Catalan phonology

The phonology of Catalan, a Romance language, has a certain degree of dialectal variation. Although there are two standard dialects, one based on Eastern Catalan and one based on Valencian, this article deals with features of all or most dialects, as well as regional pronunciation differences. Various studies have focused on different Catalan varieties; for example, Wheeler (1979) and Mascaró (1976) analyze Central Eastern varieties, the former focusing on the educated speech of Barcelona and the latter focusing more on the vernacular of Barcelona, and Recasens (1986) does a careful phonetic study of Central Eastern Catalan.

Consonants

Consonants of Catalan

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	k
	voiced	b	d	ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		ts	tʃ
	voiced		dz	dʒ
Fricative	voiceless	[f]	s	ʃ		[χ]
	voiced	(v)	z	ʒ		(ʁ)
Approximant	central			j	w
	lateral		l	ʎ
Trill			r
Tap			ɾ

Vowels

Vowels of Catalan

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i (y)		u
Close-mid	e	(ə)	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

External links

• Catalan phonology