The current Ortografia catalana of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), published in 2017, reduced the traditional inventory of diacritical accents to fifteen monosyllables. The reform did not abolish Catalan accents: ordinary stress accents remain fully required, while the special accents used only to distinguish homographs now belong to a short, controlled list.
Older books, signs, and even recently recycled teaching materials still display legacy forms such as sóc, dóna, and ós. Learn to recognize them, but use the current system consistently in new writing. Review the general accent rules before treating any accent as diacritical.
What a diacritical accent does
A normal accent follows stress and ending rules: camió, fàcil, música. A diacritical accent distinguishes two short words that would otherwise have the same spelling, often because one is stressed and the other is an unstressed grammatical word.
Sé que té més feina aquest mes.
I know that she has more work this month.
Sé, té, and més bear diacritics; mes means “month” and does not. These marks cannot be predicted from the usual aguda/plana rules because the words are monosyllabic.
The current list of fifteen
The accented member and its unaccented counterpart belong to different meanings or grammatical categories.
| Accented form | Main value | Unaccented counterpart |
|---|---|---|
| bé | well; good/asset | be lamb; name of the letter b |
| déu | god, deity | deu ten; owes/must; spring |
| és | is | es reflexive pronoun |
| mà | hand | ma unstressed possessive “my” (traditional/regional) |
| més | more; plus sign | mes month; possessive; “but” (literary) |
| món | world | mon unstressed possessive “my” (traditional/regional) |
| pèl | hair | pel contraction of per + el |
| què | interrogative/exclamative; stressed relative; noun “essence” | que conjunction or unstressed relative |
| sé | I know | se weak pronoun |
| sí | yes; an affirmative | si if; reflexive; musical note |
| sòl | ground, soil | sol sun; alone; form of soler |
| són | they are | son sleep; unstressed possessive (traditional/regional) |
| té | has; take! (from tenir) | te tea; weak pronoun; name of t |
| ús | use; I use (regional: Balearic and Alguerese) | us weak pronoun |
| vós | stressed second-person pronoun (formal) | vos weak pronoun |
És cert que es lleva d'hora.
It's true that she gets up early.
Què vols que porti pel camí?
What do you want me to bring along the way?
Sí, el sòl és sec perquè fa molt sol.
Yes, the soil is dry because it is very sunny.
Ens va rebre amb un déu-vos-guard molt solemne i es va adreçar a vós.
He received us with a very solemn traditional greeting and addressed you formally.
The greeting and vós are (formal/traditional), included because they show current diacritics in living fixed or formal uses. Everyday conversation normally uses other greetings and person forms.
Plurals: some keep the diacritic
When an accented member has a plural that still collides with an unaccented word, the plural keeps the diacritic: béns, déus, pèls, sís, sòls. The noun què likewise has the listed plural quès. By contrast, mans and mons have no diacritic because the relevant plural homography does not require one under the current rule.
Els béns materials no són els únics béns del món.
Material assets are not the only goods in the world.
Han trobat pèls d'animals en dos sòls diferents.
They found animal hairs in two different soils.
Do not form the plural by mechanically keeping every singular accent. The diacritic belongs to the approved homograph pair, not to the root as a permanent decoration.
Compounds and derivatives normally lose it
An unhyphenated compound or derivative does not inherit the diacritic from its source word:
| Simple word | Unhyphenated family | Result |
|---|---|---|
| déu | adeu, semideu, marededeu | no inherited accent |
| món | rodamon | no inherited accent |
| pèl | contrapel, repel | no inherited accent |
| sòl | entresol, subsol | no inherited accent |
Adeu, rodamon; ens veurem al mateix lloc.
Goodbye, wanderer; we'll meet in the same place.
In a hyphenated compound, however, each element retains more graphic independence, so the accent remains: déu-vos-guard, mà-llarg, pèl-roig. This contrast is morphological, not phonetic.
El protagonista pèl-roig és un personatge mà-llarg.
The red-haired protagonist is a light-fingered character.
Legacy spellings you will still encounter
Before the reform, many additional homographs carried diacritics. In current ordinary IEC spelling, both meanings now use the unaccented form because context normally resolves them.
| Legacy marked form | Current form | Typical contrast now left to context |
|---|---|---|
| bóta | bota | barrel / boot |
| dóna, dónes | dona, dones | gives / woman or women |
| féu | feu | did / fief or imperative |
| fóra | fora | were/would be / outside |
| mòlt | molt | ground / very or much |
| móra | mora | blackberry / Moorish woman |
| nét, néta | net, neta | grandchild / clean |
| ós | os | bear / bone |
| séc | sec | fold / dry |
| sóc | soc | I am / stump or market |
| véns, vénen | vens, venen | come / sell |
| vés | ves | go! / see |
Soc guia i la dona que ve amb mi estudia els ossos del Pirineu.
I'm a guide, and the woman coming with me studies the bears of the Pyrenees.
In current spelling, soc, dona, and ossos have no diacritics. Context gives the intended meanings. Seeing an old accent in a pre-reform text does not make the author careless; silently modernize it only when the purpose and editorial policy authorize modernization.
Narrow exceptions: names and unavoidable ambiguity
Toponyms retain established diacritics when changing them could have legal or identifying consequences: Móra d'Ebre, Cóll, Jóc, and names such as el clot de l'Ós. Proper names are therefore not evidence that ordinary mora or os should regain the old mark.
Current IEC practice also permits a very exceptional, discretionary old-style diacritic when an isolated heading, label, or metalinguistic example is genuinely ambiguous and context cannot resolve it. This is not permission to restore the legacy system throughout prose. (formal editorial use) Document the choice and apply it only to the isolated problem.
The (formal, regional: Valencian; AVL) norm adopted the same fifteen-word reduced system in 2018 and likewise allows discretionary marking in certain isolated ambiguous contexts. Use the authority required by the publication, but do not mix old and new systems arbitrarily.
The reform did not remove other marks
Ordinary accents remain: demà, camió, fàcil, música. Diaereses remain: veïna, lingüista. Apostrophes, hyphens, and the middle dot remain: l'escola, vint-i-dos, col·legi. The reform concerns the restricted homograph-marking system, not Catalan diacritics in general.
La veïna d'Alícia té vint-i-dos llibres sobre història medieval.
Alícia's neighbor has twenty-two books about medieval history.
Every mark here follows a rule untouched by the reduction, except current té, which is one of the surviving fifteen.
Editing exercise
Modernize this sentence and repair the unrelated keyboard errors:
❌ Sóc al col.legi amb la meva veina i la dona que ens atén estudia els óssos.
Incorrect in current IEC spelling — it mixes legacy accents with middle-dot and diaeresis errors.
✅ Soc al col·legi amb la meva veïna i la dona que ens atén estudia els ossos.
I'm at the school with my neighbor, and the woman assisting us studies bears.
Remove the legacy accents from soc and ossos, but preserve the ordinary accent in atén. Replace the period in col.legi with a middle dot and restore the diaeresis in veïna.
Common Mistakes
Keeping a removed legacy diacritic in ordinary prose
❌ La meva néta dóna menjar a un ós.
Outdated ordinary spelling — current IEC writes «neta», «dona», and «os» without diacritics.
✅ La meva neta dona menjar a un os.
My granddaughter feeds a bear.
Removing one of the surviving fifteen
❌ Se que te mes feina aquest mes.
Incorrect — «sé», «té», and quantitative «més» retain their diacritics.
✅ Ja sé que té més feina durant aquest mes.
I already know that she has more work during this month.
Carrying an accent into a fused compound
❌ Ens vam acomiadar amb un «adéu» solemne.
Incorrect current spelling — the fused compound is «adeu».
✅ Ens vam acomiadar amb un «adeu» solemne.
We said goodbye with a solemn farewell.
Removing the accent from a covered plural
❌ Han declarat tots els bens i han analitzat dos sols contaminats.
Incorrect — the relevant plurals are «béns» and «sòls».
✅ Han declarat tots els béns i han analitzat dos sòls contaminats.
They declared all the assets and analyzed two contaminated soils.
Treating the reform as permission to strip every mark
❌ La linguista arribara dema al collegi.
Incorrect — ordinary accents, the diaeresis, and the middle dot remain compulsory.
✅ La lingüista arribarà demà al col·legi.
The linguist will arrive at the school tomorrow.
Key Takeaways
- Current IEC spelling has fifteen diacritical monosyllables: learn the list by grammatical contrast.
- Ordinary stress accents were not reduced and remain mandatory.
- Covered plurals such as béns, déus, pèls, and sòls retain the mark; fused compounds such as adeu and rodamon do not inherit it.
- Recognize legacy sóc, dóna, ós, and similar forms in older texts, but use soc, dona, os in current ordinary prose.
- Established toponyms and exceptionally ambiguous isolated labels have narrow special treatment; they do not restore the former general system.
Related Topics
- When Catalan Words Take a Written AccentA1 — Decide when Catalan stress must be marked by classifying words as aguda, plana, or esdrúixola.
- Acute and Grave AccentsA1 — Choose the correct Catalan accent direction and use é, è, ó, and ò to preserve stressed vowel quality.
- Proofreading Catalan DiacriticsB1 — Use a repeatable proofreading workflow to catch missing accents, diaereses, apostrophes, hyphens, and middle dots.
- Accent and Diaeresis ErrorsA2 — Correct missing and misdirected accents, hiatus and pronounced-u diaereses, and diacritics that change Catalan word meaning.
- One Language, Pluricentric StandardsA2 — Understand how IEC and AVL codification, regional standard forms, register, and mutual intelligibility fit within one pluricentric Catalan language.