Catalan language

The Catalan language is a Romance language spoken in Catalonia, Valencian Community, the eastern part of Aragon, the Balearic Islands, a small zone of Murcia (all of them in Spain), Andorra, North Catalonia (in France) and the Italian city of L'Alguer. Together, those places are often called the Catalan Countries.^[4][5]

Catalan/Valencian
català/valencià
Pronunciation	[kətəˈla]/[valensiˈa]
Native to	Spain, Andorra, France, Italy
Native speakers	4.1 million[1] (2012) Total number of speakers: More than 10 million (L1 plus L2; 2018)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Romance Gallo-Romance[3] Occitano-Romance[3] Catalan/Valencian
Early form	Old Catalan
Standard forms	Catalan (regulated by the IEC) Valencian (regulated by the AVL)
Writing system	Latin (Catalan alphabet) Catalan Braille
Signed forms	Signed Catalan
Official status
Official language in	Andorra Also in 3 communities of Spain:  Balearic Islands  Catalonia  Valencian Community (as Valencian)
Recognised minority language in	Alghero (Sardinia, Italy)  Aragon (Spain) Pyrénées-Orientales (France)
Regulated by	Institut d'Estudis Catalans Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ca
ISO 639-2	cat
ISO 639-3	cat
Glottolog	stan1289
Linguasphere	51-AAA-e
Territories where Catalan is spoken and is official   Territories where Catalan is spoken but is not official   Territories where Catalan is not historically spoken but is official
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Where Catalan is spoken.

The language that most similar is Occitan. Catalan also has similarities to other Romance languages, such as Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese. It came from Vulgar Latin and was first spoken in the in the Eastern Pyrenees in the Middle Ages.^[6][7]

There are about 4 million people who speak Catalan as a first language and about 6 million people as a second language. Catalan is the sixth-most-spoken Romance language and also the most-spoken language that is not an official language in the European Union.^[source?]