Two Sisters Worlds Apart

Catalan and Occitan are so close that some linguists long considered them a single language. In the Middle Ages, troubadour poetry circulated on both sides of the Pyrenees in a language nobody thought to divide. Today, one has a government, an education system, media and 10 million speakers. The other survives in valleys, associations and the memories of the elderly.

How did two such similar languages end up with such different fates? And more importantly: if you are choosing between them, which should you pick?

A Shared History

The Medieval Occitano-Romance

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, the linguistic space stretching from southern France to Catalonia spoke very similar Romance varieties. The troubadours (Bernart de Ventadorn, Guilhem de Peitieu, Raimbaut d'Orange) composed in what is now called Old Occitan or Provencal, and their poems were understood without difficulty in Barcelona, Toulouse, Montpellier and Perpignan.

This shared literary language is often called the "langue d'oc" (as opposed to the "langue d'oil" of northern France). Catalan and Occitan are direct descendants of this linguistic continuum.

The Political Fracture

The divergence begins in the 13th century with the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). Southern France was annexed to the French crown, and Occitan began its long decline under pressure from French. Catalan, meanwhile, remained the language of a state (the Crown of Aragon, then Catalan institutions) that gave it prestige and official use.

In the 16th century, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterets (1539) imposed French in administration across France. Occitan lost its last institutional stronghold. Catalan suffered a similar blow in the 18th century with the Nueva Planta decrees (1707-1716) that imposed Castilian in Catalonia. But the crucial difference is that Catalan would experience a renaissance (the Renaixenca, from 1833 onwards) driven by a Catalan bourgeoisie proud of its identity, while Occitan never benefited from a movement of comparable scale.

Current Situation: The Gap

Catalan

According to Ethnologue, Catalan has approximately 10 million speakers (of whom 4 million are native speakers). It is an official or co-official language in:

  • Catalonia (Spain): co-official with Castilian, used in education, media and administration
  • Valencia (under the name "Valencian", considered a variant of Catalan by the majority of linguists)
  • Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza)
  • Andorra: the only state in the world where Catalan is the sole official language
  • Alghero (Sardinia, Italy): small Catalan-speaking community
  • Pyrenees-Orientales (France): Northern Catalan, in decline

Catalan has a complete education system (from nursery to university), media (TV3, Catalunya Radio, newspapers), a living literary production and a cultural industry.

Occitan

Occitan is in a radically different situation. UNESCO classifies it as "definitely endangered". According to the most optimistic estimates, between 100,000 and 500,000 active speakers remain, mainly elderly people. Intergenerational transmission has almost ceased.

Occitan is recognised by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (which France has signed but never ratified). In France, it has no official status. A few bilingual schools (Calandretas) and optional secondary-school teaching maintain a safety net.

Occitan is divided into several regional variants: Gascon, Languedocian, Provencal, Auvergnat, Limousin, Vivaro-Alpine. This fragmentation complicates standardisation and teaching.

Mutual Intelligibility: How Similar Are They?

Can a Catalan speaker and an Occitan speaker understand each other? The answer is: partially, and it depends on the variants.

Northern Catalan (from Perpignan) is very close to Languedocian. A Catalan from Barcelona and an Occitan from Toulouse will understand each other better than a Catalan from Barcelona and a Gascon from Pau.

Here are some examples of lexical proximity:

English Catalan Occitan (Languedocian)
water aigua aiga
night nit nueit
to sing cantar cantar
woman dona femna / dona
bread pa pan
house casa ostal / maison
to speak parlar parlar

The grammar is also very close: the same conjugation system, the same articles, similar syntactic structures. Differences lie mainly in phonology (Catalan has sounds Occitan does not, and vice versa) and in parts of the vocabulary.

The Council of Europe, in its reports on the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, notes this proximity while treating Catalan and Occitan as distinct languages.

The Political Paradox

The divergent fate of Catalan and Occitan illustrates a truth often repeated in sociolinguistics: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" (a maxim attributed to Max Weinreich).

Catalan survived and thrived because it was the language of a territory with institutions (the Catalan Parliament, the Generalitat), an economic elite (the Barcelona bourgeoisie) and a national movement that made language an identity pillar.

Occitan never had a state. Frederic Mistral's Felibrige movement (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1904) saved Occitan's literary memory, but without political leverage, the language continued its decline against French.

This paradox is instructive: a language's survival depends not only on its beauty, richness or number of speakers, but also (and above all) on the political power behind it.

Choosing: Catalan or Occitan?

Choose Catalan if...

  • You have roots in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands or Andorra
  • You want a language that is immediately usable (travel, work, media)
  • You are pursuing a professional project in Spain or Andorra
  • You enjoy literature (from Ramon Llull to Merce Rodoreda to Jaume Cabre)
  • You want abundant resources (textbooks, apps, online courses, universities)

Choose Occitan if...

  • You have roots in southern France (from Bordeaux to Nice, from Toulouse to Clermont-Ferrand)
  • You want to help save an endangered language
  • You are passionate about Romance linguistics and wish to understand the dialectal continuum of southern Europe
  • You enjoy medieval troubadour poetry in its original language
  • You belong to an Occitan-speaking community (Calandretas, associations, festivals)

Why Not Both?

The proximity between Catalan and Occitan means that learning one considerably eases learning the other. If you already speak Catalan, you will have a solid foundation for Occitan, and vice versa. This is the principle of Romance intercomprehension, promoted by projects such as EuroComRom.

Resources to Get Started

Catalan

  • Parla.cat: free online platform from the Catalan government
  • INALCO (Paris): Catalan curriculum
  • Institut Ramon Llull: international promotion of Catalan, online resources
  • TV3 and Catalunya Radio: media immersion

Occitan

  • Calandretas: French-Occitan bilingual schools (network across France)
  • Lo Confo: online Occitan courses
  • IEO (Institut d'Estudis Occitans): resources and training
  • Occitanica: digital library of Occitan culture

Two Languages, One Civilisation

Whether you choose Catalan or Occitan, you are entering a shared cultural space: that of southern Romania, of troubadours, of the Mediterranean, of olive trees and the tramontane wind. Two languages that history has separated, but that linguistics still brings together.

Learning one opens the door to the other.

Learn With a Native Teacher

Targumi offers Catalan and Occitan courses with certified native teachers. Private or small group lessons, via video call.

Explore Catalan courses | All our languages

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