Aragonese language
Encyclopedia
Aragonese is a Romance language
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

 now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River
Aragón River
The River Aragón is one of the left-hand tributaries of the river Ebro. It starts at Astún , passes through Jaca and Sangüesa , and joins the Ebro at Milagro , near Tudela....

, Sobrarbe
Sobrarbe
Sobrarbe is one of the Comarcas of Aragon, Spain. It is located in the northern part of the province of Huesca, part of the autonomous community of Aragon in Spain...

 and Ribagorza in Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

, Spain. It is the only remaining speech form derived from medieval Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language spoken south of the middle Pyrenees and in part of the Ebro River basin in the Middle Ages. The language extended over the County of Aragón, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, the southern plains of Navarre on both banks of the Ebro including La Rioja and the eastern...

 languages.

History

Aragonese originated around the eighth century, as one of many Latin dialects
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...

 developed in the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

 on top of a strong Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...

-like substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...

. The original Kingdom of Aragon
Kingdom of Aragon
The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain...

 (formed by the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza) was progressively expanded from the mountain ranges towards the South, pushing the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

 farther south in the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

and spreading the Aragonese language.

The dynastic union of the Catalan Counties
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

 and the Kingdom of Aragon—which formed the Aragonese Crown in the twelfth century—did not result in a merging of the language forms of the two territories into a single form; Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

 continued to be spoken in the east, and Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese
Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language spoken south of the middle Pyrenees and in part of the Ebro River basin in the Middle Ages. The language extended over the County of Aragón, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, the southern plains of Navarre on both banks of the Ebro including La Rioja and the eastern...

 in the west. The Aragonese reconquista to the south ended in the kingdom of Murcia
Murcia
-History:It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin words of Myrtea or Murtea, meaning land of Myrtle , although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village...

, which was ceded by James I of Aragon
James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276...

 to the Kingdom of Castile
Kingdom of Castile
Kingdom of Castile was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region...

 as a dowry for an Aragonese princess.

The spread of Castilian
Castilian Spanish
Castilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers...

, now more commonly known as Spanish, and the Castilian origin of the Trastámara
Trastámara
The House of Trastámara was a dynasty of kings in the Iberian Peninsula, which first governed in Castile beginning in 1369 before expanding its rule into Aragón, Navarre and Naples.They were a cadet illegitimate line of the House of Burgundy....

 dynasty and a strong similarity between Castilian and Aragonese, meant that further recession was to follow. One of the key moments in the history of Aragonese was when a king of Castilian origin was appointed in the fifteenth century: Ferdinand I of Aragon
Ferdinand I of Aragon
Ferdinand I called of Antequera and also the Just or the Honest) was king of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica and king of Sicily, duke of Athens and Neopatria, and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya...

, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera.

The mutual union of the crowns of Aragon
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...

 and Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...

 and the progressive suspension of all capacity of self-rule from the sixteenth century meant that Aragonese, while still widely spoken, was limited to a rural and colloquial use, as the nobility chose Spanish as their symbol of power.

During the rule of Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

 in the twentieth century and the spreading of compulsory schooling, Aragonese was regarded as a mere dialect of Spanish, and therefore was frowned upon (for example, pupils were punished in schools for using it).

Then, the constitutional democracy voted by the people in 1978 also meant the debut of literary works and studies conducted in and about the Aragonese language.

Modern Aragonese

Today, Aragonese is still spoken natively within its core area, the Aragonese mountain ranges of the Pyrenees, in the comarcas of Somontano, Jacetania, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza.

These are the major cities and towns where Aragonese speakers can still be found: Huesca
Huesca
Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....

, Graus
Graus
Graus is a village in the Spanish province of Huesca, located in the Pyrenees at the confluence of rivers Esera and Isabena. It is the administrative capital of the region. It is one of the areas of Aragon in which is still preserved the Aragonese language....

, Monzón
Monzón
Monzón is a small town in the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It has a population of 17,050. It is located in the northeast and adjoins the rivers Cinca and Sosa.-Historical overview:...

, Barbastro
Barbastro
Barbastro is a city in the Somontano county, province of Huesca, Spain...

, Bielsa
Bielsa
Bielsa is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 463 inhabitants....

, Chistén
Gistaín
Gistaín is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 161 inhabitants....

, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla
Estadilla
Estadilla is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 856 inhabitants....

, Benasque
Benasque
Benasque or Benasc is a town in the comarca of Ribagorza, province of Huesca, . It is the main town in the Benasque Valley, located in the heart of the Pyrenees and surrounded by the highest peaks in that range.-Language:...

, Campo
Campo, Spain
Campo is a town in the county of Ribagorza, in the province of Huesca, in Aragon, Spain. Situated in a valley between 2 rivers, the Esera and Rialbo, it is surrounded by snow-capped Pyrenean mountain peaks: most notably, the Turbón and Cotiella .The town's municipal district includes the hamlet...

, Sabiñánigo
Sabiñánigo
Sabiñánigo is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragón, Spain, capital of the comarca of Alto Gállego...

, Jaca
Jaca
Jaca is a city of northeastern Spain near the border with France, in the midst of the Pyrenees in the province of Huesca...

, Plan
Plan
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve an objective. See also strategy. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal...

, Ansó
Ansó
Ansó is a town and municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality had a population of 523 inhabitants. The municipality includes the towns of Ansó and Fago ....

, Ayerbe
Ayerbe
Ayerbe is a town in the Hoya de Huesca comarca, in the autonomous community of Aragon in Spain.-Geography:Ayerbe is located 28 km from Huesca on highway A 132 in the direction of Pamplona, on the Gállego river...

, Broto
Broto
Broto is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 516 inhabitants.-Villages:The Valle de Broto includes the following villages:...

, and El Grado
El Grado
El Grado is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to 2009 data , the municipality has a population of 506 inhabitants.There is a large reservoir, managing the waters of river Cinca in this town's municipal term....

.

Aragonese is also learnt as a second language by other inhabitants of the country in areas like Huesca
Huesca
Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....

, Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...

, Ejea de los Caballeros
Ejea de los Caballeros
Ejea de los Caballeros is a town and municipality in the province of Zaragoza, part of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It is one of the five main towns in the Comarca de las Cinco Villas...

, and Teruel
Teruel
Teruel is a town in Aragon, eastern Spain, and the capital of Teruel Province. It has a population of 34,240 in 2006 making it one of the least populated provincial capitals in the country...

. According to recent polls, altogether they only make up around 10,000 active speakers and about 30,000 passive speakers.

In 2009 the Languages Act of Aragon gives recognition of "native language, original and historic" of Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

, therefore there are a number of linguistic rights, as the utilization of aragonese language in the public administrations of Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

.

Phonological characteristics

Aragonese has many historical traits that join it to Catalan rather than Spanish. Some of these are conservative features that are also shared with Astur-Leonese and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, where Spanish innovated in ways that did not spread to nearby languages.

Traits shared with Catalan:
  • Romance initial F- is preserved, e.g. FILIUM > ("son", Sp. , Cat. , Pt. ).

  • Romance yod
    Palatal approximant
    The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is '...

     (GE-, GI-, I-) consistently became medieval [dʒ], as in medieval Catalan and Portuguese. This becomes modern ch [tʃ], as a result of the devoicing of sibilants (see below). In Spanish, the medieval result was either [dʒ] (modern [x]), [ʝ] or nothing, depending on the context. E.g. IUVENEM > ("young man", Sp. /ˈxoβen/, Cat. /ˈʒoβǝ/), GELARE > ("to freeze", Sp. /eˈlaɾ/, Cat. /ʒǝˈlaɾ/).

  • Romance groups -LT-, -CT- result in [jt], e.g. FACTUM > ("done", Sp. , Cat. , Gal./Port. ), MULTUM > ("many"/"much", Sp. , Cat. , Gal. , Port. ).

  • Romance groups -X-, -PS-, SCj- result in voiceless palatal fricative ix [ʃ], e.g. COXU > ("crippled", Sp. , Cat. ).

  • Romance groups -Lj-, -C'L-, -T'L- result in palatal lateral ll [ʎ], e.g. MULIERE > ("woman", Sp. , Cat. ), ACUT'LA > ("needle", Sp. , Cat. ).


Traits shared partly with Catalan, partly with Spanish:
  • Open O, E from Romance result systematically in diphthongs [we], [je], e.g. VET'LA > ("old woman", Sp. , Cat. ). This includes before a yod
    Palatal approximant
    The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is '...

    , e.g. > ("eight", Sp. , Cat. ). Spanish diphthongizes except before yod, while Catalan diphthongizes only before yod.

  • Loss of final unstressed -E but not -O, e.g. GRANDE > ("big"), FACTUM > ("done"). Catalan loses both -O and -E; Spanish preserves -O, and sometimes -E.


Traits shared with Spanish but not Catalan:
  • Former voiced sibilants become voiceless ([z] > [s], [dʒ] > [tʃ]).


Conservative traits not found in either Spanish or Catalan:
  • Latin -B- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: ("he had", Sp. , Cat. ), ("he was sleeping", Sp. , Cat. ).

  • High Aragonese dialects (alto aragonés), along with some dialects of Gascon
    Gascon language
    Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...

    , have preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. CLETAM > ("sheep hurdle", Cat. , Fr. ), CUCULLIATAM > cocullata ("crested lark", Sp. , Cat. ).

  • A few Aragonese dialects maintain Latin as geminate /ll/.

Orthography

In 2010, the Academia de l'Aragonés
Academia de l'Aragonés
The Academia de l'Aragonés is an organ founded on 15 July 2006 by the 2nd Congress on the Aragonese so as to be the linguistic authority for the Aragonese language. It has no official recognition by the Aragonese government...

, formed in 2006, has established a single orthographic standard in order to modernize medieval orthography and look for a more etymological language. This new orthography is used by the Aragonese Wikipedia.

Previously, Aragonese had two orthographic
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 standards:
  • The grafía de Uesca codified in 1987 by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa (CFA) at a convention in Huesca
    Huesca
    Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....

     (Aragonese: Uesca) is used by a majority of Aragonese writers. It uses a more uniform system when assigning letters to phonemes with less regard to the etymology of a word. For example, words traditionally written with "v" and "b" are uniformly written with "b" in the Uesca system. Likewise "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are all written "ch". In addition, the orthography uses letters more strongly associated with Spanish (e.g., "ñ
    Ñ
    Ñ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...

    ").
  • The grafía SLA devised in 2004 by the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa
    Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa
    The Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa - the Society of Aragonese Linguistics is a society dedicated to the promotion of the Aragonese language....

    (SLA) is used by a minority of Aragonese writers. It uses more etymological-based forms that are closer to Catalan, Occitan, and medieval Aragonese sources. With the SLA system, "v" and "b" and "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are distinct forms and "ny" is used instead of "ñ".


In the sixteenth century, Aragonese Morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...

es wrote some texts in Arabic writing
Aljamiado
Aljamiado or Aljamía texts are manuscripts which use the Arabic script for transcribing Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Berber Spanish or Ladino.According to Anwar G...

 as Andalusi Arabic
Andalusi Arabic
Andalusian Arabic was a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule...

 was forgotten or forbidden.

Grammar

Aragonese grammar is similar to the grammar of other Iberian Romance languages, such as Spanish and Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

.

Pronouns

Aragonese preserves the system of clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

 pronouns derived from the Latin forms 'inde' and 'ibi', as 'en/ne' and ''.

This feature is shared with other Romance languages (Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

, Occitan, French, Italian), and makes Aragonese different from other Ibero-Romance languages without those clitics (Spanish, Asturian
Asturian language
Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...

, Portuguese).

'En/ne' is used for:
  • Partitive object: No n'he visto como aquello (I haven't seen anything like that, literally Not (of it) I have seen like that).
  • Partitive subject: En fa tanto de mal (it hurts so much, literally (of it) it causes so much of pain)
  • Ablative, place where a movement starts: Se'n va ra memoria (memory goes away, literally It (away from here) memory goes)


'' is used for:
  • Locative, place where: N'ibi heba uno (there was one of them), literally (Of them) there was one
  • Allative, movement towards somewhere: Vés-be ((you) go there (imperative))

Dialects

There are about 25-30 dialectal variants of Aragonese, the majority of which are in the province of Huesca
Huesca (province)
Huesca , officially Huesca/Uesca, is a province of northeastern Spain, in northern Aragon. The capital is Huesca.Positioned just south of the central Pyrenees, Huesca borders France and the French Departments of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Hautes-Pyrénées...

, due to its mountainous terrain where natural isogloss
Isogloss
An isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature...

es have developed around valley enclaves, and where the highest incidence of spoken Aragonese is found. Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...

, is one such variant: an eastern Aragonese dialect, which is transitional to Gascon
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...

 Occitan, Catalan, and Spanish.

See also

  • Aragonese language literature
    Aragonese language literature
    This article refers to the Aragonese language literature of Spain. It includes Aragonese poetry, prose and novels. For Aragonese literature in Spanish, see Spanish literature....

  • Aragonese dialects
    Aragonese dialects
    Aragonese language has a lot of local varieties, which are grouped in valley varieties or comarca varieties. The term dialect is ambiguous and it can be used referring to valley varieties well known...

  • Aragonese writing systems
    Aragonese writing systems
    Aragonese language has four different writing systems:# Huesca standards .# SLA orthography .# Traditional Cheso orthography .# Academia de l'Aragonés orthography.- Huesca standards :...

  • Academia de l'Aragonés
    Academia de l'Aragonés
    The Academia de l'Aragonés is an organ founded on 15 July 2006 by the 2nd Congress on the Aragonese so as to be the linguistic authority for the Aragonese language. It has no official recognition by the Aragonese government...


External links

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