HISTORY

Traditionally, the origin of the Catalan language has been placed in a part of La Marca Hispànica (Hispanic March), which has also received the name of Catalunya la Vella (Old Catalonia) (see map 5). This area consisted of a set of districts that served as a buffer between Muslim Spain and the Carolingian Empire. In current geographical terms, Catalunya la Vella included Northern Catalonia in the French State, Andorra, and the north of the Autonomous Region of Catalonia in the Spanish State. It has been argued that there was already a conscious differentiation between Latin and the Romance language spoken in this area around the 9th century, due to the Carolingian Reform (Ferrando Francés and Nicolàs Amorós 43).

While it is possible to distinguish words and sentences in Catalan starting in the 9th century, we need to wait until the 12th and 13th centuries to find the earliest texts in Catalan, which were mainly judicial and religious. A Catalan version of the Liber iudiciorum (Book of the Judges) was written around 1150 in the western counties of Catalunya la Vella, whereas another version of the same text was written in the eastern counties around 1180-1190. The earliest known literary text written in Catalan is religious: the Homilies d’Organyà (Homilies from Organyà) (ca. 1204) (Ferrando Francés and Nicolàs Amorós 88).

The year 1213 is an important chapter in the history of the Catalan language, as it represents the beginning of the official ideological and political separation of the Catalan and the Occitan languages. In 1213 the king of the Crown of Aragon, Peter the II of Aragon (r. 1196-1213) was defeated and killed in the Battle of Muret (1213), which was part of the Albigensian Crusade launched by Pope Innocence III (1998-1216) and Philip II of France (r. 1180-1223) against the Catalan-Aragonese King. With this defeat, the Crown of Aragon abandoned its aspirations in the south of France and focused on the Iberian territories and the Mediterranean. As a result, Catalan, which was one of the languages of the Catalan-Aragonese monarchy, underwent a process of differentiation vis-à-vis Occitan, the language of the south of France, especially in the writing system. The first recorded testimony of the use a specific name to refer to the Catalan language: catalanesch, as opposed to Occitan, appeared in Jofré de Foixà’s Regles de trobar (Rules for lyric poetry) (1291) (Lledó-Guillem, The Making of Catalan 32). The similarities between the two languages have always been remarkable, especially in the Middle Ages. In fact, in the Catalan-speaking lands Catalan was used for prose, whereas Occitan was used for courtly lyric poetry until the Valencian poet Ausiàs March (1400-1459) started using Catalan in this genre.

As far as Catalan prose is concerned, two factors played a crucial role. First, the Cancelleria reial (Royal Chancellery) associated with the monarchy, and second, the work of the Franciscan monk Ramon Llull (1232-1316). The Cancelleria reial was founded by King James I (r. 1213-1276) in 1218 and lasted until 1494. It was a royal administrative body in charge of writing the official documents in three main languages: Latin, Catalan, and Aragonese. Until the end of the thirteenth century most of the documents were written in Latin, but with King James II (r. 1291-1327) the use of Aragonese and, especially Catalan, increased considerably. Soon after, Catalan became the most important language of the Chancellery to such an extent that with the reign of King Peter IV of Aragon (r. 1336-1387), Catalan became one of the most uniform languages in the Romance world with regards to the writing system, thanks to the so-called Orders of the Palace (1344). The influence of the Chancellery can be noticed in the writing of the Four Great Catalan Chronicles, by King James I (second half of the thirteen century), Bernat Desclot (ca. 1288), Ramon Muntaner (ca. 1328), and, particularly, in the chronicle written by King Peter IV (1375). Ramon Llull wrote an impressive body of mainly religious and philosophical literary works with a surprising level of syntactic and lexical sophistication. Finally, with the Mediterranean expansion of the Crown of Aragon, Catalan became the first Iberian international language. One example is the Sardinian city of l’Alguer. The island of Sardinia was occupied by Prince Alfons, future King Alfons the Benign (r. 1327-1336) in 1323. The city of l’Alguer revolted several times with the help of Pisa and Genova. This is why Catalan is still spoken nowadays in l‘Alguer. Peter the IV (r. 1336-1387) took possession of the city in 1354 but, since the revolts did not stop, in 1372 the King banished all the population of the city and repopulated it exclusively with Catalan-speakers (Veny and Massanell 205). This is why Catalan is still spoken nowadays in l‘Alguer.

In the fifteenth century there was a change of dynasty in the Crown of Aragon. In 1412 with the Compromís de Casp (Agreement of Casp) Ferdinand I (r. 1412-1416) became the first Catalan-Aragonese king from the Castilian House of Trastámara. Until then the kings of the Crown of Aragon had belonged to the House of Barcelona-Aragon. With the new Dynasty the sociolinguistic status of the language did not change, although Castilian became the usual private language of the Trastámara monarchs. With the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous (r. 1416-1458), the Kingdom of Valencia becomes the economic, demographic, and cultural center of the Crown of Aragon. Some of the best-known literary works in Catalan were written in the 15th century by Valencian authors: Ausiàs March (1400-1459), Isabel de Villena (1430-1490), Joan Roís de Corella (1435-1497), Tirant lo Blanc (1490) by Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan de Galba. During the Catalan Civil War (1462-1472) between the Generalitat de Catalunya and King John II (r. 1458-1479) the Royal Chancellery lost part of its linguistic influence.

With the union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479, Queen Isabella of Castile (r. 1474-1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (r. 1479-1516) established their court in Castile. In 1494 the Cancelleria reial (Royal Chancellery of the Crown of Aragon) was replaced by the Council of Aragon as a Hispanic administrative body. Thus, at the end of the 15th century Catalan was not a court language any longer. Catalan continued to be the administrative and judicial language of the Catalan-speaking lands during the 16th and 17th centuries, but it did not undergo the process of grammaticalization of other Romance languages such as Castilian, French, Portuguese, and Italian. However, the written formal language maintained a certain degree of uniformity based on the Valencian scripta until at least the middle of the seventeenth century. Two events played an important role in the history of the Catalan language in the 17th century: first, the Revolt of the Principality of Catalonia against Philip IV of Spain (r. 1621-1665). This conflict weakened the relationship of the dominant social ranks of Catalonia and the rest of the Catalan-speaking lands, especially the Kingdom of Valencia, which led to an increase in linguistic divergence at least in written texts (Ferrando Francés 232-233). Second, in 1659 by the Treaty of the Pyrenees Northern Catalonia became part of the French monarchy, which started a process of substitution of the Catalan language by French mainly in formal contexts.

The death of Charles II of Spain (r. 1661-1700) without any descendants, led to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715), which became a European conflict. Philip V (r. 1700-1745), Louis XIV of France’s grandson, was victorious and became the first king of Spain from the House of Bourbon. Having supported the other candidate, the Archduke Charles of Austria, to the Spanish throne, the Crown of Aragon, with its Catalan-speaking lands, lost its identity and privileges as part of a more centralized Spain. Thus, by the Royal Decree for Valencia and Aragón (1707) and by the Decree of Nueva Planta for Mallorca, Eivissa, and Catalonia (1715-1716), Catalan was no longer an administrative or judicial language in the Catalan-speaking lands. Paradoxically, the 18th century marks the beginning of an economic growth in the Catalan-speaking lands, especially in the Principality of Catalonia, which would have linguistic consequences in the following centuries.

In 1859, Jocs Florals or poetic contests and celebrations were organized in Barcelona and Valencia to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Valencian poet Ausiàs March (1400-1459). This date may be considered the official beginning of the Renaixença: the recovery of the feeling of cultural and linguistic community by certain sectors of the cultured bourgeoisie in the Catalan-speaking lands (Ferrando Francés 243). The main objective of this movement was the search for a united literary language, with special emphasis on a common orthography. However, the process of codification of the language needed political support, which appeared mainly in Catalonia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Catalonia played a special role in the Catalan-speaking lands because it had been the most industrialized part of Spain in the 19th century. As a result, a nationalist feeling emerged from middle class intellectuals, politicians, and industrialists who were unhappy about their lack of influence on Spanish politics. Language became a common element that could unite the whole Catalan society. Catalonia played a leading role in the codification of the language in comparison to the rest of the Catalan-speaking lands.

In 1906 the first International Congress of the Catalan language was held in Barcelona. One year later, the nationalist group Solidaritat Catalana (Catalan Solidarity) won the elections in Catalonia. The same year the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) was founded as a cultural organization. In 1911 a Philological Section inside the Institut was established, which was equivalent to an Academy of the Catalan language. In 1913 the Philological Section approved the Catalan orthography, followed by the Catalan grammar (1918) and the General Dictionary of the Catalan language (1932). These three works represented the codification of the Catalan language and were based on the work of the Catalan linguist Pompeu Fabra (1868-1948). In the field of Romance Philology, this codification reinforced the acknowledgement of the separate identity of the Catalan language, which had already been supported by the publication of Das Katalanisches (1925) by the Swiss linguist Wilhelm Meyer-Lúbke. Meyer-Lübke’s book gave rise to the debate about the classification of Catalan among the Romance languages (Lledó-Guillem, “Cataluña pide la entrada” 4-6) that was mentioned above.

In 1932 Fabra’s codification of the Catalan language was accepted by the most influential members of the cultural elite in the Catalan-speaking lands: in Catalonia, l’Acadèmia de Bones Lletres (Academy of Good Letters), and the Jocs Florals (Poetic Contests) followed the norms approved by the IEC. In the Balearic Islands, after the death of Antoni Maria Alcover (1862-1932), the codification of the IEC was accepted. Moreover, with the Normes de Castelló (Rules from Castelló) (1932), most Valencian cultural entities and writers accepted Fabra’s codification (Ferrando Francés 279-333). While Fabra’s codification has been questioned on several occasions, it is considered compositional since all the varieties were considered. Certainly, the dominant variety that was selected for the codification was the so-called central Catalan due to the cultural, demographic, economic, and political influence of the city of Barcelona. However, Fabra also selected traits from other varieties based on historical tradition, geographical extension, and literary prestige (Veny and Massanell 77). The selection, codification, and acceptance were part of the standardization of Catalan. Another important process of the standardization process was the functional elaboration of the language, so that Catalan could be used in every context: literature, science, mass media, etc.

The process of functional elaboration as well as the social use of the language was hindered and practically stopped during Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975). However, after the approval of the Spanish Constitution in 1978, Spain became de facto a Constitutional Monarchy. The Spanish Constitution opened the door to the decentralization of the Spanish state with the establishment of seventeen Autonomous Regions and two Autonomous Cities. Three of these Autonomous Regions established in their Estatut d’Atutonomia or territorial Constitutions that Catalan was co-official with Castilian in their respective territories: Estatut d’Autonomia de Catalunya (1979, 2006, and 2010), Estatut d’Autonomia de la Comunitat Valenciana (1982), and Estatut d’Autonomia de Les Illes Balears (1983). In the Estatut d’Autonomia de la Comunitat Valenciana the term valencià is used to refer to the Catalan language.

In 2006 a new Estatut d’Autonomia for Catalonia was approved by both the Catalan and Spanish Governments. However, in 2010, after a period of ideological and political disagreements, and in the middle of a global economic crisis, the Spanish Constitutional Court requested that some changes be made in the text, which led to anger and tension in Catalonia. The Conservative Party, Partido Popular (PP) was in power in the Central Government at that moment. Two referenda for the independence of Catalonia were held on November 9, 2014, and on October 1, 2017. The results of the first referendum were considered invalid but in the second referendum, the Spanish National Police intervened to stop the vote, which led to violent confrontations in different voting locations. Soon after, on October 27, 2017, the Catalan Government declared the independence of Catalonia. As a result, the Spanish Government applied article 155 of the Spanish Constitution and temporarily removed the autonomy of Catalonia.  During the two referenda, the issue of language played an important role. It was observed that while Catalan still played an important role in the support of Catalan independence and identity, the movement was also supported by non-Catalan speakers who considered themselves first and foremost Catalan.