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Mallorca Apócrifa


Catalan language

The Catalan language is not a dialect of Latin, as we are currently led to believe, but one of the different Occitan dialects, which is how it was considered until the beginning of the 20th century.

Regarding the origin of the Catalan language, we are told that it was formed like all Romance languages, by the degradation of Latin used by the people, and that the differences between one romance and another were due to the linguistic post before Romanization.
However, the Catalan language is not a dialect of Latin, but one of the numerous Occitan dialects that were formed in the Southeast of France and the Peninsular Mediterranean littoral.

To know the true origin of a language, we must know the history of the affected territory. In this case, the territory that comprises the current Catalonia.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, in the V century, the entire Iberian Peninsula and part of the Southeast of France, what was called Septimania, are part of the Visigothic Kingdom. Despite its instability it lasted for 3 centuries, until the arrival of the Muslims, in the 8th century.
After 7 centuries within the Roman Empire and another 3 centuries in the Visigothic Kingdom, some territories with 10 centuries of coexistence had to have a common Romance language or very similar dialects.


Year 700, the Visigoth Kingdom included in addition to the entire Peninsula, the French Septimania.



Clasificación dialectal, Wikipedia
Before the arrival of the Muslims there already existed in the Mediterranean strip of Spain and France a common language, or very similar dialects.

In the eighth century the Muslims have reached the south of France. Charlemagne makes them retire to the Iberian Peninsula and creates a defensive strip against them, which is consolidated in 801, after the conquest of Barcelona, ​​this strip was called the Marca Hispanica

marca hispanica map
The interruption of communication in the area of ​​the former territories of the Godo Kingdom, which comprised Barcelona to the North, including the Septimania, is a few tens of years. So the language spoken in these territories remained the same, but now they depended politically on the Carolingian Empire.


While in the 10th century, the Catalan romance developed as one of the different Occitan dialects spoken in the South and the French Mediterranean coast.
In Valencia we see this romance reflected in the jarchas, which was romance written in Arabic alphabet. The jarchas were verses in romance, written at the end of poems written in Arabic.
Arabic translation

Ay mamá!,
meu al habib vay-se
e no més tornarad,
Gar, que faré yo, mamá?
no un bezyello lleixarad?
Ibn Lubbun, 11th century
Text in Valencian

Ai mamà!,
el meu amat se'n va
i mai mes tornarà
Digués, que faré yo, mamà?
ni un beset me deixarà?

While in the territory that will later be Catalonia, Catalan begins to differ slightly from the Occitan language, Valencia already exists Valencian authors who create poetry and literature.


In the future Catalonia, through marriages and pacts, the Catalan counties are part of the Crown of Aragon and get territories and areas of influence in the Southeast of the future France. They reunited part of the Goth territories, which we remember had a common language or very similar dialects.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries appear the first documents written entirely in Catalan romance.

Between 1210 and 1244 the persecution of the Cathars who lived in the south of France took place, on the part of the French crown and nobles of the north of France. The Crown of Aragon fights in favor of the Cathars, but it is defeated in the Battle of Muret, and loses almost all its possessions in the south of France.
What causes that during this period there is a strong emigration of population from these territories to the Catalan territories, taking with it their language, the Occitan.
The Catalan Romance language continues to develop with a strong influence from Occitan, as we have repeatedly said.
But what we should really say, is that Catalan romance is just one of the many Occitan dialects.

mapa dialectos occitanos 711
Before the Muslim invasion in the year 711.

Dialectos del Catalan-Valenciano. Wikipedia

In the first image we can see the possible idiomatic distribution of this area. The language varies gradually as we move through the area. The barrier of the pyrinées produce a more abrupt differentiation.
Notice the second image how the language changes gradually as we go from the South of Valencia to the North of Lleida, some French philologists describe the Catalan language of Lleida as the Valencian language of Catalonia. However, in the Barcelona-Gerona area the difference is more abrupt.
Occitan refugees entered through the Girona Pyrenees, which is the easiest step, and from there they went down to Barcelona, ​​taking with them a differentiated Occitan, which when mixed with the one spoken in the area produced this anomaly.
This emigration from Occitania was repeated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and also for religious reasons, further accentuating this linguistic anomaly.

The Romance language of the Balearics also received an important influence of the Occitan immigration, fruit of the Cathar persecution and the coming of settlers from the territories that the Kingdom of Majorca owned in the Occitan area. Without forgetting, of course, the strong relationship that the Balearic Islands had with the County of Ampurias for more than 100 years, before the Muslim invasion.


Only by way of clarification, saying that the Catalans repopulated the Balearic Islands and Valencia is as stupid as believing that the Galicians repopulated Portugal.

In the 15th century, the Valencian Golden Age, emerged , with authors such as Ausias March and Juanot Martorell, no doubt the result of the decline left by Valencian-Andalusian poets and writers.
While Catalonia will not have its own golden century until well into the 19th century, with "la Renaixença".
Although the historical trilerism, typical of Catalanism, has appropriated the Valencian Golden Age.


Tirant lo Blanch. Wikipedia
Its author, Joanot Martorell, does not say that he writes in Catalan but in Valencian or Romance.

The Catalan authors of the XV - XIX centuries, do not call Catalan to the language in which they write, but Limousine (translation).

After the War of the Spanish Succession These are not the substitution of Catalan for Spanish, as Catalanism would have us believe, but the replacement of Latin that was still used in the administration of justice by Spanish.
In contrast, in the south of France, after the Revolución Francesa (1789), the Occitan language is relegated to oral use, imposing the French language. This will cause a slow but firm path towards his disappearance.
While the Catalan language from the nineteenth century, begins a great boom propitiated mainly by the wealthy Catalan bourgeoisie.

It is from the second third of the 19th century, when Catalanism began to gain strength, with the support of the powerful Catalan bourgeoisie. This really is the most important factor in the rise of Catalanism, inside and outside of Catalonia.
The possibility of financing literary competitions, academies of the Catalan language or buying accessions, and marginalizing anyone who does not agree with the principles of Catalanism, an attitude that has lasted until today.

A clear example of this is Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke, linguist, romanist and Swiss-born Hispanist, in 1890 he assigned to the Catalan language the status of Provencal dialect in his "Grammar of Romance Languages", where he says:

"In the East the transition is operated little by little with Catalan in Roussillon: This latter speaks (parlen), which is nothing more than a Provencal dialect ...."
Surprisingly, he changed his mind when, in 1925, he was named, "Maintainer of the Jocs Florals of Barcelona" and had been "onerously loyalized" by the Catalan bourgeoisie. It was then that he began to use the name "Catalan language" widely.

Between 1904 and 1932, Pompeu Fabra published several works, which lay the foundations of standard Catalan, based on the Barcelona dialect, and to the detriment of the rest of the dialects spoken in Catalonia and the rest of the territories of the old Crown of Aragon. Both the language of the Balearic Islands and Valencia, should adhere to this regulation.

Philologists of the prestige of Father Batllori are totally opposed to the imposition of the barcelonian dialect as standard Catalan.

Father Batllori, historian and university professor. Prize Prince of Asturias 1995 and doctor honoris cause by different Catalan univesidades. In 1992, University of Gerona:

"The Catalan of Barcelona that is tried to impose in Valencia is an infamous and infamous dialect, what is being tried to impose in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, as a literary language, is the infamous dialect of Barcelona" ..., "it will never be accepted that a dialect as infected as Barcelona can be imposed as a national language "...

filologo catalan, padre Batllori
It seems that Batllori was wrong, if they have managed to impose that infamous and infamous dialect. The economic power of the Catalan people has passed as a roller on any discrepancy, calling it paletism and ignorance, although philologists of the importance of Batllori were totally against it.




Conclusion: To this day, Catalanism continues with its bipolar behavior.
While on the one hand, he does not stop using victimhood to claim his differentiating claims towards Spain. On the other hand, it acts with arrogance and contempt towards the rest of the territories of the Crown of Aragon and its languages, trying to blur any differentiating feature, to be integrated into its delirious version of history, as the Catalan countries.

Different political and economic situations mean that Occitan has practically disappeared, while the Catalan dialect has lasted.
For this reason, the support of the acclaimed Catalan bourgeoisie has been fundamental.

Occitan today survives as best he can. There are several publications in this language, that if we compare it with the Catalan and Majorcan, we should ask why the Majorcan is a dialect of the Catalan, while Catalan is a language different from Occitan.
When I say Majorcan I do not mean what is spoken in the Balearic television news, but the one spoken by the people .

Text in Occitan.
"Comunicat de l'IEO (Institut d'Estidis Occitans): contribucion al debat pertocant a las proposicions de lei constitucionalas.
Vaquí lo punt de vista de l'IEO pels debats a venir suls tèxtes de proposicion de lei constitucionalas, per modificar la Constitucion dins la perspectiva de ratificar la Carta Europenca de las lengas regionalas o minoritàrias."

Text in catalan.
"Comunicat de l'IEO (Institut d'Estudis Occitans): contribució al debat pertocant a les proposicions de llei constitucionals.
Vet aquí el punt de vista de l'IEO pels debats a venir sobre textos de proposició de llei constitucionals, per modificar la Constitució dins la perspectiva de ratificar la Carta Europea de les llengües regionals o minoritàries".

Text in Majorcan.
"Comunicat de s'IEO (Institut d'Estudis Occitans): contribució an es debat pertocant a ses proposicions de llei constitucionals.
Vet iquí es punt de vista de s'IEO pes debats a venir sobre texts de proposició de llei constitucionals per modificar sa Constitució dins sa perpectiva de ratificar sa Carta Europea de ses llengos regionals o minoritàries."

Text in English.
"Statement of the IEO (Institute of Occitan Studies): contribution to the debate corresponding to the proposals of constitutional law."
Here is the point of view of the IEO for the debates to come about texts of constitutional law proposal, to modify the Constitution within the perspective of ratifying the European Charter of regional or minority languages. "




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