Northern Catalan

Northern Catalan (Catalan: català septentrional, IPA: [kətəɫa səptəntɾiunaɫ], also known as rossellonès) is a Catalan dialect mostly spoken in Northern Catalonia, but also extending in the northeast part of Southern Catalonia in a transition zone with Central Catalan.

As this is an Eastern Catalan dialect, unstressed /a/ and /e/ are realized as schwa [ə], and [u] substitutes unstressed /o/. It is also the Catalan dialect with the fewest stressed vowels, only five: /i e a o u/.

There are some instances of historic stressed /o/ that has change to /u/ (e.g., canigó > canigú).

As in Balearic dialects, final a's are not pronounced in words ending with ia and containing the stress before the penultimate syllable.

Some subdialects keep the singular masculine definite article lo, as in North-Western Catalan and many varieties of Occitan.

Northern Catalan has a large body of words imported from French and Occitan. It also features some grammatical forms and structures typical of Occitan, such as the use of a lone post-verbal pas rather than a lone pre-verbal no to express basic negation (e.g., Northern Catalan canti pas vs. Central Catalan no canto, 'I don't sing' or 'I'm not singing'); pas is also used in some other Catalan dialects for emphasis, but always with no before the verb (e.g., Central Catalan no canto pas, 'I do not sing' or 'I am not singing').