What are the differences between the Catalan and Valencian languages?

Question

Until recently, I had thought they were the same thing, then someone told me they were different. Someone else told me they were different dialects of the same language, which I completely buy. So, what's the authoritative answer? What are some of the differences in these dialects? (Unless you say they're different languages, in which case, what are the differences between the langauges?)

Hey, Mye, what are your sources so I can look a little further into it? Thanks.

Answer 1

This is what I found on the net:

Catalan IPA: /ˈkætəˌlæn/ (Catalan: català, /kətə'la/ or /kata'la/) is a Romance language, the official language of Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Valencia (under the name Valencian) and Catalonia. Spain has the majority of active Catalan speakers. It is spoken or understood by as many as 10 million people who live not only in Andorra and Spain, but also in parts of France and in the city of Alghero in Sardinia, Italy.

The official language academy of the Land of Valencia (the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua) considers Catalan and Valencian simply to be two names for the same language. There is a roughly continuous set of idiolects covering the various regional forms of Catalan/ Valencian, with no break at the border between Catalonia and Valencia (i.e. villages contiguous to both sides of the border speak exactly the same), and the various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible. Linguists, as well as universities teaching Romance languages, consider these all to be regional varieties of the same language; this situation is therefore somewhat similar to variation between Acadian French and Quebec French.

Nevertheless, differences do exist: the accent of a Valencian is recognisable, there are differences in subjunctive terminations, and there are a large number of words unique to Valencian; but those differences are not any wider than among North-Western Catalan and Eastern Catalan. In fact, Northern Valencian (spoken in the Castelló province and Matarranya valley, a strip of Aragon) is more similar to the Catalan of the lower Ebro basin (spoken in southern half of Tarragona province and another strip of Aragon) than to apitxat Valencian (spoken in the area of L'Horta, in the province of Valencia).

Valencian has often been seen as a dialect of Catalan due to their mutual intelligibility, and because it was the Catalan who brought their language there when they conquered the land of Valencia (although some people argue that Valencian didn't evolve from North-Western Catalan at all. For more information on Valencian, its relationship to Catalan according to politicians and linguists and its origins according to the same people, refer to the article on Valencian). However, the issue of language versus dialect is as much a matter of politics as of linguistics. By the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Valencian and other varieties of Catalan are dialects of a single language; but according to this criterion, Norwegian and Danish are dialects of the same language. A language is defined by several factors, political ones among others.

What gets called a language is defined in part by mutual comprehensibility, but also by political and cultural factors. Historically, the perceived status of Valencian as a "dialect of Catalan" has had important political implications. Conversely, some Valencians who advocate distinguishing the languages do so to resist a perceived Catalan nationalist agenda aimed at absorbing Valencian language and identity, and incorporating Valencians into a constructed nationality centered on Catalonia. However, this idea is mostly supported by extreme right-wing organisations who usually don't support actual use of Valencian, but rather fear a possible union between Catalonia and Valencia.

Similarly to Serbian and Croatian, the issue of whether Catalan and Valencian constitute different languages or merely dialects has been the subject of political agitation several times since the end of the Franco era. The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of the drafting of the European Constitution in 2004. The Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Galician, Catalan, and Valencian. The Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of the Autonomous Land of Valencia refers to the language as Valencian, but both the Valencian and the Catalan versions of the text were essentially the same, with slight dialectal differences.

Most current (21st century) Valencian speakers and writers use spelling conventions (Normes de Castelló, 1932) that allow for several diverse idiosyncrasies of Valencian, Balearic, North-Western Catalan, and Eastern Catalan.

Valencian and Catalan have fewer differences from one another than do American English and English English (that is, the English of England), although this is partially because the English phonetical system is much more complex than that of Catalan. The differences between English English and American English are very similar to those between Valencian and Catalan. For example, English English and American English have a different vowel system, as do Valencian and Catalan. In Valencia, as in America, the language is generally rhotic (that is, final "r" is pronounced); in Catalonia, as in England, it generally is not. There are pairs of words similar to "truck"/"lorry" or "cookie"/"biscuit", for example "mirall"/"espill" (meaning "mirror") or "rentar"/"llavar" ("to wash"). There are different spellings for the same word à la "color"/"colour", for example "seva"/"seua" ("his"); although in this case the pronunciation is not the same, it is a common feature in dialectal and not-so-old Catalan to turn intervocalic "u" into "v", so "seva" and "seua" are phonologically identical (/'seua/), although phonetically different (['sevɘ] vs. ['sewa].) There are differences in conjugation just like "lit"/"lighted", for example, "acomplix"/"acompleix" ("accomplished"). There are verbal forms which are not frequently used in either dialect - "aní"/"vaig anar", just like "I advise that he come"/"I advise him to come". In short, much like English, Catalan is a multi-centric language - there exist two standards, one for Oriental Catalan, regulated by the IEC, which is centered around Barcelonese Catalan (with slight variations to include Balearic verb flexion) and one for Occidental, regulated by the AVL, centered around Valencian.


Theories of Valencian as separate from Catalan

Those theories that claim Valencian is an independent language from Catalan are mostly based on disputing the origin of the language in Valencia.

One of the most widespread theories maintains that Valencian primarily evolved from the Romance language spoken by local inhabitants, Mozarabic, even after the conquest of the former Al-Andalus territories. Later on, this language would have acquired words from Catalan, Provençal, Aragonese or Castilian until the present day. However, this theory is not supported by the evidence we have of Mozarabic, chiefly toponymic; place-names which originated in Mozarabic, such as Campos, do not share the linguistic features of Valencian.

An alternative theory proposes that Valencian, alongside Catalan, originated directly from Old Occitan. This would have arrived in Valencia with the court of the conqueror King James I of Aragon, since he was born in Montpellier (Occitania) and this was also the language in vogue among troubadours. However, it must be noted that at the time of the Reconquest of Valencia, Catalan and Occitan were in fact sometimes referred to as the same language (or the same family of dialects) by many, under the name of Lemosin or Provençal and sharing a single poetic tradition, although, when spoken, they were different; Catalan troubadours knew they weren't writing the same as they spoke; and there are texts previous to James I, such as the Homilies d'Organyà, which are clearly Catalan as opposed to Occitan.

Supporters of these theories criticise the current Valencian standard promulgated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua because such supporters regard the Valencian Standard as some kind of hybrid with a theoretically distinct Catalan.

Answer 2

The language commonly known as Catalan is spoken on the northeast coast of Spain and in the Balearic Islands. There are only slight dialect differences between the varieties.

Answer 3

wikipedia says they are the same :

Valencian (valencià) is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Land of Valencia (Spain) to refer to the language also known as Catalan ...

Answer 4

As Ivanhoe Fats says, they're actually two variants of the same language. That's what my Catalan teacher told us. BTW, the Wikipedia page in Spanish http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_valenciano is very complete and it pretty much says what I had learnt from my teacher.