Aragonese language
Aragonese is a Romance language spoken in several dialects by about 12,000 people as of 2011, in the Pyrenees valleys of Aragon, Spain, primarily in the comarcas of Somontano de Barbastro, Jacetania, Alto Gállego, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza/Ribagorça. It is the only modern language which survived from medieval Navarro-Aragonese in a form distinct from Spanish.
Historically, people referred to the language as fabla. Native Aragonese people usually refer to it by the names of its [|local dialects] such as cheso or patués.
History
Aragonese, which developed in portions of the Ebro basin, can be traced back to the High Middle Ages. It spread throughout the Pyrenees to areas where languages similar to modern Basque might have been previously spoken. The Kingdom of Aragon expanded southward from the mountains, pushing the Moors farther south in the Reconquista and spreading the Aragonese language.The union of the Catalan counties and the Kingdom of Aragon which formed the 12th-century Crown of Aragon did not merge the languages of the two territories; Catalan continued to be spoken in the east and Navarro-Aragonese in the west, with the boundaries blurred by dialectal continuity. The Aragonese Reconquista in the south ended with the cession of Murcia by James I of Aragon to the Kingdom of Castile as dowry for an Aragonese princess.
The best-known proponent of the Aragonese language was Johan Ferrandez d'Heredia, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in Rhodes at the end of the 14th century. He wrote an extensive catalog of works in Aragonese and translated several works from Greek into Aragonese.
The spread of Castilian, the Castilian origin of the Trastámara dynasty, and the similarity between Castilian and Aragonese facilitated the recession of the latter. A turning point was the 15th-century coronation of the Castilian Ferdinand I of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera.
In the early 18th century, after the defeat of the allies of Aragon in the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V ordered the prohibition of the Aragonese language in schools and the establishment of Castilian as the only official language in Aragon. This was ordered in the Aragonese Nueva Planta decrees of 1707.
In recent times, Aragonese was mostly regarded as a group of rural dialects of Spanish. Compulsory education undermined its already weak position; for example, pupils were punished for using it. However, the 1978 Spanish transition to democracy heralded literary works and studies of the language.
Modern Aragonese
Aragonese is the native language of the Aragonese mountain ranges of the Pyrenees, in the comarcas of Somontano, Jacetania, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza. Cities and towns in which Aragonese is spoken are Huesca, Graus, Monzón, Barbastro, Bielsa, Chistén, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla, Benasque, Campo, Sabiñánigo, Jaca, Plan, Ansó, Ayerbe, Broto, and El Grado.It is spoken as a second language by inhabitants of Zaragoza, Huesca, Ejea de los Caballeros, or Teruel. According to recent polls, there are about 25,500 speakers including speakers living outside the native area. In 2017, the Dirección General de Política Lingüística de Aragón estimated there were 10,000 to 12,000 active speakers of Aragonese.
In 2009, the Languages Act of Aragon recognized the "native language, original and historic" of Aragon. The language received several linguistic rights, including its use in public administration. Some of the legislation was repealed by a new law in 2013.
Dialects
- Western dialect: Ansó, Valle de Hecho, Chasa, Berdún, Chaca
- Central dialect: Panticosa, Biescas, Torla, Broto, Bielsa, Yebra de Basa, Aínsa-Sobrarbe
- Eastern dialect: Benás, Plan, Bisagorri, Campo, Perarrúa, Graus, Estadilla
- Southern dialect: Agüero, Ayerbe, Rasal, Bolea, Lierta, Uesca, Almudévar, Nozito, Labata, Alguezra, Angüés, Pertusa, Balbastro, Nabal
Phonology
Traits
Aragonese has many historical traits in common with Catalan. Some are conservative features that are also shared with the Asturleonese languages and Galician–Portuguese, where Spanish innovated in ways that did not spread to nearby languages.Shared with Catalan
- Romance initial f- is preserved, e.g. filium > fillo.
- Romance groups cl-, fl- and pl- are preserved and in most dialects do not undergo any change, e.g. clavis > clau. However, in some transitional dialects from both sides it becomes cll-, fll- and pll-, e.g. clavis > cllau.
- Romance palatal approximant consistently became medieval, as in medieval Catalan and Portuguese. This becomes modern ch, as a result of the devoicing of sibilants. In Spanish, the medieval result was either /,,, or nothing, depending on the context. e.g. iuvenem > choven, gelare > chelar.
- Romance groups -lt-, -ct- result in, e.g. factum > feito, multum > muito.
- Romance groups -x-, -ps-, scj- result in voiceless palatal fricative ix, e.g. coxu > coixo.
- Romance groups -lj-, -c'l-, -t'l- result in palatal lateral ll, e.g. muliere > muller, acuc'la > agulla.
Shared with Catalan and Spanish
- Open o, e from Romance result systematically in diphthongs,, e.g. vet'la > viella. This includes before a palatal approximant, e.g. octō > ueito. Spanish diphthongizes except before yod, whereas Catalan only diphthongizes before yod.
- Voiced stops may be lenited to approximants.
Shared with Spanish
- Loss of final unstressed -e but not -o, e.g. grande > gran, factum > feito. Catalan loses both -e and -o ''; Spanish preserves -o and sometimes -e.
- Former voiced sibilants become voiceless.
- The palatal is most often realized as a fricative.
Shared with neither
- Latin -b- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: teneba, teniba, dormiba.
- High Aragonese dialects and some dialects of Gascon have preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. cletam > cleta, cuculliatam > cocullata.
- Several Aragonese dialects maintain Latin -ll- as geminate.
- The mid vowels can be as open as, mainly in the Benasque dialect.
Vowels
Consonants
Orthography
Before 2023, Aragonese had three orthographic standards:- The grafía de Uesca, codified in 1987 by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa at a convention in Huesca, is used by most Aragonese writers. It has a more uniform system of assigning letters to phonemes, with less regard for etymology; words traditionally written with and are uniformly written with in the Uesca system. Similarly,,, and before and are all written. It uses letters associated with Spanish, such as.
- The grafia SLA, devised in 2004 by the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa, is used by some Aragonese writers. It uses etymological forms which are closer to Catalan, Occitan, and medieval Aragonese sources; trying to come closer to the original Aragonese and the other Occitano-Romance languages. In the SLA system,,,, and before and are distinct, and the digraph replaces.
- In 2010, the Academia de l'Aragonés established an orthographic standard to modernize medieval orthography and to make it more etymological.
| Sounds and features | Academia de l'Aragonés | Grafía SLA | Grafía de Uesca |
| a | a | a | |
| b, v according to Latin etymology Ex: bien, servicio, val, activo, cantaba, debant | b, v according to Medieval etymology, as in Catalan and Occitan Ex: bien, servício, val, activo, cantava, devant | b Ex: bien, serbizio, bal, autibo, cantaba, debán | |
| |||
| If there is an etymological q, as in Catalan and a bit in Occitan: | If there is an etymological q, as in Catalan and a bit in Occitan:
| cu as in Spanish Ex: cuan, cuestión | |
Ex: zona, Provenza, fetz, centro, servicio, realizar, verdatz |
| z Ex: zona, Probenza, fez, zentro, serbizio, realizar, berdaz | |
| d | d | d | |
| e | e | e | |
| f | f | f | |
| |||
| chEx: chaminera, minchar, chusticia, cheografía |
| ch Ex: chaminera, minchar, chustizia, cheografía | |
| Etymological h | Written according to Latin etymology Ex: historia, hibierno | Written as in Medieval Aragonese and Catalan Ex: história, hivierno | Not written Ex: istoria, ibierno |
| |||
| l | l | l | |
| ll | ll | ll | |
| m | m | m | |
| n | n | n | |
| ny as in Medieval Aragonese and CatalanEx: anyada | ny as in Medieval Aragonese and Catalan Ex: anyada | ñ as in Spanish Ex: añada | |
| o | o | o | |
| p | p | p | |
| r | r | r | |
| |||
| s | s | s | |
| t | t | t | |
| Etymological final -t | Written as in Medieval Aragonese, Catalan and Occitan Ex: sociedat, debant, chent | Written as in Medieval Aragonese, Catalan and Occitan Ex: sociedat, devant, gent | Not written Ex: soziedá, debán, chen |
| u | u | u | |
| and | ix as unifying grapheme for all dialects Ex: baixo x as in xoriguer and xilófono |
| x Ex: baxo |
| |||
| Learned Greco-Roman words | Assimilatory tendencies not writtenEx: dialecto, extension, and lexico | Not all assimilatory tendencies written Ex: dialecto, extension, and lexico | Assimilatory tendencies written Ex: dialeuto, estensión, but lecsico |
| Accent mark for stress | Spanish model, but with the possibility for oxytones to not be accented Ex:
| Portuguese, Catalan and Occitan modelEx:
| Spanish modelEx:
|
The marginal phoneme is spelled j in the Uesca, Academia de l'Aragonés and Academia Aragonesa de la Lengua standards. Additionally, the Academia de l'Aragonés and Academia Aragonesa de la Lengua orthographies allow the letter j in some loanwords internationally known with it and also mention the letters k and w, also used only in loanwords.