Spanish vs Catalan (How Similar Are They?)

Can Spanish speakers understand Catalan? In this episode we test the degree of mutual intelligibility between Catalan and Spanish, with Spanish speakers who have had no prior exposure to Catalan.
If you're interested in participating in a future video, please follow and message me on Instagram: / bahadoralast
Catalan (català) is a Western Romance language which has official status in Andorra, Valencia, where it is called Valencian (valencià), Catalonia and the Balearic Islands of Spain, as well as the Italian comune of Alghero. Catalan is also spoken in Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan language evolved from Vulgar Latin. Diverging away from Old Occitan, Old Catalan had many common features with Gallo-Romance.
Spanish is a Western Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain which has expanded to become the world's second-most spoken native language group of languages. Most of modern Spanish comes from Latin, with ancient Greek and Arabic also having an impact on the language. It has also been influenced by Basque, Iberian, Celtiberian, Visigothic, French, Italian, Occitan, Catalan and Sardinian, as well as from Nahuatl, Quechua, and other indigenous languages of the Americas. The Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC. Previously, several pre-Roman languages, unrelated to Latin, and some of them unrelated even to Indo-European, were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Basque (still spoken today), Iberian, Celtiberian and Gallaecian. Today, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

[@BahadorAlast]

In this episode, we test the degree of mutual intelligibility between Catalan and Spanish, with Spanish speakers who have had no prior exposure to the Catalan language. If you're interested in participating in a future video, please follow and message me on Instagram: instagram.com/BahadorAlast

[@Donald_Trump_2024]

do you have a video on similarities between Romani and Hindi

[@BahadorAlast]

@Donald_Trump_2024 Not exactly, but I've made one that's close to it, here's the link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYbUioJsaZ5ji7M

[@user-zh7yr1up8g]

@@Donald_Trump_2024 Most Romani people are Christian, is this correct?

[@jaycorwin1625]

It's much easier to understand Catalan if you have learned some French. I understood almost everything.

[@jonam7589]

The Mexican-American guy is very good knowing all the Latin languages. How do you find these people! As an American who is just learning Spanish, I enjoyed it very much!

[@BahadorAlast]

Glad to hear that. Almost everyone who participates in the videos is a subscriber to my channel who reaches out to participate.

[@jonam7589]

18 months ago on my world tour I visited Spain. It was very difficult since hardly anyone spoke English. Now, I am going back in a month knowing that I know enough to survive as a tourist. Of course, I'll be heading to South America thereafter for a few months! It is wonderful knowing other languages when you travel. Thank you so much for all you do for peace and understanding! Peace in Gaza! @@BahadorAlast

[@andrew_be1379]

If you speak Spanish and French, I think you can understand about 60% of Catalan. You should try to do Catalan with French to see.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

or Italian also

[@Haywood-Jablomie]

If you know french and Read Catalan, I think you can understand maybe 75%... Hearing Catalan is difficult though

[@laurenford9057]

Catalan is a very beautiful and underrated langauge!

[@hassanalast6670]

I enjoyed ❤

[@ekmalsukarno2302]

Hi Bahador, can you please make a video titled 'Can Malay speakers understand Javanese?'. Please accept my request.

[@Dawoud_Shirin]

I would love to see a video on some of the Polynesian languages... Tongan Samoan, Fijian, Hawaiian, etc

[@williswameyo5737]

Catalan shares in common with both French and Spanish, it's closest relative is Occitan which is spoken in France

[@user-zh7yr1up8g]

Interesting experiment. It seems that Catalan is closer to French than Spanish.

[@jonam7589]

they are next to France!

[@bipbup5175]

Well it does make sense considering Catalan comes from Old Occitan which was back in the day a sister language of Old French

[@jenajera]

I think the Mexican American guy had an advantage because of his knowledge of French. It was almost more of a Spanish, French, Catalan comparison. Hello - from WA State USA - native English speaker here, and also fluent in (Mexican) Spanish.

[@franzaepinus2498]

Which Latin language is closest to Catalan? I used to think Spanish, but after watching this I think French, but maybe other languages such as Italian or Portuguese might share more resemblance.

[@dmitrykozhin6884]

It is Occitan

[@Ahmed-pf3lg]

After Occitan, it’s definitely Spanish.

[@bipbup5175]

That'd be Occitan and Aragonese, followed by Spanish and then the other Iberian and Galoromance languages such as Asturian, Galician-Portuguese, Arpitan, French and so on

[@EstrellaPolux]

it´s Occitan, but for sure not french

[@Sitti360]

Can you invite us kushit language like oromo somali, Afar dieletic

[@nicks0alive]

Bahador has already made a video of Oromo vs Somali

[@ShinRyuTensei]

Curious if languages no matter how far they appear to be apart from each other share similarities, why do we label/classify languages like indo-european?

[@laurenford9057]

I would think once the divergence reaches a certain point they are no longer dialects but actual languages.

[@jonam7589]

the root and the origin was the Indo-European language since it started around the Caucasus near Caspian sea and spread to migration and changed.

[@theanti-imperialist1656]

The Principality of Catalonia was a state of the Crown of Aragon monarchy. In 1640, during the Thirty Years War and Franco-Spanish War, Catalan peasants and institutions revolted, and in the following year, the Catalan government seceded, establishing the independence of the Principality as a republic, and called France for protection. They even named Louis XIII count of Barcelona. After a decade of war, the Spanish Monarchy counter-attacked in 1652 and took back Catalonia, except for Roussillon, which was annexed by France.

[@defnebelik]

Do bulgarian Cypriot and gagauzian Turkish

[@eliasshakkour2904]

Why is it es cremà and not es va cremar?

[@bipbup5175]

It has to do with tense, cremà is past simple and es va cremar is the periphrastic past, both mean the same thing it's just the first is only in use in everyday speech in the Central Valencian dialect and some varieties of southern Valencian (mainly in Camp d'Elx). In the rest of dialects the periphrastic past took over and nowadays the past simple is regarded as a literary tense

[@eliasshakkour2904]

What’s the difference between ca and gos? 🤔

[@bipbup5175]

Regional differences, gos is used in Continental Catalan (both Western and Eastern dialects), whereas ca is only in use in the Balearic dialects, including Ibizan Catalan which is the dialect the lad speaks. I'm surprised he didn't use salat articles in this video, which is a feature only preserved in Balearic dialects

[@antonio6455]

​@@bipbup5175 I tried to make easier for the guys hearing Catalan for the 1st time. Adding the article salat would have been a chaos😅

[@bipbup5175]

@@antonio6455 No ho crec, si hagueren escollit un parlant del País Valencià dubte molt que haguera canviat la seua manera de parlar a la de l'estàndard central, llavors potser podries haver aclarit que aixina és com parleu en Eivissa. Però bé, és la meua opinió i com que soc una friki dels dialectes és normal que en vullga representació, aixina que no patisques hahahaha A més, el parlar eivissenc és molt polit! ✨

[@antonio6455]

@@bipbup5175 Gràcies igualment per aclarir ses diferències. A voltes és complicat trobar es punt intermedi entre sa llengua estàndard i es altres dialectes. També m´hauria agradat donar a conèixer frases i paraules típiques de sa illa, però em feia por caure en paraules massa arcaiques a altres bandes. Una abraçada des d´aquest bocinet de terra :))

[@EstrellaPolux]

as a spanish from Spain i understand 80-90 % of catalan without even having studied it at all; i wonder why those latinamericans here are stuggeling zu badly....

[@pierreabbat6157]

There are lots of tombatruites, but no tombasalmons.

[@maryocecilyo3372]

Spanish is Castilian

[@Ahmed-pf3lg]

I genuinely can’t tell the difference between Spanish and Catalan when it comes to accent.. it sounds exactly the same to me. Same pace, intonations, same ways of pronouncing letters..

[@bipbup5175]

In terms of intonation young people tend to have the same speaking both languages, perhaps there were different intonations but due to diglossia Catalan's assimilated into Spanish' intonation. However in terms of letter pronunciation there're noticeable differences, particularly in Eastern dialects

[@bilbohob7179]

@@bipbup5175 Man, the catalan speaker of the video is from the islands... he is totally Eastern...

[@bipbup5175]

@@bilbohob7179 Honestly I barely watched the video, I went straight to the comment section just in case there was anything I could clarify in regards to the dialects. But I do recall him speaking and not using the salat articles

[@antonio6455]

​@@bilbohob7179I modified my accent in order to make it easier for them to understand and decode the sentences in Catalan. I could have spoken with a strong islander accent and using the localisms, but that would have been a nightmare, so normally I read the sentences in Barcelona accent or sometimes even in Valencian (which I think should be easier to get for Spanish speakers). Hope it helps

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

Catalan = Hispanic French

[@bipbup5175]

Noo, I'd say either Extreme Southern Occitan at most hahaha

[@Androbott]

es lo puto mismo catalan dialecto del español lo mismo q el franchute y el tano y el gallego d Portugal todos dialectos del español

[@bipbup5175]

I ja de passada l'èuscar i el llatí també són dialectes del castellà, no fotem cap de suro