Balearic is the Catalan variant spoken in the Illes Balears, Spain.

Some features of Balearic variant:

  • Part of Balearic preserves a vocalic system of 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/. In particular:
    • Majorca system has 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 4 in unstressed position (/a,@,E,e/ > [@], /O,o/ > [o]);
    • Western Minorca system has 8 stressed vowels /a,@,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 3 in unstressed position (/a,@,E,e/ > [@], /O,o,u/ > [u]);
    • Eastern Minorca and Ibiza system has but 7 stressed vowels /a,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 3 in unstressed position (/a,E,e/ > [@], /O,o,u/ > [u]), just like Central Catalan.
  • Balearic preserves /v/ as a distinct phoneme from /b/, like Alguerese and most of Valencian do as well.
  • Balearic is the Catalan variant that has the strongest tendency to not pronounce historical final [r] in any context.
  • Balearic preserves the salat determinate article (derived from Latin IPSE,IPSA instead of ILLE,ILLA), a feature only shared with Sardinian among nowadays romance languages, but that was more common in other Catalan and Gascon areas in ancient times.