Aragonese language

Aragonese
aragonés
Spoken in
Region  Aragon
Total speakers 10,000 (30,000 total)
Language family Indo-European
Official status
Official language in None
Regulated by none yet
Language codes
ISO 639-1 an
ISO 639-2 arg 
Ethnologue 14th edition: AXX
ISO 639-3 arg
Linguasphere
Language distribution in Aragon (Aragonese in red). Spanish is spoken across the whole area, but the yellow-green part of Aragon is monolingually Spanish-speaking.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Aragonese (pronounced /ˌærəɡɒˈniːz/ in English, aragonés in Spanish) is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon. It is also colloquially known as fabla (literally, "speech") and is the only remaining speech form derived from medieval Navarro-Aragonese languages.

Contents

History

Aragonese originated around the eighth 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 farther 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 twelfth 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 Navarro-Aragonese in the west. The Aragonese reconquista to the south ended in the kingdom of Murcia, which was ceded by James I of Aragon to the Kingdom of Castile as a dowry for an Aragonese princess.

The spread of Castilian, now more commonly known as Spanish, and the Castilian origin of 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 fifteenth century: Ferdinand I of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera.

The mutual union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile 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 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, Graus, Monzón, Barbastro, Bielsa, Chistén, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla, Benasque, Campo, Sabiñánigo, Jaca, Plan, Ansó, Ayerbe, Broto, and El Grado.

Aragonese is also learnt as a second language by other inhabitants of the country in areas like Huesca, Zaragoza, Ejea de los Caballeros, and Teruel. According to recent polls, altogether they only make up around 10,000 active speakers and about 30,000 passive speakers.

There are about 25-30 dialectal variants of Aragonese, the majority of which are in the province of Huesca, due to its mountainous terrain where natural isoglosses have developed around valley enclaves, and where, not surprisingly, the highest incidence of spoken Aragonese is found. Ribagorçan, is one such variant: an eastern Aragonese dialect, which is transitional to Gascon, Occitan, Catalan, and Spanish.

Phonological characteristics

Some historical traits of the Aragonese language:

Orthography

Contemporary Aragonese has two orthographic standards:

In 2006, an Academia de l'Aragonés was established but, as of 2008, it had not decided on a single orthographic standard. Other organizations that want to standardize the language are the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa and the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa

In the sixteenth century, Aragonese Moriscoes wrote some texts in Arabic writing as Andalusi Arabic was forgotten or forbidden.

Grammar

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

Pronouns

Aragonese, preserves the system of clitic pronouns derived from the Latin forms 'inde' and 'ibi', as 'en/ne' and 'bi/i/ie'.

This feature is shared with other Romance languages (Catalan, Occitan, French, Italian), and makes Aragonese different from other Ibero-Romance languages without those clitics (Spanish, Asturian, Portuguese).

'En/ne' is used for:

'Bi/i/ie' is used for:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Normas graficas de l'aragonés

External links

Dialects and varieties of Aragonese
Western Aragonese
Ansó Aragonese • Hecho Aragonese • Aragüés Aragonese • Aisinian Aragonese • Jaca Aragonese
Central Aragonese
Tierra de Biescas Aragonese • Acumuer Valley Aragonese • Vió Valley Aragonese • Puértolas Valley Aragonese • Ribera de Fiscal Aragonese • Sierra Ferrera Aragonese • Belsetan Aragonese • Bergotese • Serrablese • Sobrepuerto Aragonese • Tella Valley Aragonese • Tensinian Aragonese (Panticutian Aragonese)
Eastern Aragonese
Chistau Valley Aragonese
La Fueva Aragonese
Ribagorçan
Upper Ribargorçan or Benasquese
High Benasquese • Low Benasquese
Middle Ribagorçan
Campese
Low Ribagorçan
Graus Aragonese • Estadilla Aragonese • Fonz Aragonese
Southern Aragonese
Ayerbe Somontanese • Somontano de Blabastro Aragonese or Somontanese • (Navalese) • Old Sobrarbe Aragonese
Other Aragonese varieties
Judeo-Aragonese† • Navarrese† • Precastilian Riojan†
Romance languages
Italics indicate extinct languages; bold indicates languages with more than 5 million speakers.