Catalan orthography

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This article covers the Orthography of Catalan, a Romance language. The Catalan alphabet is adapted from the Latin alphabet.

Letter Name Pronunciation example
A a a /a/ sac 'sack'
B b be /b/ biga 'beam'
C c ce /k/ casa 'house'
ç ce trencada /s/ Renaixença 'Renaissance'
D d de /d/ dalla 'scythe'
E e e /ɛ/, /e/ cec, sec 'blind', 'dry'
F f efa /f/ fosc 'dark'
G g ge /g/, /(d)ʑ/ gasa 'lint'
H h hac Ø haver 'possession'
I i i /i/ ric 'I laugh'
J j jota /ʑ/ ajut 'help'
K k ke /k/ karate
L l ela /l/ /ʎ/ pala, palla 'shovel’, 'straw'
M m ema /m/ mama 'mum'
N n ena /n/ mana 'he commands'
O o o /ɔ/, /o/ soc sóc 'log', 'I am'
P p pe /p/ piga 'speck'
Q q cu /k/ obliquar
R r erre /ɾ/, /r/ cera, serra 'wax', 'saw'
S s esse /s/, /z/ passar, pesar 'to pass', 'to weigh'
T t te /t/ talla 'size'
U u u /u/ suc 'juice'
V v ve baixa /b/, /v/[1] envejar 'to envy'
W w ve doble
X x ics, xeix /ɕ/, /ks/, /ɡz/ xoc, expressió 'shock', 'expression'
Y y i grega
Z z zeta /z/ zero

Other conventions

Catalan also possesses digraphs:

Catalan also uses the acute accent (é, í, ó, ú) to mark stressed high vowels and the grave accent (à, è, ò) to mark stressed low vowels :

If a diaeresis appears over the i or u of what would otherwise be a descending diphthong, the diphthong is broken into a hiatus :

In addition to this, ü represents /w/ between /g/ and a front vowel (which would otherwise be pronounced as a soft g :

Notes

  1. ^ In most of dialects, excluding Balearic and southern Valencian, /b/ and /v/ have merged into one phoneme.

See also