Llac

Llac is the Catalan noun for a lake, a natural inland body of standing water. It is masculine, and its plural form is llacs. The term is widely used in geography, toponymy, and everyday speech in Catalan-speaking areas such as Catalonia, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands.

Etymology and pronunciation: Llac derives from Latin lacus, via Vulgar Latin, with the Catalan orthography preserving the ll digraph for a palatal sound. In standard Catalan, llac is pronounced roughly as a palatal onset followed by ‘ak’ (IPA approximately /ˈʎak/).

Usage and usage examples: The word appears frequently in place names, for example el llac de Banyoles (Banyoles Lake) and el llac de Sant Maurici (in the Aiguestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park). It is used in general references to lakes in the region and in educational and descriptive texts about geography.

See also: In related Romance languages, cognate forms include lac in French and lago in Italian and Spanish, all tracing back to the Latin lacus. The Catalan llac is part of this common semantic field describing bodies of water.