Barcelona City

Catalan is one of the Romance languages spoken in Spain, with its earliest literary text, the Homilies d'Organya, dating back to about the middle of 12th century. In the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, Catalan literature flourished, first under the influence of Provençal literature and later as the producer of its own thematic and formal resources. From the 16th to the 18th centuries it underwent a period of decline, in which the Spanish royalty and other political upheavals imposed different restrictions. Until it emerged in the 19th century with the movement known as the Renaixença, Renaissance.

Its modern linguistic normalization was brought about with the creation in 1907 by Prat de la Riba of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, whose principal pursuit was higher scientific research of all the elements of the Catalan culture. And it is at this famed Institut where Pompeu Fabra effected the regulation and grammatical systematization of the Catalan; thus unifying norms for its spelling (1913).

Both Castillian and Catalan (since 1979) are the official languages of Catalunya and the Balearic Islands (since 1983). Catalan is also spoken in some areas of Aragon and Murcia and, outside Spain, in the French Roussillon region, the Principality of Andorra and in the Italian city of Alguer (Sardinia). It is the mother tongue of some 5 to 6 million persons. Furthermore many Castillian or Spanish speaking people who live in any of the aforementioned areas speak and understand it.