Catalan belongs to the family of the Italic-Romance languages of the Indo-European language family and is closest related to the Occitan language in the south of France. Catalan is often regarded as a language in between the Gallo-Romance and the Ibero-Romance language groups, but is assigned to the Ibero-Romance language group.
Catalan is the official language of Andorra and a regional official language (next to Spanish) in Catalonia, in the Balearic Islands, and in some areas of Aragon and in Valencia.
Catalan words are already known from Latin texts from the 9th century. Catalan developed in the valleys of the Eastern Pyrenees and gained currency in the times of the Reconquista, the period when the areas occupied by the Moors were taken back.
Hello - hola
You are not alone - NO ESTÀS SOL
The Catalan written language uses the trema, just like Spanish (a diacritic sign of two dots above a vowel). Furthermore Catalan uses a dot between two ”l” when the sound [l] must be retained (e.g. col·lecció), which is rather unusual for languages.
Catalans in Italy (18.000 Speaker)
Andorran in Andorra (18.000 Speaker)
Catalans in France (200.000 Speaker)
Catalans in Spain (6.200.000 Speaker)
Karelians in Sweden (30.000 Speaker)