Aragonese language

Aragonese, IPA: /ˈæɹəɡɒnˌiːz/ (aragonés), is a Romance language now spoken by some 10,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. It is also colloquially known as fabla (literally, "speech").

History

Aragonese originated around the 8th century as one of many Latin dialects developed in the Pyrenees on top of a strong Basque-like substratum. The original Kingdom of Aragon (formed by the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza) was progressively expanded from the mountain ranges towards the South, pushing the Moors further south in the Reconquista and spreading the Aragonese language.

The dynastic union of the Catalan Counties and the Kingdom of Aragon—which formed the Aragonese Crown in the 12th century—did not result in a merging of the language forms of the two territories into a single form; Catalan continued to be spoken in the east, and Aragonese in the west. Moreover, Catalan was the language that expanded into the new territories conquered from the Moors: the Balearic Islands and the new kingdom of Valencia. The Aragonese reconquista to the south ended in the kingdom of Murcia, that was ceded by James I of Aragon to the Kingdom of Castile as a dowry for an Aragonese princess.

The spread of Castilian, now also known as Spanish, together with the protective effect from it that Aragonese played for the Catalan language, the Castilian origin and the Trastamara 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 15th century: Ferdinand I of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera.

The mutual union of Aragon and Castile and the progressive suspension of all capacity of self-rule from the 16th 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. The suppression of Aragonese reached its most dramatic point during the rule of Francisco Franco in the 20th century. Pupils were beaten in schools for using it, and language politics in Francoist Spain forbade the teaching of any language that was not Spanish.

The constitutional democracy voted by the people in 1978 meant an increase in the literary works and studies conducted in and about the Aragonese language. However, it may be too late for this 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, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza. These are the major cities and towns where Aragonese speakers can still be found: Huesca, Graus, Monzón, Barbastro, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla, Benasque, Sabiñánigo, Jaca, Plan, Ansó, Ayerbe, Broto, El Grado.

Aragonese is also learnt as a second language by other inhabitants of the country in areas like Uesca, Zaragoza, Exea, and Teruel. According to recent polls, altogether they only make up around 30,000 speakers.

Some historical traits of Aragonese language:

• As in Spanish, open O,E from Romance result systematically into diphthongs [we], [je], e.g. VET'LA > biella ("old woman", Sp. vieja, Cat. vella)
• Loss of final unstressed -E, e.g. GRANDE > gran ("big")
• Unlike Spanish Romance initial F- is preserved, e.g. FILIU > fillo ("son", Sp. hijo, Cat. fill)
• Romance yod (GE-,GI-,I-) results in voiceless palatal affricate ch [ʧ], e.g. IUVEN > choben ("young man"), GELARE > chelar ("to freeze", Sp. helar, Cat. gelar)
• Like in Occitan and Galician-Portuguese, Romance groups -ULT-, -CT- result in [jt], e.g. FACTU > feito ("done", Sp. hecho, Cat. fet, Gal.-Port. feito), MULTU > muito ("many"/"much", Sp. mucho, Cat. molt, Gal.-Port. muito).
• Romance groups -X-, -PS-, SCj- result into voiceless palatal fricative ix [ʃ], e.g. COXU > coixo ("crippled", Sp. cojo, Cat. coix)
• Unlike Spanish, Romance groups -Lj-, -C'L-, -T'L- result into palatal lateral ll [ʎ], e.g. MULIERE > muller ("woman", Sp. mujer, Cat. muller)), ACUT'LA > agulla ("needle", Sp. aguja, Cat. agulla)
• Unlike Spanish, Latin -B- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugations: teniba ("he had", Sp. tenía, Cat. tenia)

The Ribagorçan dialect might be considered a transitional Romance variant which shares features with both Catalan and Aragonese.

Phonology

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Grammar

Please help improve this article by expanding this section. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Aragonese grammar is similar to the grammar of other Iberian Romance languages, such as Spanish and Catalan.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Wikipedia information about Aragonese language This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Aragonese language". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.