Paḷḷuezu dialect
Paḷḷuezu is a dialect of Asturian-Leonese, which is one of the Iberian Romance languages. It is one of eight recognized dialects of the Leonese language in the narrow sense of the designation "Leonese".
Paḷḷuezu is spoken in the upper half of the valley of the Sil River, in the comarca of El Bierzo, which is in the northwest of the Province of León, and to a minor extent in the province of Asturias, in the lands north of this portion of the Sil valley. The majority of Paḷḷuezu speakers reside in the municipality of Laciana. Paḷḷuezu is also spoken upriver from Laciana in the municipality of Babia, downriver from Laciana in the municipalities of Palacios del Sil and Páramo del Sil, and elsewhere.
Palacios del Sil and Páramo del Sil are part of an ancient district called Ribas de Sil, and this name is still in use. The number of speakers of this dialect is unknown. However, the combined population of all speakers of Asturian-Leonese in the provinces of León and Zamora is only 20,000 to 25,000.
Orthography
The Asturian spelling Ḷḷ ḷḷ, called "che vaqueira" is used where l.l has sometimes been used if it is impossible to write ḷḷ. It can be a voiceless retroflex affricate, a voiced retroflex plosive or a voiced retroflex affricate, and it corresponds to standard palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/, dritten Ll ll and called "elle". The latter spelling is current in publications of the Paḷḷuezu literary revival that has been underway since approximately 2006.Main consonantal features
The main consonantal features distinguishing this dialect from Spanish are:| English | Latin | Paḷḷuezu | Spanish |
| people | gent- | xente | gente |
| yoke | iugum | xugu | yugo |
| frozen | gelatus | xiláu | helado |
| son-in-law | gener | xenru | yerno |
| leaf | folia | fuecha | hoja |
| flame | flamma | chama | llama |
| rain | pluvia | chuvia | lluvia |
| nail, pin | clavis | chave | llave |
| lead | plumbum | chumbu | plomo |
| hill | lumbus | ḷḷombu | lomo |
| dove | palumba | palumba/palomba | paloma |
| fed up with; surfeited | fartus | fartu | harto |
| tongue; language | lingua | ḷḷingua | lengua |
- It preserves the phoneme, spelled 'x'.
- Latin /-li-/ becomes the voiceless palatal affricate, spelled ch.
- Latin /pl-,cl-,fl-/ become .
- Latin /-mb-/ is preserved.
- Latin /f-/ is preserved.
- Latin initial /l-/ palatalizes into the apico-postalveolar voiceless affricate spelled ḷḷ which used to be spelled ts. This is distinct from the Pal.luezu palatal affricate ch.
Grammatical features
- Possessive adjectives are always preceded by the definite article: la mia fuecha 'my leaf'.