This article deals with the norm and the standard of the Catalan language in the context of the recent reform of its grammar. We formulate our linguistic analyses and interpretations in relation to historical and geographical backgrounds, paying particular attention to the main varieties of Catalan. In the successive development stages of the linguistic norm, we show how codifiers have faced the challenging task of taking sufficient account of specific dialectal peculiarities in a language that is not backed by a nation-state and is spoken in different countries and regions.