Catalan language

Catalan
català
Pronunciation	[kətəˈɫa] (EC) ~ [kataˈɫa] (WC)
Native to	Andorra, France, Italy, Spain
Region	See geographic distribution of Catalan
Ethnicity	Catalan people
Native speakers	11.5 million (2009)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Iberian Gallo-Romance Occitano-Romance Catalan
Standard forms	Catalan (regulated by the IEC) Valencian (regulated by the AVL)
Writing system	Latin (Catalan alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Latin Union Andorra Spain (co-official language in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and the Valencian Community)
Recognised minority language in	France (co-official language of the department of the Pyrénées-Orientales and the city of Perpignan) Italy (official language of the comune of Alghero in Sardinia) Aragon (Spain)
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
Linguasphere	51-AAA-e

Where Catalan is spoken.

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 in the Italian city of L'Alguer. These places are often called the Catalan Countries.

The language most like Catalan is Occitan. It is also a bit similar to Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.

There are about 6 million Catalan native speakers and about 10 million people who can speak Catalan. The Catalan language is the 6th most spoken romance language and also is the most spoken language of the European Union that is not official.

Chronological map showing the development of the languages of southeastern Europe, including Catalan