Official languages in Mallorca

What language is spoken in Mallorca?… Mallorca is the largest island of the Balearic archipelago (Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands). In Mallorca we have and speak two official languages: Catalan (co-official language) and Spanish (official state language). Although you will probably not notice it in purely tourist areas (hotels, restaurants, bars, etc.), on the island it is also very common to hear Mallorquín (mallorquí), a local derivation of Catalan.

Language in Mallorca: Influences of Mallorcan

Mallorca is, and has been since its origins, a land of confluences. Its strategic position in the Mediterranean has helped it to become an inter-cultural meeting point and a centre of maritime trade. Thus, both Mallorcan and other Balearic dialects have numerous lexical borrowings from other languages, such as Italian, Provençal, French and Greek.

In the 18th century, British rule over Menorca introduced some words of English origin, and today, perhaps thanks to the expansion of tourism on the island, it is very common to hear English and German spoken.

What is Catalan?

Catalan or Valencian is the Romance language (belonging to the group of Romance languages) that developed in the north-eastern area of the Iberian Peninsula as a result of the evolution of Vulgar Latin. It is a language related to Occitan, spoken on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, and shares essential features with the Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance languages. Catalan is spoken in Catalonia, in a large part of the Valencian Country, in the Balearic Islands, in Andorra, in the Aragonese Strip, in the city of L’Alguer (Sardinia), in the Carche (Murcia) and in other small communities around the world.

Origin of Catalan in Mallorca

The Catalan language was brought to Mallorca by the inhabitants of Roussillon and Empordà (in Catalan, l’Empordà), a historical region of Catalonia – comprised between the Albera and Gavarra mountain ranges – at the time of the conquest of Mallorca. It is to this influence that we owe the dialectal characteristics related to variants from these areas.

Mallorcan language: Mallorquín, the Balearic Catalan

What language is spoken in Mallorca? Balearic Catalan (in Catalan: català balear) is the name given to the family of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands. The languages that form it are Mallorcan (mallorquí) in Mallorca, Menorcan (menorquí) in Menorca, and Ibicencan (eivissenc) in the former Pitiusas (Illes Pitiüses) formed by Ibiza (Eivissa) and Formentera. All of them form part of the backbone of the Catalan language. In this way, we can affirm that, in the different Catalan-speaking areas, we express ourselves with a common language, beyond the differences inherent in the dialectal modalities.