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Asturian and Aragonese

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Asturian Romance language of West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese subgroup and Spanish region of Asturias

1983 survey – 100,000 speakers and 25,000 claimed to understand Asturian

1991 survey 450,000 speakers, at least 68% claimed to understand Asturian

(Source: Llera Ramo, F. (1994) )

History of the Asturian Language• Asturian is a Romance Language

derived from Latin

• In the 12th Century, Asturian occupied today’s Spanish provinces of Asturias, León, Salamanca and the Portuguese region of Miranda de Douro

• Belongs to a wider linguistic group called Asturian-Leones, there was never a unified linguistic standard and several dialects were spoken all over this area.

• Castilian has replaced almost all these dialects except for Asturian and Mirandese

History of the Asturian Language

• Today, Mostly spoken in the principality of Asturias but also in northern Castilla y León

• There are around 100,000 first language speakers and a further 450,000 who consider Asturian as a second language able to speak or understand

History of the Asturian Language

• 12th, 13th and 14th centuries

- Asturian language used for official documents (examples found; agreements, donations, wills, commercial contracts)

- No literary works written in Asturian at this time

• 14th century

- Arrival of non-ethnic Asturian officials and governors, Castilian began to be used in official documents

• Following two centuries (sieglos escuros), no written record of Asturian, became restricted to informal use but was still actively spoken

History of the Asturian Language• 17th Century

- the author, Antón de Marirreguera began the Asturian national literary tradition

• 19th Century - national literature increasingly produced

- 1869 - A dictionary and an Asturian Grammar were produced by Xuan Junquera Huergo but these were not published until 1991

• 20th Century - first newspaper written in Asturian called IXUXU, establishment of L’Academía de la Llingua Asturiana

• At the beginning of the 20th Century, Asturian was a powerless language considered primative, rural and useless.

History of the Asturian Language

• After the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), Asturian writers wanted to work against Asturian disappearing completely in favour of Castilian.

• The weakening of the dictatorship caused non-spanish nationalisms to strengthen,

• 1974 - Conceyu Bable (the Asturian Language Council) was created with a new vision to Asturian language and Asturian national literature.

• Asturian language did not achieve official status in the Statute of Autonomy given by the Spanish State in 1981.

• Establishment of Rules and Conventions Normes Ortográfiques y Entamos Normativos (1981) which was a written set of rules of the model for an educated language usage. Gramática de la Llingua Asturiana (1998) and Diccionaria de la Llingua Asturiana (2000)

History of the Asturian Language

Ley Orgánica 7/1981, Estatuto de Autonomía del Principado de Asturias.

Artículo 4.

1. El bable gozará de protección. Se promoverá su uso, su difusión en los medios de comunicación y su enseñanza, respetando en todo caso las variantes locales y la voluntariedad en su aprendizaje.

2. Una Ley del principado regulará la protección, uso y promoción del bable.

Ley 1/1998, de 23 de marzo, de uso y promoción del bable/asturiano.

•An amendment to article 4 was accepted by the Asturian National Parliament, Asturian Administration will accept documents in Asturian and will answer them in the same language and Asturian will be taught as a subject unless the student's parents otherwise.

History of the Asturian Language

Asturian Administration

•2 State Institutions; L’Academía de la Llingua Asturiana and Servicio de Enseñanza Lingüística, both aim to strengthen the use of Asturian

•Encouraged teaching of the language in schools and universities

•Family is the context where Asturian is used the most, not really used in work places, banks, politics, visits to the doctor, studies and public offices. The more important and official the context and situation, the less Asturian is used

What is the Asturian language?

Autochthonous Romance language spoken between the Galician-Portuguese and Spanish-speaking territories in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula.

Spoken:• Throughout Asturias• In various areas of the northern and western parts of the province of León• In the district of Bragança, in Portugal, where the variety of the language is referred to as

Mirandese.

“¿Existe de verdad el bable?, ¿se puede hablar de una lengua o un dialecto asturiano como se habla el gallego, del catalán o del andaluz? ¿Es el asturiano un dialecto del castellano? ¿Es una lengua independiente? ¿Es castellano antiguo, como se oye decir a los que se creen más enterados?

Todas estas preguntas se plantean con cierta frecuencia. Las contestaciones son muy diversas según la intuición o según el grado de cultura del hablante…lo cual demuestra, por lo menos, el interés siempre vivo por los problemas de lenguaje.”

- Neira

Which is the ‘pure’ form/name?

In answer to the question: “¿Cuál es el asturiano puro, el auténtico?”, Neira responds:“…con frecuencia se oiga decir que el bable puro es el de tal lugar o el de tal otro. O que éste no

es bable auténtico, sino gallego o castellano asturianizado. Estas opiniones varían diametralmente según el lugar originario del hablante. En principio el bable auténtico es para cada uno el suyo.”

Little sense of linguistic unity due to the fragmentation of dialects and the lack of communication between communities of speakers

Two perspectives: research into identity from a geolinguistic approach and how speakers refer to their own language system.

• Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s El dialecto leonés (1906) grouped together the spoken varieties that stretch from the Bay of Biscay to Miranda de Douro under a single term: Leonese dialect

• The varieties included are those which were spoken throughout the former Kingdom of Leon (which included the current Asturian, Leonese and Mirandese regions)

Popular/traditional names

Second perspective: speaker opinions

León• Name of the traditional language according to speakers: ‘leonés’= 27.8%, ‘asturiano’/’bable’=

5%, ‘astur-leonés= 9.9%, castellano= 32.9%)

• It was noted that castellano is the option most frequently chosen by the oldest section of the population, whereas middle-aged people tended to opt for terms like asturiano, leonés or otros , with the youngest sector choosing bable or asturleonés

Asturias • Majority of the people recognize their language as ‘Asturian’, ‘Bable’ or ‘Asturian language’

(82%) • 2/3 Asturians see ‘Bable’ and ‘Asturian’ as synonyms for the language, whereas a 3rd of them

feel there is a difference between them, identifying ‘Asturian’ with the name of the language spoken (25%) and ‘Bable’ as the artificial name, an opaque name or the old name (21%) and, to a much lesser extent, as a term for the central Asturian dialect of the language (5%)

Attitudes towards Asturian

• When asked if Asturian or Bable is a language, 71% of Asturians say yes and consider it to be of equal value to the other languages in the Iberian Peninsula.

• Northern León: no attachment of any stigma to language, or the people do not state there to be. More than 80% of the people in this area felt that there was nothing wrong with speaking the traditional language.

• Western León: greater perception that speaking it is wrong, despite this being the area where the language is most spoken and preserved- in comparison to the central and eastern parts.

• Positive attitude towards Mirandese shown by 75.3% of those asked. Attitude depends on the age of the participant, with a more positive attitude as age increases- 48% for (0-14yrs), 77% (15-44yrs), 82% (45-64yrs), and 84% for (65yrs or more)

Attitudes towards Asturian

Studies show that there is a demand from society for the establishment of the Asturian-Leonese language in Asturias, Terra de Miranda and León:

• In the province of León 53.1% prefer to use it, and 27.9% wish to use it as they do Spanish; that is, they wish for the language to have official status.

• This figure increases to 70.7% in Asturias, where the people feel they are bilingual and that Asturian language should be spoken in the schools and used in the media.

• In Miranda de Douro, 76.3% of the people questioned in the survey believed it was important for children to learn the Mirandese variety.

In other words, the attitude towards the language is a favourable one, and the only thing the region requires is a legal framework that will allow the language to develop, and real measures that will enable the language to prosper within the Leonese region

Legislation on linguistic rights

Asturias

Statute of Autonomy of the Principality of Asturias, under Organic Law 7/1981 and modified under organic laws 3/1991, 1/1994 and 1/1999. Article 4:

1. Bable shall enjoy legal protection. Usage of Bable shall be promoted and Bable shall be used in the media and taught in schools, respecting, in all cases, the local variations of Bable and the option to learn Bable.

2. The protection, usage and promotion of Bable shall be regulated by a Principality of Asturias law

Yet any classification of ‘Bable’ is ambiguous/avoided in the text of the statute, although it does recognise the existence of the spoken varieties of the language.

Legislation- Castile & León

The latest reform of the statute, undertaken in 2007, Organic Law 14/2007, a fifth article has been added in which linguistic heritage is discussed:

2. Leonese shall be the object of special protection by the institutions on account of its special value as part of the Community’s linguistic heritage. The protection, use and promotion of the language shall be regulated.

3. The Galician language and linguistic modalities shall be respected and protected in the places in which they are commonly used. […]

• This is a step forward in terms of the legal recognition of the language, but again there is no further specification or reference to linguistic territory unity- Pidal’s term ‘Leonese’ is used without any clarification of the linguistic connection with the other Asturophone territories

Legislation in Portugal

• Law 7/1999 of 29 January 1999 recognises Mirandese by law but does not grant official status to the language in its fullest sense as understood by the Spanish. It is an acknowledgement of rights on the part of Portugal that grants the right to cultivate and promote the Mirandese language as cultural heritage, as an instrument of communication and as a reinforcement of the identity of Terra de Miranda (Article 1 and Article 2, and Law 7/1999).

• However, in the Constitutional Law of the Portuguese Republic No 1/2001 of 12 December amending the Constitution, Portuguese is declared as the official language

• Ferreira (2002: 71-72) “as a language of Portugal, Asturian-Leonese has legal status alongside Portuguese languages, although it is restricted to its natural environment and its speakers’ community”

Final considerations

• Asturian-Leonese-Mirandese language= minority language that is in danger of dying out in the Leonese region in Spain because of the absence, so far, of effective measures to protect and promote the language and of its legal recognition

• No full official status for the language in any part of the three Asturophone regions. There are references to the language in Statutes of Autonomy and there are laws on usage, and, in the case of Mirandese, a law for the language community, but the language enjoys no true official status and has not been suitably established in society in any of the three territories

20/01/13Asturian - Linguistic Features

Linguistically close to Portuguese, Galician and Castilian

3 dialects – Western, Eastern and Central

Seseo – casa/caza

'll' pronounced as [tʃ]

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Linguistic Background Normalized in 1980s by Academy

Follows Castilian closely with letters 'ñ' 'c 'v' 'b' and digraphs 'gu' 'qu' and 'll' as well as accentuation

Nowadays it is highly influenced by Castilian

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Morphosyntactic Features

Moves away from Castilian to Galician-Portuguese

Absence compound verbs Enclisis of object pronouns Latin features – retains F- and -MB- e.g. FORMICA > formiga (ant)

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Grammar Neuter agreements of adjectives with noun

Difference between countable and non-countable – affects adjectives after the noun

e.g. La gente bono (good people) lleche frio (cold milk) la fueya seco (dry leaf)

20/01/13 Latin /Ĕ/ and /Ŏ/ into diphthongs:e.g. TERRA > tierra

PORTA > puerta

*This is unlike Galician-Portuguese but similar to Castilian

Diphthongisation of /Ŏ/ in front of Y :

e.g. FOLIA > fueya

NOCTE > gueyu

* This is unlike Castilian but similar to Galician-Portuguese

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Dialects 3 main dialects stated by Menéndez Pidal

(1906) in El Dialecto Leonés:Western-from west of Navia river to roughly the Nalon

srea and between area where Asturian is spokely nowadays outside of Asturias

Central- defined by isoglosses [ei, ou/e,o] and f-/h- between river Nalon and Seya and high valleys in central Leonese mountains, Los Arguechos

Eastern- Isoglosses f-/h- lies around Seya River region

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Western Preserves Latin F- Diphthongs Latin /Ě/ and /Ŏ/ Falling diphthong /ie/ and /ou/ Geminates Latin L-:

e.g. LOBO > llobo Keeps Latin -L- between vowels:

e.g. PALU > palu (Galician-Portuguese = pau)

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Keeps Latin -N- e.g. LŪNA > lluna Latin -NN- pronounced as nasal palatal 'ñ' like Castilain,

Galician-Portuguese pronounce it as single 'n'

e.g. CAPANNA > cabaña (Galician-Portuguese = 'cabana')

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Central Keeps Latin F- in words Conversion of /ei/ and /ou/ into

monophthongs (e, o) -AS > -EN -AN > -ENe.g. CASAS > cases Use of -es plurals doesnt stretch whole of area, it

is present in the Eastern block as far as the Aguadamia River

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Eastern Aspiration of F- to H- / X- e.g. FURNU > hornu

Conversion of diphthongs into monphthongs:/ei/ > e/ou/ > o

EL ARAGONÉShttp://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DN55VwB7pTg

España hoy en día

Lengua oficial = castellano Lenguas cooficiales en las Autonomías = catalán,

gallego, vasco Variedad lingüísticas (“dialectos” “hablas”) Variedades dialectales -> ARAGONÉS, ASTURIANO

Definiciones

Lengua = 2. f. Sistema de comunicación verbal y casi siempre escrito, propia de una comunidad humana

Dialecto = 1. m. Ling. Sistema lingüístico considerado con relación al grupo de los varios derivados de un tronco común. HISTÓRICOS (o “constitutivos”). Surgen en la etapa de

formación = se produjeron de manera natural por la evolución del latín.

Habla = 4. f. Ling. Realización lingüística, por oposición a la lengua como sistema.

HISTORIA

A pesar de la dificultad para rescatar información sobre su nacimiento, se estima que el aragonés surgió en el SVII.

Mayor esplendor durante la conquista islámica y la posterior repoblación.

Aunque era uno de los dialectos más fuertes, perdió poder frente al castellano, la lengua de culto, a partir del SXIII.

Su situación, lejos de mejorar con el tiempo, fue empeorando hasta los años 70, cuando se inició su conservación, recuperación y dignificación.

HOY EN DÍA

Hoy en día

Lo que fue un dialecto ha quedado reducido a una serie de hablas desperdigadas a lo largo de los valles aragoneses, mermadas por la erosión constante del castellano y posteriormente del español. Aunque estas hablas no tengan la uniformidad mínima que se le supone a un dialecto, se las conoce en su conjunto como “dialecto aragonés”.

Los hablantes activos hoy no superan los 10000, unos 25000 si sumamos los pasivos y los meramente conocedores.

Quedan variedades propias, a las que los hablantes parecen inclinarse más que a la “fabla” –aragonés unificado artificialmente-: cheso (Hecho), ansotano (Ansó), belsetán (Bielsa), chistavín (Gistain), etc.

 

Fablas aragonesas

FABLA Castellano: hayAnsotano Bi’stá

Cheso Bi-ha

Tensino (panticuto) B’haBelsetán Bi-ha

Chistabino YayBenasqués (patués) Yey

EJEMPLOS DE ARAGONÉS ANSOTANO Me fan goyo tus güellos. (Me gustan tus ojos). ¿Cuálo ye o nueso? (¿Cuál es el nuestro?). A plebiu y ya está xuta la carrera. (Ha llovido y ya

está seca la calle). Deban da caseta bi’staba una xerata que itaba

muita flama. (Delante de la casita había una hoguera que echaba mucha llama).

No sabebai o que m’eba pasau. (No sabía lo que me había pasado).

Puyoron enta loma. (Subieron hacia la loma). En i’stá muitas. ¡Cuántas en bi’stá! (Hay muchas.

¡Cuántas hay!)

RASGOS LINGÜÍSTICOS DEL ARAGONÉS

Diptonga o y e, vacilando entre ué y uá, ié y iá: folia > fuella (hoja); herba > hiarba (hierba). Diptonga el verbo “ser”: es, est > yes, ye; erat > yera.

Conserva la f- inicial latina (en las zonas pirenaicas): filiu> fillo (hijo).

Conserva sin alterar los grupos pl-, cl-, fl- iniciales del latín: planu > plan (llano)

J-, g- iniciales latinas suelen pasar a “ch gráfica”: iuvene> choven (joven)

Conserva las consonantes sordas intervocálicas: apicula >apella (abeja); capitia > capeza (cabeza); y conserva también las sonoras: radere> rader (raer) y sonoriza las sordas detrás de nasal, de r o de l: campu> cambo (campo), altu> aldo (alto).

Todos los grupos consonantes latinos que solo en castellano dieron /x/ (jota gráfica), dan en aragonés la “elle gráfica”, como las demás variantes románicas peninsulares: vetulu > viello (viejo).

El grupo /ks/, representado en latín por una “x gráfica”, evolucionó hasta /s^/, sonido parecido también al de la ch francesa: buxu> boxu (boj). También tienen un sonido /s^/, africado: undecim> ontse (once).

Evoluciona los grupos –kt- y –ult- del latín hasta llegar a (it): pectu> peito (pecho).

Tienen una tendencia grande a perder la vocal final, lo que produce muchos finales de palabra en consonante. Los plurales se hacen sobre esos singulares añadiendo sólo una –s, por eso los hay en –ns, -ls, -rs, etc.

Su sistema verbal es complejo. Destacamos sus imperfectos en –eba, -iba: teneba (tenía), dormiba (dormía) y los pretéritos fuertes en –on: dijon (dijeron), dión (dieron)

El artículo puede ser, para el masculino, o, o, ro; para el femenino, a, la, ra: o cambo (el campo), a fuella (la hoja).

Tiene partículas propias como encara (aun), ta, enta (hacia).

LÉXICO DEL ARAGONÉS

Elementos prerromanos: Toponimia: arte (encina verde) > Artica, Artos, Artal Habla viva: lakar (piedra plana)

Elementos latinos característicos pectu> peito (pecho).

Elemento provenientes de romances contiguos: Gascón Catalán Castellano

PRESTIGIO DEL ARAGONÉS

Asimilación o normalización 60000 vs 11000 altoaragoneses ¿Qué dicen los hablantes del aragonés? Unificación La literatura La escuela

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Bibliography• http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Admin/lo7-

1981.html

• http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Asturian/Asturian.htmGarcía Gil, H. (2008) Asturian-leonese: Linguistic, Sociolinguistic and

Legal Aspects. Ciemen: University of León

Llera Ramo, F. (1994) Los Asturianos y la llegua Asturiana. Uvieu: Conseyeria d'Educacion.

Menendez Pidal, R. (1906) El Dialecto Leones. Pretel de Pablos.

Neira Martinez, J. (1982) Bables y Castellano en Asturias. Madrid: Silverio Canad