Phonological history of Catalan

As a member of the dialect continuum of Romance languages, Catalan (including Valencian) displays linguistic features similar to those of its closest neighbors (Occitan, Aragonese).

Catalan is one of the Western Romance languages; it is most closely related to Occitan and only diverged from it between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries[1] after the cultural ties with France were broken.

In time, Catalan became more tied to the Ibero-Romance languages in Spain; because these languages are significantly more conservative than French (which has been the most important influence over Occitan in the last several hundred years), most of the differences between Catalan and Occitan are due to developments in Occitan that did not occur in Catalan.

As a Western Romance language, Catalan shares the following features not found in Italo-Romance: Innovations: Conserved features: Innovations: Conserved features: Conserved features shared by Catalan with Spanish and Portuguese: Innovations shared by Spanish and Catalan: Conserved features (contrasting with Spanish innovations): Innovations: As a Romance language, Catalan comes directly from Vulgar Latin.

As such, it shares certain phonological changes from Latin with other Romance languages:[3] The following tables show where /ɛ/ and /ɔ/[12] are found in most dialects (especially in Valencian), and where /ə/ (corresponding with /ɛ/ in Central Catalan and /e/ in Western Catalan) is found in Balearic: