1. Pronunciation and Spelling

This not a general guide to Catalan pronunciation, but just a selection of rules relevant to stress, accents and spelling.

1.1 Pronunciation

1.1.1 Consonants whose Pronunciation Depends on the Following Vowel

The pronunciation of the consonants and digraphs c, g, gu and qu depend on the following vowel:

As a consequence—looking at this the other way around—the pronunciations in the above table clearly must be written in different ways, depending on the different vowels:

Another effect of these rules is that a lot of nouns and verbs change the written consonant in the stem, according to the vowel in the suffix, to maintain the pronunciation of the consonant. For example, the singular form plaça turns into the plural form places, in order to keep the pronunciation /-s-/. This kind of spelling change is very common. More examples:

• Noun plurals: droga/drogues (/-g-/), platja/platges (/-ʤ-/), roca/roques (/-k-/)
• Verb conjugation: menjar/mengem (/-ʒ-/), trencar/trenquem (/-k-/), pregar/preguem (/-g-/)

A related effect is common for the masculine/feminine forms of adjectives, although in this case it is often an alteration beteen no suffix and -a. For example: roig/roja (/-ʒ-/)

1.1.2 Diaeresis

The mark ¨ is used over i and u, giving ï and ü, to indicate that this vowel has its ‘own’ pronunciation in these cases:

1. In gü and qü it means that the vowel is not silent, but pronounced /w/ (before e or i, as explained above).
2. After another vowel, it prevents the group from being pronounced as a diphthong. Examples:

   gratuït

   suïcidi

3. However, when the vowel requires an accent for indicating stress, the diaeresis is dropped in favour of this accent:

   país (accent required to indicate stress)

   països (accent not required)

1.1.3 Vowels

Note: This section describes the pronunciation of the central dialect of Catalan, spoken for example in Barcelona.

Catalan has seven vowel phonemes that may occur in stressed positions—two of which may also be unstressed—as well as the neutral vowel /ə/ (schwa) which only occurs in unstressed positions (in the central dialect):

stressed positions			unstressed positions
written form*	pronunciation		written form	pronunciation
à	/a/	open	a	/ə/	schwa
è	/ɛ/	open-mid front	e
é	/e/	close-mid front
í	/i/	close front	i	/i/	close front
ò	/ɔ/	open-mid back	o	/u/	close back
ó	/o/	close-mid back
ú	/u/	close back	u

* These accent marks are only actually written when they're required by the rules for marking stress and diacritics (see below). In other cases the corresponding un-accented letters are used, leading to ambiguity in the pronunciation of the stressed e and o.

In stressed positions:

• The acute (closed) accent—when present—indicates close (high) vowels: é, í, ó, ú
• The grave (open) accent—when present—indicates open (low) vowels: à, è, ò
• The a can only take a grave accent.
• The i and u can only take an acute accent.
• The e and o can take either a grave or an acute accent.

In unstressed positions:

• a and e are reduced to /ə/.
• o and u are reduced to /u/.
• i is relatively unchanged as /i/.

1.1.4 Diphthongs

Diphthongs in Catalan are sequences of two vowels including an i or u pronounced consonantally (as /j/ or /w/, respectively). There are two kinds—rising and falling—depending on the position of the i or u.

The rising diphthongs (Catalan: diftongs creixents) consist of the following vowel sequences, starting with an i or u:

However, these sequences are only diphthongs in the following cases (the underlines in the following examples indicate the diphthongs, not the stress):

1. When they occur at the start of a word or preceded only by an h, which is silent:

   hiat /ˈjat/ (hiatus)	hiena /ˈjɛnə/ (hyena)
   iaia /ˈjajə/ (grandma)	iaio /ˈjaju/ (grandad)
   ianqui /ˈjaŋki/ (yankee)	iarda /ˈjardə/ (yard)
   iemenita /jəməˈnitə/ (Yemenite)	ien /ˈjɛn/ (yen)
   ioga /ˈjɔɣə/ (yoga)	iogurt /juˈɣurt/ (yogurt)
   iuca /ˈjukə/ (yucca)	iugoslau /juɣuzˈlaw/ (yugoslav)
   uapití /wapiˈti/ (wapiti)

   Judging by a quick scan through the Diccionari manual de la llengua catalana, this only occurs in words of foreign origin, the ‘childish’ words for grandad and grandma, and various acronyms (like IATA, UAB, UOC). I can't find a single example in the dictionary of a ‘normal’ Catalan word—from an indigenous latin source—starting with a diphthong. In fact, the above list is almost the complete set of such words in this dictionary, leaving only out relatively specialised technical terms.
2. When they are preceded by another vowel:

   iaia /ˈjajə/ (grandma)	iaio /ˈjaju/ (grandad)
   noia /ˈnɔjə/ (girl)	caient /kəˈjen/ (falling)
   maionesa /məjuˈnɛzə/ (mayonnaise)	creuar /cɾəˈwa/ (to cross)

3. In the combinations gua, qua, güe, qüe, güi, qüi, guo, quo (see diaeresis):

   guant /ˈgwan/ (glove)	quant /ˈkwan/ (how much?)
   llengüeta /ʎəŋˈgwɛtə/ (small language)	qüestió /kwəstiˈo/ (question)
   lingüista /liŋˈgwistə/ (linguist)	aqüífer /əˈkwifər/ (aquifer)
   ?guo /ˈ/ ()	quòrum /ˈkwɔɾum/ (quorum)

In other cases, when preceded by consonants, the above vowel sequences are not diphthongs, but are pronounced separately (in separate syllables, as two monophthongs):

The falling diphthongs (Catalan: diftongs decreixents) consist of the following vowel sequences, ending with an i or u:

These are simpler—they are always pronounced as diphthongs unless indicated otherwise by a diaeresis on the (final) i or u (giving ï or ü). Thus, these examples have the diphthongs:

Whereas these don't:

1.2 Stress

Catalan has a default position for the stress in words of more than one syllable, based on the word ending, and uses accents to indicate the syllable with the stress when it is not the default. The rules for finding the syllable with the stress are:

1. When a word includes a written accent (acute ´ or grave `), the stress falls on that syllable.
2. Otherwise, the stress is on the second last syllable if the word ends with one of the following twelve unstressed endings (excluding diphthongs):

   -a	-e	-i	-o	-u
   -as	-es	-is	-os	-us
   	-en	-in

3. Otherwise, the stress is on the last syllable.

Examples (with the stressed vowels underlined):

1. Words with written accents: nació, després, política, gramàtica
2. Words with unstressed endings: cosa, coses, parlen, parlin
3. Other words: ciutat, nacional, parlem, parlaran

In addition to indicating stress, accents are also frequently used as diacritics (see below).

Note that for native Catalan speakers it is common to express the stress/accent rules the other way around: as rules for when a word requires a written accent. They divide the words into three categories according to the position of the stress:

1. Paraules agudes: words with the stress on the last syllable, require an accent if they end in any of the 12 (generally unstressed) endings (excluding diphthongs): -a, -e, -i, -o, -u, -as, -es, -is, -os, -us, -en, -in
2. Paraules planes: words with the stress on the second last syllable, require an accent if they don't end in one of those endings.
3. Paraules esdrúixoles: words with the stress on any other syllable, require an accent always.

1.3 Diacritic Accents

Diacritic accents are acute or grave accents used in words where they are not required for indicating stress by the general stress/accent rules (see above). Rather, the accents are used in such cases to differentiate words which would otherwise be spelt identically. The words with diacritic accents form a limited list, and are typically short and relatively common.

Examples (extracted from Wheeler et al. 1999 and simplified):

Copyright Eirik Hektoen, 2009. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Basically, you may copy it or adapt it freely, as long as it is for noncommercial purposes, you attribute it to me, and any derived work (e.g., translation) is licensed on the same terms (but see the link for details). Please send any suggestions, notifications of errors, or other comments to Eirik Hektoen <catalan.grammar@gmail.com>. Thank you!