Murcian Spanish

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Murcian Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the Spanish autonomous region of Murcia, Alicante and the province of Albacete.

Murcian's unique features have evolved as a result of the coexistence of Phoenician, Berber, Latin, Arabic, Catalan, Castilian, Mudejar, Morsico Mozarabic and Aragonese-speaking communities at various times in the region's history. The main influences on Murcian today are Aragonese and Catalan. Murcian Spanish also contains evident Arabic influences, more so than Andalucian Spanish. It is believed that this may be because the Murcian Moors submitted to the Christian reconquest of Spain, whereas those in Andalucia resisted the reconquest and were forced to leave their homes, where they were replaced by a Castillian-speaking population.^{[citation needed]} In Murcia, the Moorish population converted to Christianity, and managed to avoid direct conflict with the Inquisition in the 16th and 17th century.^{[citation needed]}

Eight official subvariants of Murcian Spanish exist today, some of them defined solely by administrative borders of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, as variants of Murcian are also spoken in the regions of Almería, Granada and Jaen.

Some debate exists as to whether Murcian is a dialect of Spanish, or a separate language (such as Catalan). The Real Academia Española considers Murcian to be a dialect based on Aragonese, whereas the Institut d'Estudis Catalan and the [AVL]^{[citation needed]} consider it to have evolved as a transitional dialect between Valencian and Castillian Spanish. Conversely, the Murcian cultural organisation L'Ajuntaera holds that Murcian is a language its own right.