at some Catalan as we will be heading there later in the summer and many phrases resemble French, but I haven't done my linguistics research yet to learn about the etymology of it

Hi guys, an interesting topic!

I am no professional linguistic historian lol (just an amateur), but in a nutshell, Català or Catalan developed from Occitan which in turn developed from Vulgar Latin, which was the Lingua franca after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Catalan, Castilian, French, Italian etc. all developed from Vulgar Latin.

Catalan was the main language of the County of Barcelona, a buffer state set up by Franks (the future French), but it separated from the Franks and then join with Kingdom of Aragon to form Crown of Aragon. The language of Aragon, linguistically very similar to Catalan, is still spoken today in the northern parts of the neighboring autonomous region of Aragon.

As one of the official languages of the Crown of Aragon, Catalan spread through the western Mediterranean, and is even still spoken in a part of Sardinia.

Here is the phrase "The Crown of Aragon" in some Iberian languages:
In Aragonese: Corona d'Aragón
In Català: Corona d'Aragó
In Castilian: Corona de Aragón

As you can see Aragonese and Catalan hold linguistic similarities using the 'd, however one can make the case that Aragonese is a bit of a halfway between Catalan and Castilian (Spanish).

Carlos, could you comment on the recommended pronunciation for si us plau?

BTW, Carlos (and Enric) kindly helped with my many language questions, before our trip.
But I got the phonetic pronunciation, of the Catalan phrase for please, from Rick's Barcelona guidebook (Rick doesn't include Catalan phrases in his Spain 2019 book).

@Lola - sure! Day to day, I would actually use the word "sisplau" pronounced "sees'plow", which is the more informal contraction of "si us plau". You will hear people will use sisplau more regularly than si us plau.

Oh darn, that must have been how they knew I was a tourist, that I included the us!
:-) :-)

@kent, thanks for posting this. I’m headed to Barcelona this week. Any other linguistic tips?

No worries Kent, I'm sure you definitely stood out in a good way, making an effort to use the local language :)

@ kcylons: Rick's Barcelona book (but not his Spain book) has 2 pages of "Catalan survival phrases".
Carlos and Enric were helpful with questions posted here.
There is also a Catalan phrasebook online.

@ Carlos:
Yes, I got consistently positive feedback, from tourist service industry workers, just by using the please phrase,

Hi kclyons, I am sure Enric (a fellow Barcelona contributor) will be able to provide a lot more in-depth Catalan information, as Catalan is not my first language.

However what I can say that in Barcelona, while Catalan will get you smiles, Spanish (Castilian) is more widely understood/spoken, so you can always use Spanish too, just in case. In Barcelona, everyone speaks Spanish, while around 60% speaks Catalan.

"60% speak Catalan" - yes, I used one of the politeness phrases to say something in Catalan to a clerk and her totally blank expression made me think she either didn't speak Catalan, or more likely, didn't understand my bad accent in trying to say it. But it was then that I remembered that not all local Barcelona citizens speak Catalan.

Thanks Kent and Carlos. I speak high school Spanish with a horrible accent. No one will mistake me for a local!

just as an aside, when we were in Catalunya, we asked if the language in Valencia is Catalan. The folks we asked responded in the affirmative. A few days later we were in Valencia. We asked a local about the Catalan language being spoken in Valencia. That was the wrong thing to ask. According to the Valencian people we spoke to, the Valencian language is completely different from Catalan.

1.) A short background for understanding the situation: Catalan is the local language in Catalonia. It has been since its development, as illustrated by Carlos earlier, in the 9th century as an evolution of Latin, much like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Romanian, the other Latin languages. Since the 18th century, after a military invasion from the Spanish (Crown of Castille) and the subsequent imposition of the Decree of Nueva Planta (1716), Catalan institutions and language have been banned and persecuted several times. Spanish was imposed as the only language for official business and teaching. Despite so, Catalan continued to be used by the population and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Catalan literature, arts and politics saw a rebirth, especially during the 2nd Republic in the early 1930s. But after the Spanish Civil war (1939) and until the demise of the Spanish fascist dictator, Franco, in the late 1970s, Catalan language and culture expressions were again banned. In 1978, the new Spanish Constitution granted limited powers to Catalonia, including the "co-officiality" of its own language (!). Theoretically, Spain is a "decentralized" state in which the "autonomous regions" -Catalonia is now classified as such- hold certain powers over matters such as health, education, etc. However, in practice, the Central government continues to interfere with such provisions and holds a grip onto all matters thru a web of judiciary institutions which arbitrarily interpret the laws at their own convenience. I hope you grasp the situation. Well, enough politics now.

2.) Due to its geographical location, Barcelona, and more extensively Catalonia, has been throughout History a cradle for people from many different nationalities and this has resulted in an easy-going rather inclusive society. Barcelona, like many other metropolis, is full of immigrants coming from all over the world. In fact, Barcelona has up to 300,000 (15%) of its residents from 120 different nationalities (census 2017). While many of them make the effort to learn the local language, Catalan, and if shy to speak it, they do at least understand it, others don't bother at all. Needless to say that those attempting to learn it always find a warmer welcoming than those that choose not to, and tend to assimilate far faster into our society. There are plenty of resources, many are available at no cost at all, to learn Catalan if you want to, even free 1-to-1 assistance from volunteering native-speakers.

3.) Refusing to at least "understand" the language -after one's lived here for a while- can be a cause of friction between locals and newcomers. Obviously, no one can expect any sympathy for those choosing to ignore the habits, customs and 'ways of the land' (including language) if you intend to live somewhere, right? Some people move elsewhere with an annoying "love the place, hate the locals" attitude, and then they get surprised when locals show them indifference or rejection.

4.) All children schooled in Catalonia, besides Catalan, also learn and master Spanish. At the end of the school term, results in the Spanish language for Catalan native-speakers show similar (and, surprisingly, sometimes even higher) scores than those shown in areas of Spain where Spanish is the only language.

--part 1--

5.) Coexistence of Catalan and Spanish languages among the population in Catalonia has been de-facto established for several decades -even during the dark times of the repression of the Catalan language during the dictatorship. It that so, that many descendants of Spanish-speaking immigration have adopted Catalan as their mother tongue even if they continue to use Spanish from time to time. In an everyday situation, it's quite normal to hear both Catalan and Spanish languages in the same conversation, with their participants speaking in their preferred language and yet maintaining a fluid conversation. This we call "respecting each other" and this is able to happen because of 4.)

6.) Indeed, some people in Valencia insist in differentiating the Valencian variation of Catalan as if it was a "totally different language", but their own Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (Valencian Language Academy), the authority on Valencian language, has corroborated many times it's a variation of Catalan. Latest one in 2013: https://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2013/07/01/valencia/1372680789.html The reason for this insistence of some has nothing to do with academic/linguistic reasons but for political ones.

But again, we're talking residency here, not tourism... if you're spending a few days in Barcelona -or anywhere else in Catalonia for that matter-, a few words or sentences in Catalan, even if just to break the ice, will always bring a smile but no one will expect you to follow a full conversation in Catalan (not even in Spanish).

Also, as mentioned, in Barcelona -with so many immigrants- you are bound to encounter more people not understanding Catalan than in other cities or towns in Catalonia. But this should not prevent you to start a conversation with a Catalan sentence if you wish so as you won't know in advance whether the person you're addressing to does or does not speak/understand Catalan. Again, "playing it safe" by using always Spanish will prevent you experiencing warm reactions from those that do speak Catalan... and sometimes you'll be surprised as many residents from other nationalities speak perfect Catalan.

PS. Any of the above statements can, of course, be backed up by multiple sources readily available online. Just google for it.

Just to point out that the Spanish have often used the word "dialect" to disparage and discredit Catalan language so the term has a very strong political charge over here.

While the term "dialect" should be understood, from a linguistic point-of-view, merely as: "a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group", and in this sense indeed Valencian is linguistically a dialect of Catalan language, we tend to use instead the form "variation of Catalan" in order not to ignite passions that have nothing to do with the linguistic fact. I hope you grasp my meaning.

As an interesting aside Kent, within the Autonomous Region of Catalonia, there is another mini Autonomous Region called Aran, located high up in the Pyrenees. Aran has their own language similar yet distinct from Catala, called Aranes, which comes from old Gascon. Aran is a great place to visit in the Pyrenees for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter, and is quite undiscovered by international tourists. One can even find wild bears (although in small numbers) in this part of Pyrenees, one of the only places left in western Europe.

We enjoyed our time in Catalonia, a special place.

I like to joke that in Valencia not only will some insist that theirs is a variation on Catalan but if you go outside the west side of the old wall along the block there the cafe owner will tell you theirs is a variation of Valencia and if you ask the guys at the table in the western corner of the patio they will tell you theirs is a variation of the cafe and if you ask the one sitting in the northwestern chair at that table he will tell you his is a variation on the table. And the flea in his left ear will insist his is a variation on that ear.

So, why don't we see a similar fervor in Provence and the Gard regarding Occitan and Arpitan? Probably Franco, non?

From Wikipedia:
"The Gallo-Romance group includes:
The French language, or langue d'oïl. These include Standard French, Orleanais, Gallo, Angevin, Tourangeau, Saintongeais, Poitevin, Bourgignon, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Normand.[7]
The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal, of southeastern France, western Switzerland, and Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. Formerly thought of as a dialect of either Oïl or Occitan, it is linguistically a language on its own, or rather a separate group of languages, as many of its dialects have little mutual comprehensibility. It shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan.
The Occitan language, or langue d'oc, has dialects such as Provençal, and Gascon-Aranese.[8]
Other language families which are sometimes included in Gallo-Romance:

The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian. The inclusion of Catalan in Gallo-Romance is disputed by some linguists who prefer to group it with Iberian Romance,[9] since although Old Catalan is close to Old Occitan, it later adjusted its lexicon to some degree to align with Spanish.[citation needed] In general, however, modern Catalan, especially grammatically, remains closer to modern Occitan than to either Spanish or Portuguese."

Just a little tip to some who are visiting the eastern regions of Spain, whatever you do, do not lump together Valencians and Mallorcans as Catalans! :)

Their local languages may have initially come from Catalan (due to the Crown of Aragon), but they are legally considered separate languages rather than dialects. It is rightly a matter of strong local pride for them.

I was listening to Rick's radio show for this week about Spain 2019, and one of the callers made that mistake, thankfully the guest Spanish travel guide was on hand to correct his faux pas lol

Gracies to Enrico and Carlos, and others, for their extensive and educational contributions on this thread!

Valenciano is NOT legally considered a separate language.

Hi Bill, the 1982 Constitution of the Autonomous Community of Valencia and the 1978 Spanish Constitution officially recognise Valencià as a separate official language of the Autonomous Community of Valencia.

"LEY ORGÁNICA 1/2006, de 10 de abril, de Reforma de la Ley Orgánica 5/1982, de 1 de julio, de Estatuto de Autonomía de la Comunidad Valenciana"

http://www.congreso.es/consti/estatutos/estatutos.jsp?com=79&tipo=2&ini=1&fin=7&inisub=1&finsub=1 (look at article 6)

Hi Bill, I think that it is importantant to respect an Autonomous Community's constitutional right to self identification, regardless if we are Valencians or Catalans.

Stay in Perpignan dear Andrew.

Two things:

First, note that my joke above is no joke to many people there in the region and its surrounds, as shown by the recent comments.

and

b) the spelling 'Catalogne' reminds me that when I am in Argentina I get teased regularly for pronouncing 'California' as though it was spelled Californya or Califorña by Porteños who assume that it is pronounced as it is written, California, even though almost all Americans (USA) pronounce the word as though it was spelled Californya.

This is also on my mind because I happen to be reading a history chapter right now about the High Middle Ages on the Italian peninsula and the differences in name spellings and pronunciations between the various Goths, Italians, and Eastern Romans (Byzantines) for the same people and places is a hoot and a half.