Catalan is the language of Northern Spain and parts of Southern France and Italy. It is a Romance language like Spanish, Portuguese and French but it’s source is probably from colloquial Latin. It was outlawed by Franco during his dictatorship but has seen a resurgence which may be in part responsible for the desire of Catalonia to succeed from Spain. Language is culture. We see that not only in Spain but in Ireland where Celtic is becoming increasingly important. We also see it in the US where Spanish is important and the English spoken in Oregon is much different than the the English spoken in the the South East. I spoke German when I moved to Munich in the late 60s and early 70s but most of the people there did not speak German, they spoke Bavarian. The written language was the same but most Germans couldn’t understand a word they said.