Southern Valencian


Southern Valencian is a dialect of Valencian spoken in the south of the Valencian Community. It comprises two sub-varieties, Northern or Upper Southern Valencian, and Southern or Lower Southern Valencian.
Southern Valencian is known for the presence of different types of vowel harmony.

Sub-varieties

Upper Southern Valencian

The variety of Upper Souther Valencian includes all the comarques south of the Xúquer river, up to the line that joins the town of Biar with Busot. This dialectal zone is also known as General Valencian.
Within the area of Upper Southern Valencian, there are further subareas:
  • The inland zone has the following phonological and morphological features:
  • * Final stops are elided after nasals and liquids ; or the falling diphthong in cuit and buit.
  • * Es is used instead of mos and vos in reflexive functions, like Central Valencian: es rentem, es renteu instead of mos rentem, vos renteu.
  • The coastal zone has the following phonological and morphological features:
  • * Final backs to and where are pronounced the stops of camp, cent, molt.
  • * becomes silent in caixa and peix, and it is used in the diphthong in cuit and buit
  • * Substitution of mos and vos for es is less frequent, especially in the case of mos: mos volem 'we want us', mo n'anem 'we're leaving'.
  • Some features of Mallorcan influence in Marina Alta and Tàrbena are:
  • * Final is unstable at points of the region: it is elided in Bolulla and Pedreguer, and is unstable in Dénia and Xàbia.
  • * Elision of in the digraph : caixa > caxa, peix > pex. This elision also exists in the neighbouring region of Safor.
  • * Differentiated articulation of and between vowels: the affricated geminated sound of /,, as opposed to the simple affricate of /,. This is still active in some villages of Marina Alta. In addition to this, two villages feature the deaffrication of /, like in Majorcan and Northern Valencian.
  • * Apheresis of initial : nar instead of anar, ribar instead of arribar.
  • * Pronunciation of unstressed followed by stressed as : raïm , matí . Final is close to in Benissa, Gata and Pedreguer: xica , mosca .
  • * Vowel in fr'd and prim'r, resembelling the Majorcan sound.
  • * Move from tonic to, tr'ure, m'ula.
  • * Raising of unstressed > in nedar and by extension in nede, nedes, etc.
  • * Alternation between the unstressed sounds and, resembelling the Majorcan mid central vowel : devant 'in front', d'ecí 'from here', caregol 'snail', llevor 'seed', al gos 'the dog', as diu 's/he's called', famella 'female', etc.
  • * Remains of the insularic consonantal assimilations: etzamen 'exam', catsot 'big headed', datsa 'corn', dissatte 'Saturday'.

Lower Southern Valencian

This dialect is called Alacantí Valencian by some manuals of dialectology. To avoid confusion between the different dialectal realities of the comarques of this provincial demarcation, it is best using the term Southern or Lower Southern to describe the speeches that extend to the south of the line that links the settlements of Biar and Busot, that includes the south of Alcoià, Alacantí and the valleys of the river Vinalopó.
Some distinctive features of this dialect are:
  • becomes silent in faixa, reixa and mateix > faxa, rexa and matex; like in Safor and Marina Alta.
  • Final is maintained in the coastal regions, but similar to the Valencian spoken in Castellón de la Plana, it is elided when the verb is accompanied by enclitics : saluda-te, endu-se. In Elx, it is also elided in the plain verbs of the second conjugation: vénce, córre.
  • The diphthong of cuina is falling, like in a large part of the Upper Southern Valencian dialect, and also in Catalonia and the islands.
  • Intervocalic is elided in the suffixes -ada and -ador, and also in -uda: grenyua, panxua, etc. In Elx and Guardamar, almost every between vowels is elided, also by syntactic phonetics: El Nal que ve anirem a la boa d'exa ona grenyua que viu al carre e la Roa 'The following Christmas we will go to the wedding of that dishevelled woman who lives in the street of the Wheel'.
  • The suffix -esa is commonly reduced to : bellea 'beauty'.
The region of the Vinalopó Valley and neighbouring areas form a dialectal zone within the Lower Southern dialect with the following phonological features:
  • Final elision: treballa, millo.
  • Stops become silent in camp, cent and molt.
  • The diphthongs and become homophones as . Ou is pronounced the same as au and pou the same as pau.
  • The diphthong in buit and cuit is rising like in general Valencian, and it is not falling like in the rest of the Lower Souther dialect.
The Lower Southern dialect has the following morphological features:
  • The article is invariable for the masculine and the feminine: es vaques and es bous for les vaques and els bous.
  • Ací is not present in the demonstrative system, there is only aquí, ahí, and allà. However, only aquí and allà are used by the most conservative speakers.
  • The general demonstrative açò is replaced by astò, and the pronoun li is changed to se when pronouns are combined: se la donarem, dóna-se-la instead of li la donarem, dóna-li-la.
  • The full forms of the pronouns me, te, se, ne, mos, vos do never reduce, including in enclitic position: me pareix que ta tia se troba malalta, posa-te la jaqueta i anem a vore-la 'It seems to me your aunt is sick, put yourself a jacket and let's go to see her'.
  • In verbal morphology, the suffixes -am and -au from the imperative and subjunctive have evolved to -em and -eu, except in Elx, where the original forms survive.