Aragonese language

"Aragonese" redirects here. For other uses, see Aragonese (disambiguation).

Aragonese aragonés
Spoken in:	Aragon (an autonomous community of Spain)
Total speakers:	10,000 (30,000 total)
Language family:	Indo-European  Italic   Romance    Italo-Western     Pyrenean-Mozarabic      Aragonese
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	an
ISO 639-2:	arg
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	arg
Languages distribution in Aragon (Aragonese in red). Spanish is spoken in the whole area, but in the beige part Aragon is monolingual Spanish-speaking
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

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 theprotective 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

Nowadays, 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)

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

Phonology

Grammar

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

External links

• Aragonese Course
• Ethnologue report for Aragonese
• Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa
• Aragonese language
• See language review page on the Rosetta Project website
• Aragonese Language Sample
• Webster's Aragonese-English Dictionary

Categories

Find

Find