Valencian is the traditional and official name of the
Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
in the
Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian
Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, the
Acadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaThe Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , also known by the acronym AVL, is an institution created on September 16, 1998 by the Valencian Parliament, which belongs to the set of official institutions that compose the Generalitat Valenciana, according to the Act of Autonomy of the Valencian...
has been established as its regulator. It is frequently spoken of as a separate
languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, though opposition to the use of standard Catalan occurs primarily among those who do not regularly use the language.
Valencian, like the
closely relatedA sister language is a cognate language, that is, coming from the same once-existing language or hypothetical root language. The latter language is the so-called proto-language. There are many examples of sister languages...
Occitan, has a long literary tradition, especially
Late MedievalMedieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
and
RenaissanceRenaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
. One of the most outstanding works of all
Catalan and Valencian literatureCatalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The Catalan literary tradition is extensive, starting in the Middle Ages....
is the
romanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
Tirant lo Blanch, written by the Valencian knight and poet
Joanot MartorellJoanot Martorell was a Valencian knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, which is written in Valencian...
.
Official status
The official status of Valencian is regulated by the
Spanish Constitution-Structure of the State:The Constitution recognizes the existence of nationalities and regions . Preliminary Title As a result, Spain is now composed entirely of 17 Autonomous Communities and two autonomous cities with varying degrees of autonomy, to the extent that, even though the Constitution...
and the Valencian
Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, together with the Law of Use and Education of Valencian.
The Valencian
Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
sets the legal status of Valencian, providing that:
- Valencian is the Valencian Community's own language (article 6 section 1).
- Valencian is official within the Valencian Community, along with Spanish, which is the official language nationwide. Everyone shall have the right to know it and use it, and receive education in Valencian (article 6 section 2).
- No one can be discriminated by reason of his language (article 6 section 4).
- Special protection and respect shall be given to the recuperation of Valencian (article 6 section 5).
- The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua shall be the normative institution of the Valencian language (article 6 section 8).
The Law of Use and Education of Valencian develops this frame work, providing for implementation of a
bilingual educational systemBilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
, and regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both.
Valencian is not one of the
recognized languagesThe languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(23 official and 26
minority languagesThe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
).
Distribution
Valencian is not spoken all over the
Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. Roughly a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10% of the population (its inland part and areas in the extreme south as well), is traditionally Spanish-speaking only, whereas Valencian is spoken to varying degrees elsewhere.
Additionally, it is also spoken by a reduced number of people in
CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
, a rural area in the
Region of MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
adjoining the
Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
; nevertheless Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area.
Knowledge and usage
In 2010 the
Generalitat ValencianaThe Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organised....
(
Servei d’Investigació i Estudis Sociolingüístics) published a study titled
Knowledge and Social use of Valencian. According to the study, which sampled more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante:
Opinion poll
- 48.5% of the sample answered that they were able to speak in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 26.2% of the sample answered that they were able to write in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 31.6% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used at their homes.
- 28.0% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used with their friends.
- 24.7% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used in their business internal relationships.
The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Land of Valencia, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually speak in Valencian in their social relations. The statistics hide the fact that in the areas where the language is still strong, most people use Valencian in preference to Castilian in all everyday situations.
Moreover, according to a survey in 2008, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and
AlicanteAlicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
, where the percentage of everyday speakers is in single figures. All in all, in the 1993-2006 period, the number of speakers fell by 10 per cent. One of the factors cited is the
increase in the numbers of immigrants from other countriesAs of 2010, there were 6.4 million foreign-born residents in Spain, corresponding to 14.0% of the total population. Of these, 4.1 million were born outside the European Union and 2.3 million were born in another EU Member State....
, who tend to favour using Spanish over local languages; accordingly, the number of residents who claim no understanding of Valencian sharply increased. One curiosity in the heartlands mentioned above, is that most of the children of immigrants go to public school and are therefore taught in
Valencian and are far more comfortable speaking this with their friends. However, some children of Valencian speakers go to private schools run by the church where the curriculum is in Castilian and consequently this becomes their preferred language.
Valencian subdialects
- Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón
Castellón or Castelló is a province in the northern part of the Valencian Community, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia to the south, Teruel to the west, Tarragona to the north, and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The western side of the province is in the mountainous...
in towns like BenicarlóBenicarló is a city and municipality in the north of the province of Castelló, part of the Valencian Community, in the Mediterranean Coast between the cities of Vinaròs and Peníscola, not too far south from the Ebre River....
or VinaròsVinaròs is a town and municipality in eastern Spain, in the province of Castelló and part of the autonomous Valencian Community. The town is on the Gulf of Valencia coast of the western Mediterranean Sea, Vinaròs is a fishing harbour and tourist destination....
, the area of Matarranya in AragonAragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
(province of TeruelTeruel is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel.It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia , Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Zaragoza....
), and a southern border area of CataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
surrounding Tortosa-External links:* *** * * *...
, in the province of TarragonaTarragona is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Catalonia. It is bordered by the provinces of Castellón, Teruel, Zaragoza, Lleida, Barcelona, and the Mediterranean Sea....
.
- Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɔk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɔjʒa] 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
- Final ⟨r⟩ ɾ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
- Archaic articles
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
- Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana
Castellón de la Plana or Castelló de la Plana is the capital city of the province of Castelló, in the Valencian Community, Spain, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Costa del Azahar by the Mediterranean Sea...
.
- Use of [e] sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava [ˈkantave] (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava [kanˈtava] 'I sang' with (ell) cantava [kanˈtave] 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante [ˈkante] 'I sing' with (ell) canta [ˈkante] 'he sings'.
- Palatalization of ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ → [tʃ] and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ → [dʒ]; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ → [ˈpotʃ] 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ → [ˈdodʒe] 'twelve'.
- Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to [sʲ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] → [ˈkajsʲa] 'box'.
- Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
- Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants get unvoiced (/dʒ/ → [tʃ], /dz/ → [ts], /z/ → [s]); that is, apitxat pronounces casa [ˈkasa] ('house') and joc [ˈtʃɔk] ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...
).
- Betacism
In historical linguistics, betacism is a sound change in which shifts to . Betacism is a fairly common phenomenon; it has taken place in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, among others.In Classical Greek, the letter beta <β> denoted...
, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu [ˈbiw] (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
- It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with + infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
- Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
- Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ [ɛ] or ⟨o⟩ [ɔ] if the final vowel is an unstressed -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra [ˈtɛrɛ] ('earth, land'), dona [ˈdɔnɔ] ('woman').
- This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla [ˈgwalːa] 'quail', cotna [ˈkonːa] 'rind'.
- Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
- Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Murcia on the southwest, Albacete on the west, Valencia on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea on the east...
, and the area of CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
in MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
.
- Intervocalic /d/ elision in all instances; e.g. roda [ˈrɔa] 'wheel', nadal [naˈaɫ] 'Christmas'.
- Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ → [ʃ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkaʃa] 'box'.
- Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] 'to sing'.
- There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
- There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.
Features of Valencian
Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian as a group of dialectal varieties that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central variety of the language. For more general information on the features of Valencian, see
Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version.
Phonology
Vowels
- Valencian has a system of seven stressed vowels /a/, /e/, /ɛ/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, and /u/; reduced to five in unstressed position (/a/ →
{{for|the language system|Catalan language}}
{{Hatnote|This page deals with language. For other uses of "Valencian", see Valencian (disambiguation).}}
{{refimprove|date = May 2008}}
Valencian (vəˈlɛnsiən, vəˈlɛnʃən; autonymAutonym may refer to*Autonym, the name used by a people to refer to themselves or their language, synonymous with endonym*Autonym, the true name of an author disclosed by resolving a pseudonym...
: valencià, valensiˈa) is the traditional and official name of the Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
in the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaThe Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , also known by the acronym AVL, is an institution created on September 16, 1998 by the Valencian Parliament, which belongs to the set of official institutions that compose the Generalitat Valenciana, according to the Act of Autonomy of the Valencian...
has been established as its regulator. It is frequently spoken of as a separate languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, though opposition to the use of standard Catalan occurs primarily among those who do not regularly use the language.
Valencian, like the closely relatedA sister language is a cognate language, that is, coming from the same once-existing language or hypothetical root language. The latter language is the so-called proto-language. There are many examples of sister languages...
Occitan, has a long literary tradition, especially Late MedievalMedieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
and RenaissanceRenaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
. One of the most outstanding works of all Catalan and Valencian literatureCatalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The Catalan literary tradition is extensive, starting in the Middle Ages....
is the romanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
Tirant lo Blanch, written by the Valencian knight and poet Joanot MartorellJoanot Martorell was a Valencian knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, which is written in Valencian...
.
Official status
The official status of Valencian is regulated by the Spanish Constitution-Structure of the State:The Constitution recognizes the existence of nationalities and regions . Preliminary Title As a result, Spain is now composed entirely of 17 Autonomous Communities and two autonomous cities with varying degrees of autonomy, to the extent that, even though the Constitution...
and the Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, together with the Law of Use and Education of Valencian.
The Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
sets the legal status of Valencian, providing that:
- Valencian is the Valencian Community's own language (article 6 section 1).
- Valencian is official within the Valencian Community, along with Spanish, which is the official language nationwide. Everyone shall have the right to know it and use it, and receive education in Valencian (article 6 section 2).
- No one can be discriminated by reason of his language (article 6 section 4).
- Special protection and respect shall be given to the recuperation of Valencian (article 6 section 5).
- The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua shall be the normative institution of the Valencian language (article 6 section 8).
The Law of Use and Education of Valencian develops this frame work, providing for implementation of a bilingual educational systemBilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
, and regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both.
Valencian is not one of the recognized languagesThe languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
of the European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(23 official and 26 minority languagesThe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
).
Distribution
Valencian is not spoken all over the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. Roughly a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10% of the population (its inland part and areas in the extreme south as well), is traditionally Spanish-speaking only, whereas Valencian is spoken to varying degrees elsewhere.
Additionally, it is also spoken by a reduced number of people in CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
, a rural area in the Region of MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
adjoining the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
; nevertheless Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area.
Knowledge and usage
In 2010 the Generalitat ValencianaThe Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organised....
(Servei d’Investigació i Estudis Sociolingüístics) published a study titled Knowledge and Social use of Valencian. According to the study, which sampled more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante:
Opinion poll
- 48.5% of the sample answered that they were able to speak in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 26.2% of the sample answered that they were able to write in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 31.6% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used at their homes.
- 28.0% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used with their friends.
- 24.7% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used in their business internal relationships.
The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Land of Valencia, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually speak in Valencian in their social relations. The statistics hide the fact that in the areas where the language is still strong, most people use Valencian in preference to Castilian in all everyday situations.
Moreover, according to a survey in 2008, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and AlicanteAlicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
, where the percentage of everyday speakers is in single figures. All in all, in the 1993-2006 period, the number of speakers fell by 10 per cent. One of the factors cited is the increase in the numbers of immigrants from other countriesAs of 2010, there were 6.4 million foreign-born residents in Spain, corresponding to 14.0% of the total population. Of these, 4.1 million were born outside the European Union and 2.3 million were born in another EU Member State....
, who tend to favour using Spanish over local languages; accordingly, the number of residents who claim no understanding of Valencian sharply increased. One curiosity in the heartlands mentioned above, is that most of the children of immigrants go to public school and are therefore taught in
Valencian and are far more comfortable speaking this with their friends. However, some children of Valencian speakers go to private schools run by the church where the curriculum is in Castilian and consequently this becomes their preferred language.
Valencian subdialects
- Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón
Castellón or Castelló is a province in the northern part of the Valencian Community, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia to the south, Teruel to the west, Tarragona to the north, and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The western side of the province is in the mountainous...
in towns like BenicarlóBenicarló is a city and municipality in the north of the province of Castelló, part of the Valencian Community, in the Mediterranean Coast between the cities of Vinaròs and Peníscola, not too far south from the Ebre River....
or VinaròsVinaròs is a town and municipality in eastern Spain, in the province of Castelló and part of the autonomous Valencian Community. The town is on the Gulf of Valencia coast of the western Mediterranean Sea, Vinaròs is a fishing harbour and tourist destination....
, the area of Matarranya in AragonAragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
(province of TeruelTeruel is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel.It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia , Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Zaragoza....
), and a southern border area of CataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
surrounding Tortosa-External links:* *** * * *...
, in the province of TarragonaTarragona is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Catalonia. It is bordered by the provinces of Castellón, Teruel, Zaragoza, Lleida, Barcelona, and the Mediterranean Sea....
.
- Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɔk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɔjʒa] 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
- Final ⟨r⟩ ɾ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
- Archaic articles
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
- Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana
Castellón de la Plana or Castelló de la Plana is the capital city of the province of Castelló, in the Valencian Community, Spain, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Costa del Azahar by the Mediterranean Sea...
.
- Use of [e] sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava [ˈkantave] (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava [kanˈtava] 'I sang' with (ell) cantava [kanˈtave] 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante [ˈkante] 'I sing' with (ell) canta [ˈkante] 'he sings'.
- Palatalization of ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ → [tʃ] and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ → [dʒ]; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ → [ˈpotʃ] 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ → [ˈdodʒe] 'twelve'.
- Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to [sʲ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] → [ˈkajsʲa] 'box'.
- Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
- Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants get unvoiced (/dʒ/ → [tʃ], /dz/ → [ts], /z/ → [s]); that is, apitxat pronounces casa [ˈkasa] ('house') and joc [ˈtʃɔk] ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...
).
- Betacism
In historical linguistics, betacism is a sound change in which shifts to . Betacism is a fairly common phenomenon; it has taken place in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, among others.In Classical Greek, the letter beta <β> denoted...
, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu [ˈbiw] (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
- It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with {{sm|vadere}} + infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
- Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
- Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ [ɛ] or ⟨o⟩ [ɔ] if the final vowel is an unstressed -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra [ˈtɛrɛ] ('earth, land'), dona [ˈdɔnɔ] ('woman').
- This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla [ˈgwalːa] 'quail', cotna [ˈkonːa] 'rind'.
- Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
- Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Murcia on the southwest, Albacete on the west, Valencia on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea on the east...
, and the area of CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
in MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
.
- Intervocalic /d/ elision in all instances; e.g. roda [ˈrɔa] 'wheel', nadal [naˈaɫ] 'Christmas'.
- Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ → [ʃ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkaʃa] 'box'.
- Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] 'to sing'.
- There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
- There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.
Features of Valencian
Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian as a group of dialectal varieties that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central variety of the language. For more general information on the features of Valencian, see Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version.
Phonology
{{Main|Catalan phonology}}
{{selfref|For assistance with IPA transcriptions of Catalan and Valencian for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for Catalan.}}
Vowels
- Valencian has a system of seven stressed vowels /a/, /e/, /ɛ/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, and /u/; reduced to five in unstressed position (/a/ →
{{for|the language system|Catalan language}}
{{Hatnote|This page deals with language. For other uses of "Valencian", see Valencian (disambiguation).}}
{{refimprove|date = May 2008}}
Valencian (vəˈlɛnsiən, vəˈlɛnʃən; autonymAutonym may refer to*Autonym, the name used by a people to refer to themselves or their language, synonymous with endonym*Autonym, the true name of an author disclosed by resolving a pseudonym...
: valencià, valensiˈa) is the traditional and official name of the Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
in the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaThe Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , also known by the acronym AVL, is an institution created on September 16, 1998 by the Valencian Parliament, which belongs to the set of official institutions that compose the Generalitat Valenciana, according to the Act of Autonomy of the Valencian...
has been established as its regulator. It is frequently spoken of as a separate languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, though opposition to the use of standard Catalan occurs primarily among those who do not regularly use the language.
Valencian, like the closely relatedA sister language is a cognate language, that is, coming from the same once-existing language or hypothetical root language. The latter language is the so-called proto-language. There are many examples of sister languages...
Occitan, has a long literary tradition, especially Late MedievalMedieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
and RenaissanceRenaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
. One of the most outstanding works of all Catalan and Valencian literatureCatalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The Catalan literary tradition is extensive, starting in the Middle Ages....
is the romanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
Tirant lo Blanch, written by the Valencian knight and poet Joanot MartorellJoanot Martorell was a Valencian knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, which is written in Valencian...
.
Official status
The official status of Valencian is regulated by the Spanish Constitution-Structure of the State:The Constitution recognizes the existence of nationalities and regions . Preliminary Title As a result, Spain is now composed entirely of 17 Autonomous Communities and two autonomous cities with varying degrees of autonomy, to the extent that, even though the Constitution...
and the Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
, together with the Law of Use and Education of Valencian.
The Valencian Statute of AutonomyNominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country, and over any other form of legislation...
sets the legal status of Valencian, providing that:
- Valencian is the Valencian Community's own language (article 6 section 1).
- Valencian is official within the Valencian Community, along with Spanish, which is the official language nationwide. Everyone shall have the right to know it and use it, and receive education in Valencian (article 6 section 2).
- No one can be discriminated by reason of his language (article 6 section 4).
- Special protection and respect shall be given to the recuperation of Valencian (article 6 section 5).
- The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua shall be the normative institution of the Valencian language (article 6 section 8).
The Law of Use and Education of Valencian develops this frame work, providing for implementation of a bilingual educational systemBilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
, and regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both.
Valencian is not one of the recognized languagesThe languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
of the European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(23 official and 26 minority languagesThe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
).
Distribution
Valencian is not spoken all over the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. Roughly a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10% of the population (its inland part and areas in the extreme south as well), is traditionally Spanish-speaking only, whereas Valencian is spoken to varying degrees elsewhere.
Additionally, it is also spoken by a reduced number of people in CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
, a rural area in the Region of MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
adjoining the Valencian CommunityThe Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
; nevertheless Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area.
Knowledge and usage
In 2010 the Generalitat ValencianaThe Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organised....
(Servei d’Investigació i Estudis Sociolingüístics) published a study titled Knowledge and Social use of Valencian. According to the study, which sampled more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante:
Opinion poll
- 48.5% of the sample answered that they were able to speak in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 26.2% of the sample answered that they were able to write in Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Spanish-speaking areas);
- 31.6% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used at their homes.
- 28.0% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used with their friends.
- 24.7% of the sample in the Valencian-speaking areas answered that Valencian was the language always, generally, or most commonly used in their business internal relationships.
The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Land of Valencia, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually speak in Valencian in their social relations. The statistics hide the fact that in the areas where the language is still strong, most people use Valencian in preference to Castilian in all everyday situations.
Moreover, according to a survey in 2008, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and AlicanteAlicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
, where the percentage of everyday speakers is in single figures. All in all, in the 1993-2006 period, the number of speakers fell by 10 per cent. One of the factors cited is the increase in the numbers of immigrants from other countriesAs of 2010, there were 6.4 million foreign-born residents in Spain, corresponding to 14.0% of the total population. Of these, 4.1 million were born outside the European Union and 2.3 million were born in another EU Member State....
, who tend to favour using Spanish over local languages; accordingly, the number of residents who claim no understanding of Valencian sharply increased. One curiosity in the heartlands mentioned above, is that most of the children of immigrants go to public school and are therefore taught in
Valencian and are far more comfortable speaking this with their friends. However, some children of Valencian speakers go to private schools run by the church where the curriculum is in Castilian and consequently this becomes their preferred language.
Valencian subdialects
- Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón
Castellón or Castelló is a province in the northern part of the Valencian Community, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Valencia to the south, Teruel to the west, Tarragona to the north, and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The western side of the province is in the mountainous...
in towns like BenicarlóBenicarló is a city and municipality in the north of the province of Castelló, part of the Valencian Community, in the Mediterranean Coast between the cities of Vinaròs and Peníscola, not too far south from the Ebre River....
or VinaròsVinaròs is a town and municipality in eastern Spain, in the province of Castelló and part of the autonomous Valencian Community. The town is on the Gulf of Valencia coast of the western Mediterranean Sea, Vinaròs is a fishing harbour and tourist destination....
, the area of Matarranya in AragonAragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
(province of TeruelTeruel is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel.It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia , Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Zaragoza....
), and a southern border area of CataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
surrounding Tortosa-External links:* *** * * *...
, in the province of TarragonaTarragona is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Catalonia. It is bordered by the provinces of Castellón, Teruel, Zaragoza, Lleida, Barcelona, and the Mediterranean Sea....
.
- Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɔk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɔjʒa] 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
- Final ⟨r⟩ ɾ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
- Archaic articles
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
- Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana
Castellón de la Plana or Castelló de la Plana is the capital city of the province of Castelló, in the Valencian Community, Spain, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Costa del Azahar by the Mediterranean Sea...
.
- Use of [e] sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava [ˈkantave] (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava [kanˈtava] 'I sang' with (ell) cantava [kanˈtave] 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante [ˈkante] 'I sing' with (ell) canta [ˈkante] 'he sings'.
- Palatalization of ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ → [tʃ] and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ → [dʒ]; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ → [ˈpotʃ] 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ → [ˈdodʒe] 'twelve'.
- Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to [sʲ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] → [ˈkajsʲa] 'box'.
- Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
- Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants get unvoiced (/dʒ/ → [tʃ], /dz/ → [ts], /z/ → [s]); that is, apitxat pronounces casa [ˈkasa] ('house') and joc [ˈtʃɔk] ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...
).
- Betacism
In historical linguistics, betacism is a sound change in which shifts to . Betacism is a fairly common phenomenon; it has taken place in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, among others.In Classical Greek, the letter beta <β> denoted...
, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu [ˈbiw] (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
- It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with {{sm|vadere}} + infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
- Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
- Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ [ɛ] or ⟨o⟩ [ɔ] if the final vowel is an unstressed -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra [ˈtɛrɛ] ('earth, land'), dona [ˈdɔnɔ] ('woman').
- This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla [ˈgwalːa] 'quail', cotna [ˈkonːa] 'rind'.
- Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
- Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Murcia on the southwest, Albacete on the west, Valencia on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea on the east...
, and the area of CarcheEl Carche is a mountainous, sparsely populated area in Region of Murcia, Spain, lying between the municipalities Jumilla and Yecla. The mountains reach an altitude of 1,371 metres at the Pico de la Madama and part of the region has the status of regional park...
in MurciaThe Region of Murcia is an autonomous community of Spain located in the southeast of the country, between Andalusia and Valencian Community, on the Mediterranean coast....
.
- Intervocalic /d/ elision in all instances; e.g. roda [ˈrɔa] 'wheel', nadal [naˈaɫ] 'Christmas'.
- Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ → [ʃ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkaʃa] 'box'.
- Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] 'to sing'.
- There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
- There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.
Features of Valencian
Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian as a group of dialectal varieties that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central variety of the language. For more general information on the features of Valencian, see Catalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version.
Phonology
{{Main|Catalan phonology}}
{{selfref|For assistance with IPA transcriptions of Catalan and Valencian for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for Catalan.}}
Vowels
- Valencian has a system of seven stressed vowels /a/, /e/, /ɛ/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, and /u/; reduced to five in unstressed position (/a/ → {{IPAblink; /e/, /ɛ/ → {{IPAblink) (feature shared with North-Western Catalan and Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...
).
- In some Valencian subvarieties, unstressed /o/, /u/ and /ɔ/ merge with u before labial consonants (e.g. obert [kuˈβɛɾt] 'open'), before a stressed syllable with a high vowel (e.g. conill [kuˈniʎ] 'rabbit'), in contact with palatal consonants (e.g. Josep [dʒuˈzɛp] 'Joseph') and in monosyllabic clitics; unstressed /a/, /e/, and /ɛ/ merge with ä before nasals and sibilants (e.g. enclusa [aŋˈkluza] 'anvil', eixam [ajˈʃam] 'swarm'), and in some exceptional cases when preceding any consonant (e.g. clevill [klaˈviʎ] 'crevice'). Likewise, unstressed /e/ merges into i when in contact with palatal consonants
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...
(e.g. genoll [dʒiˈnoʎ] 'knee'), and especially in lexical derivation with -eixement/-aixement (e.g. coneixement [konejʃiˈment] 'knowledge').
- Many Valencian subdialects, especially Southern Valencian, feature some sort of vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
(harmonia vocàlica). In Valencian this process is normally progressive (i.e. preceding vowels affect those pronounced afterwards) over the last unstressed vowel of a word; e.g. hora /ˈɔɾa/ → [ˈɔɾɔ] 'time'. However, there are cases where regressive metaphony occurs over pretonic vowels; e.g. tovallola /tovaˈʎɔla/ → [tɔvɔˈʎɔlɔ] 'towel', afecta /aˈfɛkta/ → [ɛˈfɛktɛ] 'affects'. Vowel harmony differs greatly from dialect to dialect, while many subvarities would alternate [ɛ] and [ɔ], according to the previous stressed vowel (e.g. terra [ˈtɛrɛ] 'Earth, land' and dona [ˈdɔnɔ] 'woman'); others will favor just one realization (either [ɛ] in all, or some, instances; or [ɔ]), thus, terra and dona can be pronounced [ˈtɛrɛ] and [ˈdɔnɛ] (by those who favor [ɛ]) or [ˈtɛrɔ] and [ˈdɔnɔ] (by those who favor [ɔ]).
- The so-called "open vowels" (vocals obertes), /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, are generally as low as /a/ in traditional Valencian. The phonetic realizations of /ɛ/ approaches æ (as in English land) and /ɔ/ is as open as ɒ (as in English dog) (feature shared with Balearic Catalan).
- The vowel /a/ is slightly fronted and closed than in Central Catalan (but less fronted and closed than in Majorcan).
Consonants
Valencian consonants
| |
BilabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Labio-
dentalIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Dental/
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
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PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
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VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
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p b |
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t̪ d̪ |
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k ɡ |
| Affricate Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
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ts dz |
tɕ dʑ |
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| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
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| Trill In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....
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FlapIn phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
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| Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
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LateralA lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....
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- Voiced plosives /b d g/ are lenited
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
[{{IPAlink after a continuant (exceptions include /d/ after lateral consonants and /b/ after /f/). In the coda position, these sounds are always realized as plosives except in some Valencian subvarieties, where they are lenited.
- Progressive lenition of /d/ in intervocalic posttonic position (especially in feminine participles); e.g. fideuà [fiðeˈwaː] (< fideuada).
- Unlike other Catalan dialects, /b/ and /g/ are lenited in all instances (e.g. poble [ˈpɔβle] 'village').
- The historical labiodental phoneme /v/ survives in most traditional subdialects, including the standard, but merger with /b/ is now dominant in Central and some Northern Valencian subvarieties.
- Valencian has preserved in most of its subvarieties the mediaeval voiced prepalatal affricate dʑ in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives /ʒ/ (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan). The presence of /dʒ/ for /ʒ/ in Valencian reflects the historical change /ʒ/ > /dʒ/ and the failure for /dʒ/ to become /ʒ/ (feature shared with Occitan and standard Italian
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
). Nonetheless, the fricative ʒ may appear as a voiced allophone of /ʃ/ before vowels and voiced consonants; e.g. peix espasa [ˈpejʒ asˈpaza] 'swordfish'.
- Deaffrication of /dz/ in verbs ending in -itzar; e.g. analitzar [analiˈzaɾ] 'to analize'.
- Most Valencian subdialects preserve final stops in clusters; e.g. [mp], [nt], [ŋk], and [ɫt]: camp [ˈkamp] (feature shared with modern Balearic). The subdialect spoken in Benifaió
Benifaió is a municipality in the comarca of Ribera Alta in the Valencian Community, Spain.In the central plaza, it contains a tower built by the Moors-Twin towns - Sister cities:Benifaió is twinned with:...
and AlmussafesAlmussafes is a municipality in the comarca of Ribera Baixa in the Valencian Community, Spain.The town of Almussafes is host for an important factory of the Ford Motor Company....
, some 20 km south of Valencia, remarks these final consonants.
- Contrary to Eastern Catalan dialects where all instances of /l/ are velarized, Valencian alternates more often a clear l [l] in intervocalic position with a dark l [ɫ] in the coda. The same also occurs in English accents, such as Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
or South African EnglishThe term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
, as opposed to Scottish or American English where /l/ is always dark.
- Valencian is the only modern variant that articulates etymological final ɾ in all contexts, although this cannot be generalized since there are Valencian subvarieties which do not articulate the final [ɾ] or only articulate it in some contexts.
Morphology
- The present first-person singular of verbs differs from Central Catalan; e.g. -ar infinitive: parlar 'to speak' gives parle 'I speak' as opposed to parlo, -re infinitive: batre 'to beat' gives bat 'I beat' as opposed to bato, -er infinitive: témer 'to fear' give tem 'I fear' as opposed to temo, and -ir infinitive: sentir 'to feel' gives sent 'I feel' as opposed to sento (all those forms without final -o are more akin to mediaeval Catalan and contemporary Balearic Catalan), and inchoative -ir verbs: patir 'to suffer' gives patisc or patesc ('I suffer') as opposed to pateixo.
- Present subjunctive is more akin to mediaeval Catalan and Spanish; -ar infinitives end ⟨e⟩, -re, -er and -ir verbs end in ⟨a⟩ (in contemporary Central Catalan present subjunctive ends in ⟨i⟩).
- An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme -ra: que ell vinguera ('that he might come').
- Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for inchoative verbs of the third conjugation; e.g. servix ('s/he serves'), like North-Western Catalan. Although, again, this cannot be generalized since there are Valencian subdialects that utilize -ei-, e.g. serveix.
- In Valencian the simple past tense (e.g. cantà 'he sang') is more frequently used in speech than in Central Catalan, where the periphrastic past (e.g. va cantar 'he sang') is prevailing and the simple past mostly appears in written language. The same, however, may be said of the Balearic dialects.
- The second-person singular of the present tense of the verb ser ('to be'), ets ('you are'), has been replaced by eres in colloquial speech.
Clitics
- In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els 'the') and the third-person unstressed object pronouns (el, els 'him, them'), though some subdialects (for instance the one spoken in Vinaròs
Vinaròs is a town and municipality in eastern Spain, in the province of Castelló and part of the autonomous Valencian Community. The town is on the Gulf of Valencia coast of the western Mediterranean Sea, Vinaròs is a fishing harbour and tourist destination....
area) preserve etymological forms lo, los as in LleidaLleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...
. For the other unstressed object pronouns, etymological old forms (me, te, se, ne, mos, vos...) can be found, depending on places, in conjunction with the more modern reinforced ones (em, et, es, en, ens, us...).
- Several variations for nosaltres, vosaltres ('we, you'): mosatros, moatros, natros; vosatros, voatros, valtros; also for the weak form mos/-mos instead of standard ens/-nos ('us').
- The adverbial pronoun hi ('there') is almost never used in speech and is replaced by other pronouns. The adverbial pronoun en ('him/her/them/it') is used less than in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.
- Combined weak clitics
This article discusses the forms and functions of the personal pronouns in Catalan grammar.-Strong pronouns:The "strong" pronouns in Catalan have the following forms:...
with li ('him/her/it') preserve the li, whereas in Central Catalan it is replaced by hi. For example, the combination li + el gives li'l in Valencian (l'hi in Central Catalan).
- The weak pronoun ho ('it') is pronounced as [ew] more often than in other dialects, especially when coming after another pronoun (e.g. m'ho dóna [mew ˈðona], dóna-m'ho [ˈdonamew] 's/he gives it to me'). However, when preceding a verb on its own it is pronounced as [u]: ho dóna [u ˈðona] 's/he gives it'. Moreover, after a verb ending in a vowel it is pronounced as [w] (e.g. dóna-ho [ˈdonaw] 'you give it'); while, when following a verb ending with a consonant it is pronounced as [o]: donar-ho [doˈnaɾo] 'to give it'.
- The personal pronoun jo ('I') and the adverb ja ('already') are not pronounced according to the spelling, but to the etymology ([ˈjɔ] and [ˈja], instead of /ˈ(d)ʒɔ/ and /ˈ(d)ʒa/). Similar pronunciations can be heard in North-Western Catalan and Ibizan.
- The preposition amb ('with') merges with en ('in') in most Valencian subdialects.
- Valencian preserves the mediaeval system of demonstratives with three different levels of demonstrative precision (este or aquest/açò/ací, eixe or aqueix/això/aquí, aquell/allò/allí or allà) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan and Tortosí).
Vocabulary
Different spelling of words with the same etymology:
- Cardinal numbers (8, 19, 68, 200, 1000000): Huit, dèneu, seixanta-huit , dos-cents, milió for vuit, dinou, seixanta-vuit, dues-centes, milió, although dos-centes is also found outside Valencian and in many regions of Catalonia seixanta is pronounced [ʃi'ʃanta], as in Valencian.
- Meua, teua, seua for meva, teva, seva, a feature shared with North-Western Catalan.
- Hui for avui.
- Ordinal numbers (5th, 6th, 20th): quint, sext, vigèsim for cinquè, sisè, vintè, although the former are also found outside Valencian: la quinta columna, el vigèsim regiment.
Different choice of words
- For example, "please" in Catalonia is usually si us plau or sisplau, which is close to the French s'il vous plaît; In Valencian per favor is more common, which is closer to the Spanish por favor, although per favor is used in all the Catalan-speaking areas.
Some other features, such as the use of molt de or the lack of hom or geminateIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
l, are often given as examples of differences between Valencian varieties and other forms of the language. However, these are actually differences between colloquial and literary language, and, again, may not apply to specific sub-dialects. Northern and southern variants of Valencian share more features with western Catalan (Lower Ebro river area for instance) than with central Valencian.{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}} For this reason some of the features listed previously do not apply to them.
The position of the Valencian Academy
The Acadèmia Valenciana de la LlenguaThe Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , also known by the acronym AVL, is an institution created on September 16, 1998 by the Valencian Parliament, which belongs to the set of official institutions that compose the Generalitat Valenciana, according to the Act of Autonomy of the Valencian...
(AVL) is the institution (language regulator) whose primary function is to determine and elaborate an official standard for the Valencian language as used in Valencia and to foster its use.
In 2005 the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua passed a declaration asserting that Valencian,
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- "the endemic and historical language of the Valencians
The Valencians are an ethnic group or nationality whose homeland is the Valencian Community, which is a historical region in eastern Spain. The official languages of Valencia are Catalan , and Spanish ....
, from a linguistic point of view, is also shared with the autonomous communities of CataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
and the Principality of Andorra. In the same manner, it is the historical and endemic language of other territories of the former Crown of Aragon (the eastern Aragonese fringe, the Sardinian city of AlgheroAlghero , is a town of about 44,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea.-History:The area of today's Alghero has been settled since pre-historic times...
, and the French department of the Eastern Pyrenees). The different idioms of all these territories constitute a languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, that is, the same "linguistic system", according to the terminology of first structuralism (Annex 1) in the opinion of the Valencian Council of Culture, as contained in the preamble of the Act Creation of the AVL. As part of this group of idioms, Valencian has the same status and dignity as any other local variant of the language system, and shows some characteristics of its own that the ALV will preserve and strengthen following lexicographical and literary tradition, the reality of Valencian language, and the standardization based upon the Normes de CastellóNormes de Castelló , also known as Normes del 32, are elementary orthographic guidelines which follow Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms for its Valencian variety...
".
See also
- Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
- Alguerese
Algherese is the variant of the Catalan language spoken in the city of Alghero , in the northwest of Sardinia....
- Balearic
- Valencian Sign Language
Valencian Sign Language is a sign language used by deaf people in the Valencian Community, Spain. Some linguists consider LSV, Spanish Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language as variants related to a language group, while others believe it is a dialect of the latter...
- Xe (interjection)
- Similar linguistic controversies
- Spanish and Castilian
There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish and Castilian . Spanish speakers from different countries or backgrounds can show a preference for one term or the other, or use them indiscriminately, but political issues or common usage might lead speakers to prefer one term over the...
- Macedonian and Bulgarian
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
- Moldovan and Romanian
Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...
- Occitan, Gascon and Provençal
- Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
- UK English and US English
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English and American English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
- Dutch and Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch and —unlike Belgian Dutch and Surinamese Dutch— a separate standard language rather than a national variety. As an estimated 90 to 95% of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin, there are few lexical differences between the two languages;...
External links
{{InterWiki|code=ca|Catalan}}
- Official references
- Documents and references
{{Romance languages}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2011}}
{{Catalan dialects}}