Asturian language
Asturian Art. 1 de la ] is a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Principality of Asturias, Spain. Asturian is part of a wider linguistic group, the Asturleonese languages. The number of speakers is estimated at 100,000 and 450,000. The dialects of the Astur-Leonese language family are traditionally classified in three groups: Western, Central, and Eastern. For historical and demographic reasons, the standard is based on [|Central Asturian]. Asturian has a distinct grammar, dictionary, and orthography. It is regulated by the Academy of the Asturian Language. Although it is not an official language of Spain, it is protected under the Statute of Autonomy of Asturias and is an elective language in schools. For much of its history, the language has been ignored or "subjected to repeated challenges to its status as a language variety" due to its lack of official status.
History
Asturian is the historical language of Asturias, portions of the Spanish provinces of León and Zamora and the area surrounding Miranda do Douro in northeastern Portugal. Like the other Romance languages of the Iberian peninsula, it evolved from Vulgar Latin during the early Middle Ages. Asturian was closely linked with the Kingdom of Asturias and the ensuing Leonese kingdom. The language had contributions from pre-Roman languages spoken by the Astures, an Iberian Celtic tribe, and the post-Roman Germanic languages of the Visigoths and Suebians.The transition from Latin to Asturian was slow and gradual; for a long time they co-existed in a diglossic relationship, first in the Kingdom of Asturias and later in that of Asturias and Leon. During the 12th, 13th and part of the 14th centuries Astur-Leonese was used in the kingdom's official documents, with many examples of agreements, donations, wills and commercial contracts from that period onwards. Although there are no extant literary works written in Asturian from this period, some books had Asturian sources.
Castilian Spanish arrived in the area during the 14th century, when the central administration sent emissaries and functionaries to political and ecclesiastical offices. Asturian codification of the Astur-Leonese spoken in the Asturian Autonomous Community became a modern language with the founding of the Academy of the Asturian Language in 1980. The Leonese dialects and Mirandese are linguistically close to Asturian.
Status and legislation
Efforts have been made since the end of the Francoist period in 1975 to protect and promote Asturian. In 1994 there were 100,000 native speakers and 450,000 second-language speakers able to speak Asturian. However, the language is endangered: there has been a steep decline in the number of speakers over the last century. Law 1/93 of 23 March 1993 on the Use and Promotion of the Asturian Language addressed the issue, and according to article four of the Asturias Statute of Autonomy: "The Asturian language will enjoy protection. Its use, teaching and diffusion in the media will be furthered, whilst its local dialects and voluntary apprenticeship will always be respected."However, Asturian is in a legally hazy position. The Spanish Constitution has not been fully applied regarding the official recognition of languages in the autonomous communities. The ambiguity of the Statute of Autonomy, which recognises the existence of Asturian but does not give it the same status as Spanish, leaves the door open to benign neglect. However, since 1 August 2001 Asturian has been covered under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages' "safeguard and promote" clause.
A 1983 survey indicated 100,000 native Asturian speakers and 250,000 who could speak or understand Asturian as a second language. A similar survey in 1991 found that 44 percent of the population could speak Asturian, with from 60,000 to 80,000 able to read and write it. An additional 24 percent of the Asturian population said that they understood the language, making a total of about 68 percent of the Asturian population.
At the end of the 20th century the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana attempted to provide the language with tools needed to promote its survival: a grammar, a dictionary and periodicals. In addition a new generation of Asturian writers has championed the language. In 2021 the first complete translation of the Bible into Asturian was published.
Historical, social and cultural aspects
Literary history
Although some 10th-century documents have the linguistic features of Asturian, numerous examples begin in the 13th century. Early examples are the 1085 Fuero de Avilés and the 13th-century Fuero de Oviedo and the Leonese version of the Fueru Xulgu.The 13th-century documents were the laws for towns, cities and the general population. By the second half of the 16th century, documents were written in Castilian, backed by the Trastámara dynasty and making the civil and ecclesiastical arms of the principality Castilian. Although the Asturian language disappeared from written texts during the sieglos escuros, it survived orally. The only written mention during this time is from a 1555 work by Hernán Núñez about proverbs and adages: "...in a large copy of rare languages, as Portuguese, Galician, Asturian, Catalan, Valencian, French, Tuscan..."
Modern Asturian literature began in 1605 with the clergyman Antón González Reguera and continued until the 18th century. In 1744, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos wrote about the historic and cultural value of Asturian, urging the compilation of a dictionary and a grammar and the creation of a language academy. Notable writers included Francisco Bernaldo de Quirós Benavides, Xosefa Xovellanos, Xuan González Villar y Fuertes, Xosé Caveda y Nava, Xuan María Acebal, Teodoro Cuesta, Xosé Benigno García González, Marcos del Torniello, Bernardo Acevedo y Huelves, Pin de Pría, Galo Fernández and Fernán Coronas. During the 19th and early 20th century, sections of poems, comics or commentary in Asturian were common in some regional Asturian newspapers and magazines, as well as in many costumbrist theater plays, but no newspaper would be completely written in Asturian until 1901.
The first Asturian dictionary was written in 1788 by Carlos González de Posada.
Although the complete Bible was not translated until 2021, the Gospel of Matthew was translated to Asturian in London in 1861 by priest Manuel Fernández de Castro y Menéndez Hevia and published by Louis Lucien Bonaparte.
The first book in Asturian printed and published was Llos Trabayos de Chinticu by Juan Junquera Huergo, published in Gijón in 1843 composed of 372 satirical verses. Junquera Huergo, former mayor of Gijón, also wrote the first Asturian grammar in 1869, using a writing standard invented by himself, but was left unpublished due to lack of funds after Junquera's death, and two dictionaries, a Diccionario del dialecto asturiano in 1867 and a Spanish-Asturian dictionary that was left uncompleted. In 1880 another very small dictionary would be written, the writer is unknown, but it's attributed to José Fernández-Quevedo y González-Llanos alias "Pepín Quevedo".
The first novel in Asturian, Viaxe del Tíu Pacho el Sordu a Uviedo, was written and published in Oviedo by Enriqueta González Rubín in 1875 and written in the Eastern dialect of Asturian.
The first newspaper written completely in Asturian language, Ixuxú, was created by poet Francisco González Prieto in 1901 in Gijón. It was a conservative ultracatholic weekly newspaper. He also created another newspaper in Asturian, L'Astur in 1904.
Beginning in the 1930's and especially after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War and due to his policies against languages of Spain other than Spanish, Asturian presence as a written language was greatly diminished until the 1970s Surdimientu.
In 1974, a movement for the language's acceptance and use began in Asturias. Based on ideas of the Asturian association Conceyu Bable about Asturian language and culture, a plan was developed for the acceptance and modernization of the language that led to the 1980 creation of the Academy of the Asturian Language with the approval of the Asturias regional council.
El Surdimientu authors such as Manuel Asur ', Xuan Bello ', Adolfo Camilo Díaz ', Pablo Antón Marín Estrada ', Xandru Fernández , Lourdes Álvarez, Martín López-Vega, Miguel Rojo and Lluis Antón González broke from the Asturian-Leonese tradition of rural themes, moral messages and dialogue-style writing. Currently, the Asturian language has about 150 annual publications. The Bible into the Asturian language was completed in 2021 after over 30 years of translation work, beginning in September 1988.
In recent years, “l'Espardimientu”, has emerged as a new generation of authors—primarily working in fantasy, science fiction, and horror—that explicitly breaks with the Surdimientu. According to the academic and literary critic Marta Mori, this generation is characterized by a more agile narrative pace, stories that are easily translatable into images and driven by dialogue, simpler archetypal characters closer to the axiological framework of traditional literature, and by the intention to create a fantastic imaginary with Asturian roots based on local mythology.
Some authors associated with this generation include Nicolás Bardio, Adrián Carbayales, Xon de la Campa and Ana Pereira. Marta Mori considers Blanca Fernández Quintana to be one of the most prominent figures in this ongoing shift in Asturian literature. Together with these and other authors, a notable boom in fantasy literature written in Asturian can be observed.