Should Catalan be classified as an Ibero-romance language?

rep   Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:46 pm GMT
<<I don't think it's correct to suggest that Catalan derived from Occitan. >>

Catalan:
Tots els éssers humans neixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets. Són dotats de raó i de consciència, i han de comportar-se fraternalment els uns amb els altres.
Tota persona té dret a un recurs efectiu prop dels tribunals nacionals competents que l'empari contra actes que violin els seus drets fonamentals reconeguts per la constitució o per la llei.

Occitan:
Totes los èssers umans naisson liures e egals en dignitat e en dreches. Son dotats de rason e de consciéncia e se devon comportar los unes amb los autres dins un esperit de fraternitat.
Tota persona a drech a un recors efectiu al prèp de las jurisdiccions nacionalas competentas contra los actes que viòlen los dreches fondamentals que li son reconeguts per la constitucion o la lei.
http://www.lexilogos.com/declaration/index_english.htm
Guest   Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:39 pm GMT
Catalan and Occitan are remarkably similar. They should be the same language.
joolsey   Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:46 pm GMT
Yes, but have you seen the similarities between, say, Galician and Portuguese, or even between Galician and Castillian?

Secondly, there are substantial differences in pronunciation between Occitan and Catalan just as there are similarities; likewise for Piemontese and Lombard. But do we dare claim that these are just one language?
joolsey   Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:52 pm GMT
I am not for one moment disputing the similarities between Catalan and Occitan; it's only natural given their proximity and bouts of shared history: indeed, I believe that Occitanists should co-operate with Catalan institutions in order to promote their interest. Also, I would be favourable towards the establishing of a new Romance sub-group which would include Occitan and Catalan... but I am not a professional linguist.
Guest   Tue Oct 20, 2009 1:45 pm GMT
Yes, but have you seen the similarities between, say, Galician and Portuguese, or even between Galician and Castillian?

Indeed Galician and Portuguese are considered by some linguists the same language . Both come from the same protolanguage: Galaico-Portugues.
joolsey   Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:19 pm GMT
Indeed Galician and Portuguese are considered by some linguists the same language . Both come from the same protolanguage: Galaico-Portugues.

Good point- though I don't agree that Galician and Portuguese are mere dialects of the same language; despite emerging from the same proto-language: and in the case of Galaico-Portuguese, there was almost certainly linguistic (as well as territorial and political..) unity in that region as late as the early 1100's, whereas between Catalan and Occitan the split must have occured at least two centuries earlier. Which is more or less what would have happened with, say, Aragonese and Castilian, Leonese and Castilian et al.

I'll give you a more remote example from the Celtic languages: from my part of the world, people often comment on the similiarity between Irish Gaeilic (Gaeilge) and Scottish Gaeilic (Gaillig). And it is true that both developed from the same tongue originally; Irish Gaeilic speakers had colonised the west of Scotland from the 7th century and there was much trade and interaction, even family ties, between the two lands thereafter until the Reformation. Given the high literacy of the Irish and Scottish monks we are able to observe the integrity of the language, which probably remained as one until about the late 1400s when centuries of gradual divergence at the spoken level accelerated and became crystalised in formal grammar so that the two versions stand to this day as seperate, though closely related and quite mutually intelligible languages (moreso at the written level). Today no one seriously proposes the reintegration of these two languages as one. So what to say about Catalan and Occitan, where divergence seems to have occured even further back in time.

Plus, I hasten to add that before we go remarking that Catalan is just a regional variation of Occitan with their orthagraphic differences reflecting local patterns of pronunciation, please bear in mind the already large spectrum of dialects and regional variants present within Occitan itself; Provencal may have emerged as the standard literary form of Occitan, but go through Rousillon, north to the Massif Central and then south west into the Aquitaine (Gasconha) to see the substantial difference between these dialectal zones. As substantive as say the differences between Mallorqui, Valenician-Leridan...etc? I don't know, but probably so, given that these Occitan regions have historically expressed dissatisfaction at the standardising norms emerging from Provence (Mistralian etc..).

Set against this background, isn't it a bit ambitious to go appropriating Catalan for Occitan?
joolsey   Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:26 pm GMT
Pardon my error...

<"but go through Rousillon...">

Rousillon being a Catalan speaking zone, of course! I meant to say Languedoc (damn French revolutionary administrators and their re-drawing of traditional provincial lines!).

Also I should ammend my comment.... << ...and in the case of Galaico-Portuguese, there was almost certainly linguistic (as well as territorial and political..) unity in that region as late as the early 1100's, whereas between Catalan and Occitan the split must have occured at least two centuries earlier.>>... to add that whereas Galaicoportuguese had already emerged as a langauge proper from the proto-Romance that preceded it, Catalan and Occitan had already split in their Vulgar (or at least their Proto-) stage some time before that.
Guest   Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:33 pm GMT
Catalan and Occitan had already split in their Vulgar (or at least their Proto-) stage some time before that.

Why should they? Catalonia-Southern France was a much more stable region than Portugal and Galicia. Most of Portugal in 1100 was Arabic speaking whereas Catalonia and Occitania were part of the Carolingian empire and cultural exchanges across the both sides of the Pyrenees were constant.
joolsey   Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:24 am GMT
Most of Portugal in 1100 was Arabic speaking whereas Catalonia and Occitania were part of the Carolingian empire and cultural exchanges across the both sides of the Pyrenees were constant>>

A valid point my friend,
but you must consider two important factors:

1) in 1100 the area that corresponds to northern Portugal as far as the Douro/Duero had already been reconquered and the Arabic influence in those territories would have been residual, i.e. present in the local variant of Mozarabe. Further to the south in those later-to-be conquered lands, Arabic continued as the language of officialdom and learning but the spoken vernacular of the population was still Mozarabe (Vulgar Latin dialects with strong Arabic influences).

2) Mozarabe variants continued to be spoken in much of Catalonia (Tarragona and southern Barcelona provinces) even after the establishment of the Carolingian Marca Hispanica in the late 8th century , and would have survived as a substratum that would influence and mould the emerging Old Catalan language in the following centuries. Even assuming your argument that this Old Catalan was simply an evolution from Occitan, would not the Mozarabe sunstratum (which didn't exist north of the Pyrenees) have had an influence on the evolving of the Catalan variant of Old Occitan (or even Proto-Occitan,,,or even still Proto- Catalo-Occitan Romance!) as a seperate language?