Valencian alphabet
Valencian alphabet is the Valencian Latin alphabet, 35 letters. 27 letters: the Latin alphabet plus ç — and vowels that always sound the same. The characters are grouped: the signature signs, five vowels, five sounds, letters that deceive. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.
The signature signs
ç is the only letter with a cedilla, l·l the only mid-word dot in Europe. The letter pairs are not letters, but without them you cannot read so much as a menu.
- Ç çs as in "sun", in any positioncé trencada
- Ny nyny as in "canyon"enya
- Ll lla soft ly, one whole soundella
- L·L l·la long doubled l, heldela geminada
- X xsh at the start of a word; ks between vowelsics
- Tx txch as in "church"te ics
- Tz tza voiced dz, one fused soundte zeta
- Ig igch after i, word-final onlyi ge
Five vowels, five sounds
The great mercy of Valencian: every vowel sounds the same stressed or unstressed, a final -o never turns into oo, a final -a never fades. What makes the central norm hard on the ear simply is not here. Think of the vowels of Spanish casa — steady all the way through.
Letters that deceive
This is where Valencian parts ways with Spanish: j is a j as in "jam", s between vowels voices to z, and h is silent — yet hui and huit are not written without it.
- H hsilent, never pronouncedhac
- J ja voiced j, between "jam" and the s of "vision"jota
- G gg as in "go"; j before e and ige
- V va soft b, lips never presseduve baixa
- B bb as in "best"; p at the end of a wordbe alta
- C ck as in "kite"; s before e and ice
- Q qk, always with a silent ucu
- S ss as in "sun"; z between vowelsesse
- Ss sss as in "sun", always voicelessessa doble
- R ra tapped r — and final -r is pronouncederre
- Rr rra long trilled rerra doble
- Z zz as in "zoo"zeta
- Y yy as in "yes", loanwords onlyi grega
Read as they look
Nothing to learn: the sound is exactly the one you expect.
What to know about this Latin script
There are 27 letters: the Latin alphabet plus ç. The spelling is the same one Catalan uses — the two norms write with the same letters and part ways in sound. The course follows the Valencian norm: unstressed vowels never fade, a final -r is pronounced, j is a j as in "jam". Stress is marked with an acute (á, é, í, ó, ú) or a grave (à, è, ò) — these are not separate letters, only marks over the same 27.
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “a as in "father", never "uh"”?
casa sounds "kaza" to the very last letter — the fastest way to recognize a Valencian speaker: no vowel ever fades
- Which character reads as “s as in "sun", in any position”?
The only letter with a cedilla tail: caça is hunting, comença is "it begins". It sounds like c before e and i, but it shows up anywhere in a word
- Which character reads as “f as in "fun"”?
An ordinary f
- Which character reads as “ee as in "see"”?
A clean ee; as its own little word, i means "and"
- Which character reads as “l as in "lamp"”?
A light l, a shade softer than the l of "lamp"
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 35 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Valencian alphabet?
35 letters — the Valencian Latin alphabet. The characters have capital and small forms.
Can I listen to how the Valencian letters sound?
Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.
How long does it take to learn the Valencian alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
Both at once: you can already read this script, so a separate letters course is not needed — a reference table is enough.