Aragonese language

Aragonese ( /ˌærəɡɒˈniːz/; [aɾaɡoˈnes] in Aragonese) 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, Spain. It is the only remaining speech form derived from medieval Navarro-Aragonese languages.

Denomination

The most common denomination of the language is aragonés (Aragonese) as it is known both locally and internationally.

The filologic tradition uses the term Navarro-Aragonese to refer to the medieval stage of the language, as is used with other composed terms such as Astur-Leonese.

Popularly, it has been referred to by the name of each local variety (Cheso, Belsetán, etc.), because of the fragmentation suffered along centuries.

Fabla (Speech) is an informal denomination, very popular during the 20th century.

History

Aragonese originated in the early middle ages, 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; Catalan continued to be spoken in the east, and Navarro-Aragonese in the west, although with blurred limits because of dialectal continuity. 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 Trastámara 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.

In 2009 the Languages Act of Aragon gives recognition of "native language, original and historic" of Aragon, therefore there are a number of linguistic rights, as the utilization of aragonese language in the public administrations of Aragon.^[1]

Phonology

Phonological characteristics

Aragonese has many historical traits that join it to Catalan rather than Spanish. Some of these are conservative features that are also shared with Astur-Leonese and Portuguese, where Spanish innovated in ways that did not spread to nearby languages.

Traits shared with Catalan

• Romance initial F- is preserved, e.g. FILIUM > fillo ("son", Sp. hijo, Cat. fill, Pt. filho).

• Romance yod (GE-, GI-, I-) consistently became medieval [dʒ], as in medieval Catalan and Portuguese. This becomes modern ch [tʃ], as a result of the devoicing of sibilants (see below). In Spanish, the medieval result was either [dʒ] (modern [x]), [ʝ] or nothing, depending on the context. E.g. IUVENEM > choven ("young man", Sp. joven /ˈxoβen/, Cat. jove /ˈʒoβǝ/), GELARE > chelar ("to freeze", Sp. helar /eˈlaɾ/, Cat. gelar /ʒǝˈlaɾ/).

• Romance groups -LT-, -CT- result in [jt], e.g. FACTUM > feito ("done", Sp. hecho, Cat. fet, Gal./Port. feito), MULTUM > muito ("many"/"much", Sp. mucho, Cat. molt, Gal. moito, Port. muito).

• Romance groups -X-, -PS-, SCj- result in voiceless palatal fricative ix [ʃ], e.g. COXU > coixo ("crippled", Sp. cojo, Cat. coix).

• Romance groups -Lj-, -C'L-, -T'L- result in palatal lateral ll [ʎ], e.g. MULIERE > muller ("woman", Sp. mujer, Cat. muller), ACUT'LA > agulla ("needle", Sp. aguja, Cat. agulla).

Traits shared partly with Catalan, partly with Spanish

• Open O, E from Romance result systematically in diphthongs [we], [je], e.g. VET'LA > viella ("old woman", Sp. vieja, Cat. vella). This includes before a yod, e.g. octō > ueito ("eight", Sp. ocho, Cat. vuit). Spanish diphthongizes except before yod, while Catalan diphthongizes only before yod.

• Loss of final unstressed -E but not -O, e.g. GRANDE > gran ("big"), FACTUM > feito ("done"). Catalan loses both -O and -E; Spanish preserves -O, and sometimes -E.

Traits shared with Spanish but not Catalan

• Former voiced sibilants become voiceless ([z] > [s], [dʒ] > [tʃ]).

Conservative traits not found in either Spanish or Catalan

• Latin -B- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: teneba, teniba ("he had", Sp. tenía, Cat. tenia), dormiba ("he was sleeping", Sp. dormía, Cat. dormia).

• High Aragonese dialects (alto aragonés), along with some dialects of Gascon, have preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. CLETAM > cleta ("sheep hurdle", Cat. cleda, Fr. claie), CUCULLIATAM > cocullata ("crested lark", Sp. cogujada, Cat. cogullada).

• A few Aragonese dialects maintain Latin -ll- as geminate /ll/.

Vowels

Consonants

Orthography

In 2010, the Academia de l'Aragonés, formed in 2006, has established a single orthographic standard in order to modernize medieval orthography and look for a more etymological language. This new orthography is used by the Aragonese Wikipedia.^[2]

Previously, Aragonese had two orthographic standards:

• The grafía de Uesca codified in 1987 by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa (CFA) at a convention in Huesca (Aragonese: Uesca) is used by a majority of Aragonese writers. It uses a more uniform system when assigning letters to phonemes with less regard to the etymology of a word. For example, words traditionally written with "v" and "b" are uniformly written with "b" in the Uesca system. Likewise "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are all written "ch". In addition, the orthography uses letters more strongly associated with Spanish (e.g., "ñ").^[3]
• The grafía SLA devised in 2004 by the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa (SLA) is used by a minority of Aragonese writers. It uses more etymological-based forms that are closer to Catalan, Occitan, and medieval Aragonese sources. With the SLA system, "v" and "b" and "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are distinct forms and "ny" is used instead of "ñ".

In the sixteenth century, Aragonese Moriscoes wrote some Romance texts in Arabic writing, probably because of their inability to write in Arabic; the language in these texts shows a mixture of Aragonese and Castilian traits, and they can be considered among the last written examples of the Aragonese formerly spoken in Central and Southern Aragón. ^[4]

Grammar

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

Article

Definite article

Definite article in Aragonese has suffered certain changes that have become characteristics of dialectal differenciation. The oldest ones are lo, los, la, las and the most widespread are o, a, os, as^[6].

Lexicology

Aragonese lexicology shows the origin of Aragonese words from different languages that have influenced it.

The influence of other Romance languages on Aragonese is evident, especially from neighboring languages. Catalan and Occitan influenced Medieval Aragonese, and the Catalan influence continued, under the Crown of Aragon, in the territory where the languages are in contact (Ribagorça), a fact that explains the main characteristics of Eastern Aragonese. Since the 15th century, the Romance language that has influenced Aragonese the most is Spanish, having been adopted in almost all of Aragon as the first language and reducing Aragonese to the Pirineos.

Another Romance language with certain influence is French, the only official language in the neighboring country. Italian loans have come through other languages such as Catalan, and words from Portuguese, through Spanish.

Germanic words came through the conquest of Germanic peoples in the 5th century.

Aragonese has also loans from Arabic and Mozarabic languages due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century. Arabic has brought words from other languages such as Persian and Sanskrit.

Finally, English, with its international importance, has introduced a lot of new words into the language.

Gender

Words that derive from the second declension or assimilated to the second conjugation are usually masculine:

• FILIU(M) > fillo.

• SCIURU + OLU(M) > esquiruelo.

Words derivated from the first declension are usually feminine:

• FILIA(M) > filla

There are neutral plurals assimilated to the first declension that become feminine-gender singular:

• FOLIA(M) > fuella

Words that end in -or are feminine:

• a honor, a calor, a color, and in medieval Aragonese la amor.

Fruit trees usuarlyy end by -era, suffix derivated from Latin -ARIA and they are usually feminine:

• a perera, a manzanera, a nuquera, a castanyera, a tellera/o tilero, a olivera, a ciresera, l'almendrera

Rivers gender are variable according to the river:

• Many of them that end in -a are feminine: a Cinca/a Cinga, a Cinqueta, a Garona, L'Arba, a Noguera, a Isuela, La Uecha, La Uerva, etc... The last one it was called in the 16th century río de la Uerba.
• Many of them come from the second and the third declension are masculine: L'Ebro, O Galligo, O Flumen, L'Alcanadre.

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:

• Partitive object: No n'he visto como aquello (I haven't seen anything like that, literally Not (of it) I have seen like that).
• Partitive subject: En fa tanto de mal (it hurts so much, literally (of it) it causes so much of pain)
• Ablative, place where a movement starts: Se'n va ra memoria (memory goes away, literally It (away from here) memory goes)

'Bi/i/ie' is used for:

• Locative, place where: N'ibi heba uno (there was one of them), literally (Of them) there was one
• Allative, movement towards somewhere: Vés-be ((you) go there (imperative))

Dialects

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 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.

There is a proposal to classify the language varieties into four main dialects:

• Central
• Western
• Eastern
• Southern

For certains linguistics, these groups are complex dialects formed by various varieties. For other, these four groups are Aragonese dialects and Hecho Aragonese and Chistau Valley Aragonese are comarcal varieties.

Literature

Medieval Ages

Aragonese language didn't acquire, throughout its history, prestige literature, which was acquired by other Romance language from the Iberian Peninsula.

It won't be until the 12th - 13th centuries when Aragonese starts being used in written documents. From this period, whe can featured Liber Regum'^[7] (a book of general history), Razón feita d'amor^[8] , Libre dels tres reys d'orient^[9] and Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca^{[10] [11]}.

Early modern period literature

Spanish was from 1500 the first language of culture in Aragon: a lot of Aragonese stand out writting in this language and in the 17th century Argensola brothers said to go to Castile to tech to the Castilians the language^[12].

Aragonese became a familiar and village language and each day acquired popular traces. The 16th was obscure: there is no document in Aragonese, just in Aljamia^[13]. In the 17th century appeared certain texts that used the language to characterised popular characters.

In a literary contest held in Huesca in 1650 it were presented three poems in Aragonese by Matías Pradas, Isabel de Rodas and "Fileno, montañés".

The first pastoradas come from the 16th and the 17th century.

Contemporary literature

The 19th and 20th centuries have seen a renaissance of the Aragonese literature; however, due to the lack of a standard language, authors write about local topics, each using his own variety of the language. In 1944, the novel Vida de Pedro Saputo, by Braulio Foz, appeared in Almudévar Aragonese. In the 20th century the costumbrist comedies written by Domingo Miral gained importance, as well as the poetry of Veremundo Méndez Coarasa, both in Hecho Aragonese; in Graus Aragonese, one can highlight Cleto Torrodellas' verses and Tonón de Baldomera's popular writings; in Somontano Aragonese, there are Pedro Arnal Cavero's costumbrist narrations, as well as Juana Coscujuela' novel, A Lueca, historia d'una moceta d'o Semontano.

See also

• Aragonese language literature
• Aragonese dialects
• Aragonese writing systems
• Academia de l'Aragonés

References

External links

• Academia de l'Aragonés, Cultural association.
• Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa, Cultural association and language academy.
• Ligallo de Fablans de l'Aragonés, Cultural association and language academy.
• A.C. Nogará, Cultural association and language academy.
• Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa, Cultural association.
• Aragonese language
• Ethnologue report for Aragonese
• Aragonese Language Sample
• Webster's Aragonese–English Dictionary