Catalan Orthography
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The Catalan and Valencian
orthographies An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
encompass the spelling and punctuation of standard
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
(set by the
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
) and
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
(set by the AVL). There are also several adapted variants to the peculiarities of local dialects of Insular Catalan ( Alguerese and the Balearic subdialects).


History

The history of the
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
and
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
orthographies show a singularity in regard with the other
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...
s. These have been mostly developed from Latin, adapting them to their own phonetic particularities. It had been a gradual and slow process through centuries until the creation of the Academies in the 18th century that fixed the orthography from their language dominant variety. Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. «''El procés d'unificació de l'ortografia catalana''». In the case of Catalan and Valencian, the mediaeval orthography had a noticeable homogeneity. The Royal Chancellery set a unitary written model in several fields. Thus,
Ramon Muntaner Ramon Muntaner () (1265 – 1336) was a Catalan people, Catalan mercenary and writer who wrote the ''Crònica'', a chronicle of his life, including his adventures as a commander in the Catalan Company. He was born at Peralada. Biography T ...
expressed in his
Chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
(1325-1328) that the Catalans are the largest group with a single language, since all the Romance-speaking regions had very divided languages like the difference that exists between Catalans and Aragonese. In the 16th century, just after the Golden Age, the split of Catalan started. With the isolation of the Royal Court and several political events, the unitary linguistic conscious and the shared cultural tradition broke off. The production became more dialectal. In the 19th century the recovery of the unity emerged, beginning with the orthography.  Institutions like the ''Acadèmia de Bones Lletres'' or the
Floral Games Floral Games were any of a series of historically related poetry contests with floral prizes. In Occitan, their original language, and Catalan they are known as '' Jocs florals'' (; modern Occitan: ''Jòcs florals'' , or ''floraus'' ). In French ...
were in the middle of several orthographic dilemmas. The orthographic norms of Catalan were first defined officially in the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the ''Institut d'Estudis Catalans'' (IEC, founded in 1911) published the ''
Normes ortogràfiques The ''Normes ortogràfiques'' are a list of 24 rules which were promulgated by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans on January 24, 1913, with the purpose of regularizing Catalan spelling. They were made to establish a graphic codification for the C ...
'' in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and
Pompeu Fabra Pompeu Fabra i Poch (; Gràcia, Barcelona, 20 February 1868 – Prada de Conflent, 25 December 1948) was a Spanish engineer and grammarian. He was the main author of the normative reform of contemporary Catalan language. Life Pompeu Fabra w ...
. Despite some opposition, the spelling system was adopted immediately and became widespread enough that, in 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló to make a formal adoption of the so-called ''
Normes de Castelló Normes de Castelló (, " Castelló's Norms"), also known as Normes del 32, are elementary orthographic guidelines that follow Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms for its Valencian variety. They were signed in 1932 in Castelló de la Plana by ...
'', a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms. In 1917, Fabra published an Orthographic Dictionary following the orthographic norms of the IEC. In 1931-32 the ''
Diccionari General de la Llengua Catalana The ''Diccionari General de la Llengua Catalana'' by Pompeu Fabra is a Catalan dictionary, first published in fascicles in 1931. It was the Standard Catalan dictionary until 1995, when the Institut d'Estudis Catalans The Institute for Catalan St ...
'' (General Dictionary of the Catalan language) appeared.  In 1995, a new normative dictionary, the Dictionary of the Catalan Language of the Institute of Catalan Studies (DIEC), marked a new milestone in the orthographic fixation of the language, in addition to the incorporation of neologisms and modern uses of the language.


Alphabet

Like those of many other
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...
s, the
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
and
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
alphabet derives from the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
and is largely based on the respective language's phonology. The Catalan and Valencian alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...
: The following letter-diacritic combinations are used, but they do not constitute distinct letters in the alphabet: '' À à'', '' É é'', '' È è'', '' Í í'', '' Ï ï'', '' Ó ó'', '' Ò ò'', '' Ú ú'', '' Ü ü'' and '' Ç ç'' (though the Catalan keyboard includes the letter '' Ç'' as a separate key). ''K k'' and ''W w'' are used only in loanwords. Outside loanwords, the letters ''Q q'' and ''Y y'' appear only in the digraphs ''qu'', ''qü'' and ''ny''. However, ''Y'' was used until the official orthography was established in 1913, when it was replaced with ''I'', except in the digraph ''ny'' and loanwords. Some Catalan surnames conserve the letter ''y'' and the word-final digraph ''ch'' (pronounced ), e. g. ''Layret'', ''Aymerich''. The following table shows the letters and their names in Standard Catalan (
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
) and Standard Valencian ( AVL): The names ''efa'' (), ''ela'' (), ''ema'' (), ''ena'' (), ''erra'' (), and ''essa'' () are also used in certain speeches of Valencian. The names ''be alta'' ("high b") and ''ve baixa'' ("low v") are used by speakers who do not distinguish the phonemes and . Speakers that do distinguish them use the simple names ''be'' and ''ve''.''Estàndard oral valencià''. ''L'alfabet'', AVL, p. 36.


Spelling patterns


Spelling-to-sound correspondences

Catalan is a pluricentric language; the pronunciation of some of the letters is different in
Eastern Catalan The Catalan dialects feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between its dialects is very high, estim ...
(
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
) and
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
( AVL). Apart from those variations, the pronunciation of most consonants is fairly straightforward and is similar to French, Occitan or Portuguese pronunciation. (The following list includes a quick pronunciation of letters in standard Catalan and Valencian, for an in-depth view see attached main article on top of this section).


Diacritics


Accentuation


Acute and grave accents

Catalan and Valencian also use the
acute Acute may refer to: Science and technology * Acute angle ** Acute triangle ** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology * Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset. ** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
and
grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using t ...
s to mark
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
or vowel quality. An acute on indicates that the vowel is stressed and close-mid (), while grave on indicates that the vowel is stressed and open-mid (). Grave on and acute on simply indicates that the vowels are stressed. Thus, the acute is used on close or close-mid vowels, and the grave on open or open-mid vowels. For example: * ''també'': or ('also') * ''interès'' or ''interés'': or ('interest') * ''córrer'': or ('to run') * ''pròxim'': ('nearby') * ''ànima'': or ('soul') * ''pastís'': or ('pie') * ''pallús'': or ('fool') Standard rules governing the presence of accents are based on word endings and the position of the stressed syllable. In particular, accents are expected for: *
Oxytone An oxytone (; from the grc, ὀξύτονος, ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''. (A paroxytone is stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syllable. A pr ...
s ending in a syllabic vowel, a vowel + -, or -/, examples: **''parlà'' or ('he spoke') **''parlés'' or ('that he spoke' past subjunctive) **''entén'' or ('he understands') :This does not occur in words like ''parleu'' or ('you are speaking' plural), or ''parlem'' or ('we are speaking'). *
Paroxytone Paroxytone ( el, παροξύτονος, ') is a linguistic term for a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second last syllable, such as the English word ''potáto'', and just about all words ending in –ic such as músic ...
s with any other ending, including non-syllabic -, -, examples: **''parlàveu'' or ('you were speaking' plural) **''parlàvem'' or ('we were speaking') :This does not occur in words like ''parla'' or ('he is speaking'), ''parles'' or ('you are speaking' singular), or ''parlen'' or ('they are speaking'). * Any
proparoxytone In linguistics, a proparoxytone ( el, προπαροξύτονος, ) is a word with stress on the antepenultimate (third last) syllable, such as the English words "cinema" and "operational". Related terms are paroxytone (stress on the penultimate ...
s, examples: **''química'' or ('chemistry') **''ciència'' or ('science') Since there is no need to mark the stressed syllable of a monosyllabic word, most of them do not have an accent. Exceptions to this are those with a ''diacritical accent'' that differentiates some cases of words that would otherwise be homographic. Example: ''es'' or ('it' impersonal) vs ''és'' ('is'), ''te'' or ('you' clitic) vs ''té'' ('s/he has'), ''mes'' or ('month') vs ''més'' ('more'), ''dona'' or ('woman') vs ''dóna'' or ('s/he gives'). In most cases, the word bearing no accent is either unstressed (as in the case of 'es' and 'te'), or the word without the accent is more common, usually a function word. The different distribution of ''open e'' vs ''closed e'' between Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan is reflected in some orthographic divergences between standard Catalan and Valencian norms, example: ''anglès'' (Catalan) vs ''anglés'' (Valencian) ('English'). In the Balearic Islands, ''open e'' tends to be a ''centralised e'' () in the same cases where ''open e'' contrasts with ''closed e'' in Catalan and Valencian. The cases where the difference of pronunciation of ''e'' can have graphical repercussions are the followings: *Words ending with the demonym -''es'' (''anglès'' / ''anglés'' 'English', ''francès'' / ''francés'' 'French'), the past participles (''admès'' / ''admés'' 'admitted', ''compromès'' / ''compromés'' 'committed') and adjectives (''cortès'' / ''cortés'' 'courteous'). *The ordinal numerals ending in stressed ''e'': ''cinquè'' / ''cinqué'' ('fifth'), ''sisè'' / ''sisé'' ('sixth'). *The ending of the third person of the plural of indicative -''en'' of some verbs of the 2nd conjugation (''aprèn'' / ''aprén'' 'learn', ''comprèn'' / ''comprén'' 'comprehend', ''depèn'' / ''depén'' 'depend'), except in the cases where this ending is preceded by the consonant ''t'' or ''c'', where it is pronounced with a closed ''e'' in all speeches (''atén'' 'attend', ''entén'' 'understand', ''pretén'' 'pretend', ''encén'' 'switch on'). *The infinitives ending in -''eixer'' (''conèixer'' / ''conéixer'' 'to know', ''merèixer'' / ''meréixer'' 'to deserve', ''parèixer'' / ''paréixer'' 'to seem', but uniquely ''créixer'' 'to grow') and -''encer'' (''vèncer'' / ''véncer'' 'to win', ''convèncer'' / ''convéncer'' 'to convince'). *The second and third person of the plural of the simple past tense of indicative with accent on the radical: ''fèiem'' / ''féiem'' 'we did', ''fèieu'' / ''féieu'' 'you pl. did'.


Circumflex

The
circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...
is seldom used in modern Catalan and Valencian, nonetheless it has been used in the beginning of the 19th century by Antoni Febrer i Cardona to represent
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
in the Balearic subdialects. According to the '' Diccionari català-valencià-balear'', in modern times there are some cases where the circumflex can be used to indicate silent etymological sounds (similar to French) or a contraction. Contrary to the restrictions of the acute and grave accent, the circumflex can be used with all vowels , the most common, especially in Valencian, being (i.e. due to the elision of ), e.g. ''mascletâes'' (instead of ''mascletades'' 'pyrotechnic festivals'), ''anâ'' (instead of ''anar'' 'to go'), ''témê'' (instead of ''témer'' 'to fear'), ''sortî'' (instead of ''sortir'' 'to exit'), ''pâ'' ('to', preposition in colloquial Valencian).


Diaeresis

The diaeresis has two different uses: to mark hiatus over , and to mark that is not silent in the groups . If a diaeresis appears over an or that follows another vowel, it denotes a
hiatus Hiatus may refer to: *Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * Gl ...
, examples: *''raïm'' or ('grape') *''taüt'' or ('coffin') This diaeresis is not used over a stressed vowel that already should have an accent. Examples: ''suís'' ('Swiss' masculine), but ''suïssa'' or ('Swiss' feminine), ''suïs'' ('that you sweat' subjunctive) (without the diaeresis, this last example would be pronounced , i.e. as only one syllable, like ''reis'' 'kings'). Certain verb forms of verbs ending in ''-uir'' do not receive a diaeresis, although they are pronounced with separate syllables. This concerns the infinitive, gerund, future and conditional forms (for example ''traduir'', ''traduint'', ''traduiré'' and ''traduiria'', all with bisyllabic ). All other forms of such verbs do receive a diaeresis on the ''ï'' according to the normal rules (e.g. ''traduïm'', ''traduïa''). In addition to this, represents between a velar consonant or and a
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
( and are used to represent a hard (i.e. velar) pronunciation before or ). *''ungüent'' ('ointment') *''qüestió'' or ('topic') Forms of the verb ''argüir'' represents a rare case of the sequence , and the rules for and clash in this case. The ambiguity is resolved by an additional rule, which states that in cases where diaereses would appear on two consecutive letters, only the second receives one. This thus gives ''arguïm /arguˈim/, i.e.'' and ''arguïa /arguˈia/,'' but ''argüir /arˈgwir/,'' ''argüint /arˈgwint/'' and ''argüiré'' ''/argwiˈre/'' as these forms don't receive a diaeresis on the ''i'' normally, according to the exception above.


''Ce trencada'' (c-cedilla)

Catalan and Valencian '' ce trencada'' ( Ç ç), literally in English 'broken cee', is a modified with a cedilla mark ( ¸ ). It is only used before to indicate a ''soft c'' , much like in Portuguese, Occitan or French (e.g. compare ''coça'' or 'kick', ''coca'' or 'cake' and ''cosa'' or 'thing'). In Catalan and Valencian, ''ce trencada'' also appears as last letter of a word (e.g. ''feliç'' or 'happy', ''falç'' 'sickle'), but then may be voiced to before vowels and voiced consonants, e.g. ''feliçment'' or ('happily') and ''braç esquerre'' or ('left arm').


''Punt volat'' (middot)

The so-called '' punt volat'' or
middot An interpunct , also known as an interpoint, middle dot, middot and centered dot or centred dot, is a punctuation mark consisting of a vertically centered dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script. (Word-separating spaces did n ...
is only used in the group (called ''ela'' or ''el(e) geminada'', 'geminate el') to represent a
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
d sound , as is used to represent the palatal lateral . This usage of the middot sign is a recent invention from the beginning of twentieth century (in medieval and modern Catalan, before Fabra's standardization, this symbol was sometimes used to note certain elisions, especially in poetry). The only (and improbable) case of ambiguity in the whole language that could arise is the pair ''ceŀla'' or ('cell') vs ''cella'' or ('eyebrow').


Hyphen

The
Hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...
(called a ''guionet'') is used in Catalan and Valencian to separate a verb and the combination of pronouns that follow them (e.g. ''menjar-se-les''), to separate certain compounds (e.g. ''vint-i-un'' and ''para-sol''), and to split a word at the end of a line of text for the purpose of maintaining page margins. Compounds are hyphenated in cases that involve numerals (e.g. ''trenta-sis'', and ''trenta-sisè''/''é''); cardinal points (e.g. ''sud-americà''); repetitive and expressive compounds (''xup-xup''); those compounds in which the first element ends in a vowel and the second starts with , , or (e.g. ''penya-segat''); and those compounds in which the combination of the two elements can lead to wrong reading (e.g. ''pit-roig''). There are also compound terms in which the first element carries a grave accent (''mà-llarg''), the construction ''no'' plus substantive (but not ''no'' plus adjective, ''no-violència'' but the ''nacions no violentes'') and certain singular constructions like ''abans-d'ahir'' and ''adéu-siau''. Since 1996, the normative set that in the none mentioned cases in the previous paragraph do not carry hyphen. Thus, the general norm set that the prefixed forms, aside from the cited exceptions, are written without hyphen (the only normative option, then, is to write ''arxienemic'' and ''fisicoquímic''). In regard to numbers, hyphen is set according to the D-U-C rule (''Desenes-Unitats-Centenes'', 'Tens-Units-Hundreds'), thus, a hyphen is placed between tens and units (''quaranta-dos'') and between units and hundreds (''tres-cents''). For example, the number 35,422 is written ''trenta-cinc mil quatre-cents vint-i-dos''. In the case of the separation of a term at the end of line, syllable boundaries are maintained. Still, there are digraphs that can be separated and others that cannot. The digraphs that can be separated are those that, when splitting them, they result in two graphs the corresponding sound from which they share a phonetic trait with the sound of the digraph. (Thus, the digraph rr, for example it corresponds with the nearest sound of a rhotic alveolar trill. ''Cor-randes'', ''calit-ja'' and ''as-sas-sí'' are words with digraphs that can be split). The digraphs that cannot be separated are those in which the two graphs correspond to sounds that they are not related with the sound of the digraph. (For example, it cannot be separated the digraphs ''ny'' or ''ix'', the sound /i/ for instance, does not have any relation with the sound of the voiceless prepalatal fricative which ''ix'' is corresponded). To orthographic effects, the syllabic separation of words follow the following norms: * The following digraphs and combination of letters can be separated: :: rr (''car-rer''), ss (''pas-sar''), sc (''es-ce-na''), l·l (''vil-la''), tj (''jut-jat''), tg (''fet-ge''), tx (''pit-xer''), tl (''vet-la''), tll (''rot-llo''), tm (''rit-me''), tn (''cot-na''), tz (''set-ze''), mm (''im-mens''), nn (''in-no-cent'') * The following digraphs cannot be separated: :: gu (''jo-guet''), ny (''pe-nya''), qu (''pa-quet), ig (''ba-teig''), ll (''pe-lle-ter'') * The constituents of a compound, or the prefix of a prefixed word, can be separated: :: ''ad-herir'', ''in-expert'', ''ben-estar'', ''mil-hòmens'', ''des-encolar'', ''vos-altres'' * Letters cannot be left on their own at the end or beginning of a line: :: ''d'a-mor'', ''aber-rant'', ''l'a-plicació'', ''histò-ria''


Apostrophe

Catalan and Valencian follow some apostrophation rules that serve to determine whether it is necessary to use an apostrophe (') with an article, preposition or pronoun or not if the word that follows it or precedes it begins or finishes in a vowel, respectively. ;Article The masculine singular article (''el'', ''en'', and dialectally also ''lo'', in Continental Catalan, and ''es'' and ''so'' in Balearic, the so called salted article, with ''s'') is apostrophated before all words of masculine gender that begin with a vowel, e.g. ''l'avió'', ''l'encant'', ''l'odi'', ''n'Albert'', ''s'arbre''; with a silent ''h'', e.g. ''l'home'', ''l'ham'', ''n'Hug'', ''s'home''; with a liquid ''s'', e.g. ''l'spa'', ''l'Stuttgart''. It is not apostrophated before of words that begin with a consonantic i or u (with or without h), ''el iogurt'', ''el iode'' (or dialectally ''lo iogurt'', ''lo iode''). In case of apostrophation, the specific forms ''al'' (dial. ''as''), ''del'' (dial. ''des''), ''pel'' (dial. ''pes''), ''cal'' (dial. ''cas'') and ''can'' are broken and become a ''l''' (dial. ''a s'''), ''de l''' (dial. ''de s'''), ''per l''' (dial. ''per s'''), ''ca l''' (dial. ''ca s''') and ''ca n''' respectively. The feminine singular article (''la'', ''na'' and dialectaly ''sa'') are apostrophated in the following cases: When the following word start with a vowel: ''l'emoció'', ''l'ungla'', ''l'aigua'', ''n'Elena''; when the word start with a silent ''h'': ''l'heura'', ''l'holografia'', ''n'Hermínia'', ''s'horabaixa''. It is not apostrophated in the following cases: When it goes before word that starts with a consonantic ''i'' or ''u'' (with ''h'' or not): ''la hiena''; when it goes before a word that begins with unstressed ''i'' or ''u'' (with ''h'' or not): ''la humitat'', ''la universitat'', ''la imatge''; before some specific terms like ''la una'' (when referring to the time), ''la ira'', ''la host'', ''la Haia'' (toponym); before the name of the letters (''la i'', ''la hac'', ''la essa''); before a word that start with s followed by a consonant, ''la Scala de Milà''. Traditionally, to avoid ambiguities, did not take the apostrophe the words that begin with the negative prefix a-: nowadays in written texts it is followed the general apostrophation rules: ''l'anormalitat'', ''l'amoralitat'', ''l'atipicitat'', ''l'asimetria'', ''l'asèpsia'', etc. The ''Diccionari de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans'' (DIEC) of 1995 started to apply the new criteria, however it was never formulated explicitly. In the same way, the introduction of DIEC writes about the abnormality of the situation, and the outline of the new normative grammar that prepares the IEC already does not collect that traditional exception. ;Preposition ''de'' The preposition ''de'' takes the apostrophe before a vowel (with silent h, or without): ''d'aigua'', ''d'enveja'', ''d'humitat''. It does not apostrophate however before the following cases: words that start with a consonantic ''i'' or ''u'' (with silent h or without); ''de iode'', ''de ioga'', ''de uombat'', ''de iogurt'', ''de Utah'', ''de ouija''; before names of letters; ''de a'', ''de hac''. In general it does not apostrophate in case of metalanguage: ''el plural de alt és alts''; before a liquid ''s'': ''de Stalin''. ;Weak pronouns Weak pronouns take the apostrophe in the following cases: Before a verb that starts with a vowel, using its elided form: ''m'agrada'', ''n'abastava'', ''s'estimaran'', ''l'aconseguiria''. At the end of a verb that finishes in a vowel, using the reduced form: ''menja'n'', ''trenca'l'', ''fondre's'', ''compra'ns''. When there are two, the second if the orthographic rules allow it: ''me'n'', ''li'n'' , ''se'm'', ''te'ls'', ''la'n'', ''n'hi''; if it is possible, it takes the apostrophe with the following word, like ''me n'ha dut tres''. The apostrophe always goes the further to the right possible: ''te l'emportes'', not *''te'l emportes''. Does not take the apostrophe: The pronouns ''us'', ''vos'', ''hi'', ''ho'', ''li'', ''les'': ''us el dono'' or ''vos el done'', ''se us esperava'' or ''se vos esperava''. Like in the case of the article, the pronoun before words that start by unstressed ''i'' and ''u'' (with silent ''h'' or without): ''la ignora'', ''la hi pren'', ''la humitejarem'', ''la usàvem''. It also does not take the apostrophe the first weak pronoun in the forms ''la hi'' and ''se us''.


Capitalization

Catalan and Valencian do not capitalize the days of the week, months, or national adjectives. ::''dilluns'', ''setembre'', ''anglès'' ::"Monday", "September", "English"


Punctuation

The Catalan and Valencian punctuation rules are similar to English, with some minor differences. *
Guillemets Guillemets (, also , , ) are a pair of punctuation marks in the form of sideways double chevrons, and , used as quotation marks in a number of languages. In some of these languages "single" guillemets, and , are used for a quotation inside an ...
(''cometes baixes'') ''« »'' are frequently used instead of double inverted commas. They are used to mark titles of works, or phrases used as proper names. *In texts containing dialogue, quoted speech is usually set off with dashes, rather than inverted commas. ::—''Què proposes, doncs?'' ::—''El que hauriem de fer —s'atreví a suggerir— és anar a...'' ::'What do you propose, then?' ::'What we should do' she ventured to suggest 'is go to and ...' *Questions are ended with ''?'', as in English. Before 1993, questions could be enclosed with ''¿...?'', as in Spanish, but this is no longer recommended by the IEC.


Other conventions

The distribution of the two rhotics and closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset, an
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
, , appears unless preceded by a consonant; different dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring an
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...
, , and Central Catalan dialects like those of Barcelona or Girona featuring a weakly trilled unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case appears. In Eastern Catalan and North Western Catalan, most instances of word-final are silent, but there are plenty of unpredictable exceptions (e.g. in Central Eastern Catalan ''por'' 'fear' but ''mar'' 'sea'). In Central Eastern Catalan monosyllabic words with a pronounced final get a reinforcement final consonant when in absolute final position (e.g. final of ''cor'' ('heart') in ''reina del meu cor'' 'queen of my heart' vs ''el cor es mou'' 'the heart is moving'). In Valencian, most instances of word-final are pronounced.


See also

*
Catalan manual alphabet The Catalan manual alphabet is used in Catalan Sign Language but wasn't officially recognized as one of Catalonia's official languages until 3 June 2010 when Law 17/2010 of the Catalan sign language (LSC) was approved by the government. The Catala ...
*
Catalan Braille Catalan Braille is the braille alphabet of the Catalan language. It is very close to French Braille: it uses the 26 letters of the basic braille alphabet The goal of braille uniformity is to unify the braille alphabets of the world as much as ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Catalan Alphabet Alphabet, Catalan Indo-European Latin-script orthographies