Information about Valencian

Valencian,Catalan Valencià,Català
Spoken in:	Spain, France, Italy, Andorra.
Region:	In Spain: Valencian Community, Balearic Islands, Catalonia,Aragon (in La Franja), Murcia (in El Carxe). In France: Northern Catalonia. In Italy: The city of L'Alguer. In Andorra.
Total speakers:	9.1 million
Ranking:	93
Language family:	}}}  Italic   Romance    Italo-Western     Western      Gallo-Iberian       Gallo-Romance        Occitano-Romance         Valencian,Catalan}}}
Official status
Official language of:	In Spain: Valencian Community, Balearic Islands,Catalonia. In Italy: L'Alguer. In Andorra.
Regulated by:	Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua Institut d'Estudis Catalans
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	ca
ISO 639-2:	cat
ISO 639-3:	cat — Catalan

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Valencian (valencià) is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Valencian Community (Spain) to refer to the language spoken therein, also known as Catalan (català) in the Spanish Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands; in the country of Andorra; in the southern French region of the Roussillon; and in the Italian city of Alghero on the island of Sardinia.

In linguistics "Valencian" is also used to identify this distinctive variant spoken in central and southern Valencia which has gained its own currency within the Catalan domain.

According to the "" approved in 1982, Valencian is the Valencian Community's own language, and its citizens have the right to know it and to use it, both orally and in written form, in private or public instances. According to a survey made by the Generalitat Valenciana in June 2005, approximately 94% of the Valencian population could understand it, 78% could speak and read it, and around 50% could write it.

However, a study [1] published by the Generalitat Valenciana (Servei d’Investigació i Estudis Sociolinguístics) in October 2005 revealed that most Valencians do not usually speak in Valencian. According to the study, which sampled more than 6.600 people in the provinces of Castellon, Valencia, and Alicante, only 39.5 per cent of residents use the Valencian language at home, while 33 per cent speak Valencian with their friends and just 18.8 per cent speak Valencian in large department stores.

The survey also revealed that because of recent immigration there had been a sharp increase in the number of residents who claimed no understanding of Valencian.

Linguistic issues

There is consensus amongst linguists that Valencian is the name for the dialect of the Catalan language which is spoken in the Valencian Community. The word is also used to refer to the dialect of this territory to differentiate it from the Catalan language as a whole, or from the "Catalan of Barcelona" (Central Catalan group of varieties). In this sense it can be considered a dialect of the Western Catalan variety (Bloc occidental -see for more details Catalan language-), which also includes the varieties of La Franja, Andorra, Lleida province and the southern half of Tarragona province.

About the name

An important subgroup of those linguists, mostly from the local official language academy (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua), has recently proposed to also use this name to refer to the language as a whole, including the entire Catalan-speaking area, stating a concept of two names for one language (synonym). This linguistic and political concept is not unique. As stated in the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community, there is another official language, Spanish, which is also used under another name, Castilian (see names given to the Spanish language for further information).

On May 2006 – The Spanish Supreme Court has announced a decision that revokes the instruction ordered by the Valencian ministry for Education in 1995, which established that validation of Catalan language qualifications issued by the Catalan and the Balearic governments no longer applied in the Valencian Community. The appeal against the instruction of the Valencian Ministry for Education was lodged by Acció Cultural del País Valencià (Valencian cultural association) and Sindicat de Treballadors i Treballadores de l'Ensenyament-Intersindical Valenciana (Valencian trade union) [2].

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 or literary varieties of the language. For more general information on the features of the Valencian language, see Catalan language. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Land of Valencia, and by no means do the features below apply to every speaker.

• The first person singular differs from Central Catalan, e.g. '-ar' verb 'parlar' gives 'parle' as opposed to 'parlo', '-re' verb 'batre' gives 'bat' as opposed to 'bato', '-er' verb 'témer' give 'tem' as opposed to 'temo', '-ir' verb 'sentir' gives 'sent' or 'senc' as opposed to 'sento', '-ir' 'patir' gives 'patesc' or 'patisc' as opposed to 'pateixo".
• Present subjunctive is more akin to Castilian; '-ar' verbs end 'e', '-re', '-er' and '-ir' verbs end in 'a' (in other dialects of Catalan the present subjunctive ends in 'i').
• A system of 7 stressed vowels /a/ /e/ /ɛ/ /i/ /o/ /ɔ/ u/, reduced to 5 in unstressed position (/e/ /ɛ/ > [e], /o/ /ɔ/ > [o]) (a feature shared with North-Western Catalan and Ribagorçan), though some very small sub-dialects reduce unstressed /o/, /u/ and /ɔ/ into [u], like most Eastern Catalan varieties.
• In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els) and the 3rd person unstressed object pronouns (el, els), though some sub-dialects (for instance the one spoken in Vinaròs area) have lo, los as in Lleida. 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 ones (em, et, es, en)
• Valencian has preserved in most of its subdialects the mediaeval prepalatal affricates [dʒ],[tʃ] in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives [ʒ] or [ʃ] (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
• Most Valencian varieties preserve the final stop in the groups [mp] [nt] [ŋk] [lt] (feature shared with modern Balearic). The sub-dialect spoken in Benifaió and Almussafes, some 20 km south of Valencia, remarks these final consonants.
• Valencian is the only modern variant that articulates etymological final [r] in all contexts, although this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which do not articulate the final [r] or only articulate it in some contexts.
• 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.)
• Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for inchoative verbs of the 3rd conjugation este servix (this one serves) (like North-Western Catalan), although, again, this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which pronounce an -ei- (aquest serveix)
• An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme /ra/: que ell vinguera (that he might come).
• Several variations for nosaltres, vosaltres (we, you):mosatros, moatros, natros, vosatros, voatros, valtros.
• Cardinal numbers (8, 19, 68, 200, 1000000): Huit, deneu, xixantahuit, doscentes, milló for vuit, dinou, seixanta-vuit, dues-centes, milió.
• Ordinal numbers (5th, 6th, 20th): quint, sext, vigèsim for cinquè, sisè, vintè.
• Amb (with) is pronounced as "en" more often than in other dialects.
• Meua, teua, seua for meva, teva, seva (a feature shared with North-Western Catalan)
• Gemination or dropping of D in some contexts
• Hui for avui.
• Per favor (please in English, resembles the Spanish por favor) for si us plau (much closer to the French, s'il vous plaît)

Some other features, such as the use of molt de or the lack of hom or geminate L, are often given as examples of differences between Valencian variety and other forms of the language. However, these are actually differences between colloquial and literary language, and, again, are not true of certain sub-dialects. In fact, northern and southern variants of Valencian share more features with Eastern Catalan than with central Valencian; for this reason most of the features listed previously do not apply to them. As we have seen, the central and capital city area of Valencian suffers the most from Castilian influence, one of the causes of these differences.

Sub-varieties of Valencian

• Transitional Valencian or Tortosí: spoken only in the northern part of the province of Castelló in towns like Benicarló or Vinaròs, the area of Matarranya in Aragon (province of Teruel), and a southern border area of Catalonia surrounding Tortosa, in the province of Tarragona. Final "r" isn't pronounced in infinitive ("kan'ta" instead of "kan'tar" is pronounced) and old articles "lo, los" are used instead of "el, els" (lo xic, los hòmens).
• Castellonenc: spoken in an area surroinding the city of Castelló de la Plana. Main feature easy to recognise is the use of "e" sound instead of standard "a" (Als matins ell "cante" en la dutxa" instead of ell canta - He sings in the shower in the morning), the pronunciation of "ts" [tʃ] and "tz" [dʒ] (dotze -twelve- ['dodze] -> ['dodʒe], pots -cans, jars, you can- [pots] -> [potʃ]) and the progressive fusion of [ʃ] to [s] (caixa -box- ['kajʃa] -> ['kajsa]).
• Central or apitxat, spoken in Valencia city and its area. This is not taken as standard by the Valencian TV or radio. Apitxat has two distinct features:
• All voiced sibillants get unvoiced (that is, apitxat pronounces ['tʃobe] ['kasa] (young man, house), where other Valencians would pronounce ['dʒove], ['kaza]) (feature shared with Ribagorçan)
• It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past with VADERE + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan variants (the simple past is still preserved incomplete in Eivissa). For example "ahir aní a passejar" instead of "ahir vaig anar a passejar" (I went for a walk yesterday).
• Southern: spoken in the counties between the province of Valencia and the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian. The main feature is vowel harmony (harmonia vocàl·lica): the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open E or O if the final vowel is A. For example, "terra" [tɛrɛ] (earth or land), "porta" [pɔɾtɔ] (door) or "dona" [dɔnɔ] (woman). This subdialect pronounces geminated letters (tl [ll] and tn [nn]) and weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se).
• Alacantí: spoken in the southern half of the province of Alacant, and the area of Carxe in the province of Murcia. Principal features are: the elision of practically all intervocalical -d- (roda -wheel- ['rɔ·a], nadal -Christmas- [na·'al]), the elision of final -r (comprar -buy- [kom'pra]) and iod is not pronounced in "ix" [jʃ] -> [ʃ] (caixa -box- ['kaʃa]).

English words of Valencian origin

• Barracks, from barraca, used for several kinds of buildings.

Language or Catalan dialect?

Academics almost universally believe that Valencian has its origin in the Catalan that was brought to the territories that became the Kingdom of Valencia during the Reconquesta (in Spanish, Reconquista). While the Castile moved south conquering New Castile and Andalusia, the Aragonese and Catalan settlers from the Crown of Aragon conquered and populated Valencia. It was originally assumed that most of these settlers came from South-Western Catalonia, where a dialect of Catalan which is very similar to Valencian is still spoken today. However, the Aragonese professor Antonio Ubieto Arteta in his book Origenes del Reino de Valencia, which is based on the numbers from El llibre dels repartiments (the major conquest book by James I the Conqueror) claims that the percentage of immigration from Catalonia is only 5% of the total immigration, during the conquest and the subsequent XIV and XV centuries. The population of Valencia remained 70% Mozarabic and Moorish, 11% originating from the rest of Castile, 10% from the Crown of Aragon and 7% from foreign countries. However, these claims have not been recognized nor supported by anyone on the academic world, and further modern research have even raised the immigration to more than a 90% of Catalan-speakers.

That notwithstanding, there are many examples of language change without large scale population movement, notably in Ireland, Wales and Scotland where indigenous languages were replaced by English in the space of a few generations, with very little inward migration, or even in South America.

Valencian identity is the product of hundreds of years of political development, throughout which individual Valencians have both embraced and rejected a Catalan identity, and during which the two regions have often been in conflict. Given these historical factors, it is perhaps not surprising that something of a linguistic turf war has erupted over the status of the dialect spoken in Valencia. The current official definition, according to the Spanish and Valencian governments, is somewhat unclear; the Valencian Statute could be interpreted as saying that Valencian is a language in its own right, but the Academia Valenciana de la Llengua, the official and state-bound entity which regulates Valencian, claims that Catalan and Valencian are the same language. In linguistic terms, Valencian is much more similar to the Catalan of Catalonia than are the dialects of the Balearic Islands, Roussillon and above all Alghero. Despite this, these more divergent dialects are all recognised as variants of Catalan and, when written at all, use the conventions of Standard Catalan. By contrast, a separate standard variety for Valencian exists; the two written standards are, however, completely mutually inteligible. Officially, the rules for this Valencian standard are decided by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, which generally follows the same rules as for the rest of the Catalan language, set by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.

The Autonomy Statute refers to the Valencian language as valencià, a name used traditionally since the fifteenth century. There is a private association called Lo Rat Penat that campaigns for Valencian as a separate language with a different written norm and has firmly supported attempts by local centralist and mainly right-wing politicians to split Valencian and Catalan norms apart. However, their theories are not supported in academic circles.

Theories of Valencian as separate from Catalan

Those theories that claim Valencian is an independent language from Catalan are mostly based on disputing the origin of the language in Valencia.

One of the most widespread theories maintains that Valencian primarily evolved from the Romance language spoken by local inhabitants, Mozarabic, even after the conquest of the former Al-Andalus territories. Later on, this language would have acquired words from Catalan, Provençal, Aragonese or Castilian until the present day. However, this theory is not supported by the evidence we have of Mozarabic, chiefly toponymic place-names which originated in Mozarabic, such as Campos, which do not share the linguistic features of Valencian.

An alternative theory proposes that Valencian, alongside Catalan, originated directly from Old Occitan. This would have arrived in Valencia with the court of the conqueror King James I of Aragon, since he was born in Montpellier (Occitania) and this was also the language in vogue among troubadours. However, it must be noted that at the time of the Reconquest of Valencia, Catalan and Occitan were in fact sometimes referred to as the same language (or the same family of dialects) by many, under the name of Lemosin or Provençal and sharing a single poetic tradition, although, when spoken, they were different; Catalan troubadours knew they weren't writing the same as they spoke; and there are texts previous to James I, such as the Homilies d'Organyà, which are clearly Catalan as opposed to Occitan.

Supporters of these theories criticise the current Valencian standard promulgated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua because such supporters regard the Valencian Standard as some kind of hybrid with a theoretically distinct Catalan.

Political issues surrounding Valencian

The status of Valencian was a continuous political irritant throughout the Spanish transition to democracy of the 70's and 80's, and continues to be an emotive issue to this day. Generally, though not exclusively, it has been the political right in Valencia that has claimed that Valencian is a separate language. Such right-wing politicians often argue that Catalans, especially Catalan nationalists, are attempting to eliminate Valencia's separate identity and force it into a political union of all Catalan speaking areas (something the right wing terms Pan-Catalanism, see Catalan Countries)

Many Catalan politicians, in turn, argue that the right wing is using this issue to portray Catalans as linguistic imperialists, in order to garner support in the rest of Spain for the centralist position of the Spanish right wing. They often refer to the fact that many of the most ardent defenders of Valencian's linguistic individuality often are not even able to speak the language itself.

The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of the approval of the European Constitution in 2004. The Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian, but the Catalan and Valencian versions were identical (in fact, they were the same). While professing the unity of the Catalan language, the Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of the Autonomous Community of Valencia calls the regional language "Valencian", while those of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands call the regional language "Catalan" (even though in the Balearic Islands, the language is also often called "mallorquí", "menorquí", "eivissenc", or "formenterer" depending on the island — Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa or Formentera, something that, nonetheless, does not imply linguistic differences — for example, the dialect spoken in Eivissa is the same as the one spoken in Formentera.)

See also

Other similar linguistic controversies in Europe: Moldovan/Romanian and Serbo-Croatian

References

• Sanchis i Guarner, Manuel (1934, 1967). La llengua dels valencians. 3i4 Editions, Valencia 2005. ISBN 84-7502-082-8 .
• Valor i Vives, Enric (1973). Curs mitjà de gramàtica catalana, referida especialment al País Valencià. Grog Editions, València 1999. ISBN 84-85211-45-6 .
• Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1951). Gramàtica valenciana. Associació Cultural Lo Rat Penat. Valencia 1995. ISBN 84-85211-71-5 .
• Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1963). Valencians i la llengua autòctona durant els segles XVI, XVII i XVIII. Institució Alfons el Magnànim. València. ISBN 84-370-5334-X.
• Colomina i Castanyer, Jordi, (1995). Els valencians i la llengua normativa. Textos universitaris. Alacant: Institut de Cultura "Juan Gil-Albert". ISBN 84-7784-178-0.
• Ubieto Arteta, Antonio (1923, 1990), Orígenes del Reino de Valencia. Zaragoza 1979, ISBN 84-7013-154-0.
• Garcia Moya, Ricart (1942), Diccionari Historic del Idioma Valencia Modern, Valencia 2006, ISBN 84-934687-5-4

External links

• Official references (Valencian as a part of Catalan)
• Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
• Valencian dictionary
• Ethnologue report for the Valencian language
• Institut Joan Lluís Vives
• Valencian to English Conversation Guide
• Unofficial normatives (Valencian as a separate language):
• Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana
• Language section of the Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana
• Llengua Valenciana Si
• Documents and references
• (Spanish) Disputing theories about Valencian origin
• The origins and evolution of language secessionism in Valencia. An analysis from the transition period until today
• (Spanish) Journal articles from Ricart Garcia Moya
• (Spanish) Article from El Pais (25 October 2005) regarding report on use of Valencian published by Servei d’Investicació i Estudis Sociolinguístics

•  • [ e] Romance languages

Aragonese Aromanian Astur-Leonese (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese) Catalan (Balearic, Valencian) Ladin Ladino (Haketia, Tetuani) Champenois Corsican (Gallurese, Sassarese) Dalmatian Eastern Lombard Emiliano-Romagnolo Fala Franc-Comtois Franco-Provenal French (incl. Zarphatic) Friulian Galician Gallo Istriot Istro-Romanian Italian (Central Italian, Florentine, Tuscan, Romanesco, Judeo-Italian) Ladin Ladino (Haketia, Tetuani) Ligurian (Genoese, Mongasque) Lorrain Megleno-Romanian Mozarabic Neapolitan Norman (Anglo-Norman, Auregnais, Guernsiais, Jrriais, Sercquiais) Occitan (Auvergnat, Aupenc, Gascon (Aranese), Languedocien, Limousin, Provenal (Niard, Shuadit)) Picard Piedmontese Poitevin-Saintongeais Portuguese Romance Pannonian language Romanian (Moldovan, Vlach) Romansh Sardinian Sicilian (Calabrian) Spanish (Castilian) Venetian (Talian) Walloon Western Lombard