Valencian language

Valencian
valencià
Pronunciation	[valensiˈa, ba-]
Native to	Spain
Region	Valencia, Murcia (Carche) See also geographic distribution of Catalan
Ethnicity	Valencians
Native speakers	2.4 million (2004)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Romance Occitano-Romance Catalan Western Catalan Valencian
Writing system	Catalan orthography (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in	In Spain: Valencian Community
Regulated by	Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Valencian or Valencian language (/vəˈlɛn(t)siən, -nʃən/; endonym valencià, llengua valenciana or idioma valencià [valensiˈa, ba-]) is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and extra-officially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan. The Valencian Community's 1982 Statute of Autonomy and the Spanish Constitution officially recognise Valencian as the regional language.

As a glottonym, it is used for referring either to the language as a whole or to the Valencian specific linguistic forms. According to philological studies, the varieties of this language spoken in the Valencian Community and El Carche cannot be considered a dialect restricted to these borders: the several dialects of Valencian (Alicante's Valencian, Southern Valencian, Central Valencian or Apitxat, Castellón's Valencian and transitional Valencian) belong to the Western group of Catalan dialects. Valencian displays transitional features between Ibero-Romance languages and Gallo-Romance languages. Its similarity with Occitan has led many authors to group it under the Occitano-Romance languages.

There is a political controversy within the Valencian Community regarding its status as a glottonym or as a language on its own, since official reports show that slightly more than half of the people in the Valencian Community consider it as a separate language, different from Catalan, although the same studies show that this percentage decreases dramatically among younger generations and people with higher studies. According to the 2006 Statute of Autonomy Valencian is regulated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, by means of the Castelló rules, which adapt the Catalan orthography to the Valencian idiosyncrasies. Due to not having been officially recognised for a long time, the number of speakers has severely decreased, and the influence of Spanish has led to the adoption of a huge amount of loanwords.

Some of the most important works of Valencian literature experienced a golden age during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Important works include Joanot Martorell's chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanch, and Ausiàs March's poetry. The first book produced with movable type in the Iberian Peninsula was printed in the Valencian variety. The earliest recorded chess game with modern rules for moves of the queen and bishop was in the Valencian poem Scachs d'amor (1475).

Official status

The official status of Valencian is regulated by the Spanish Constitution and the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, together with the Law of Use and Education of Valencian.

Article 6 of the Valencian Statute of Autonomy sets the legal status of Valencian, providing that:

• The official language of the Valencian Community is Valencian.
• Valencian is official within the Valencian Community, along with Spanish, which is the official language nationwide. Everyone shall have the right to know it and use it, and receive education in Valencian.
• No one can be discriminated against by reason of their language.
• Special protection and respect shall be given to the recuperation of Valencian.
• The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua shall be the normative institution of the Valencian language.

The Law of Use and Education of Valencian develops this framework, providing for implementation of a bilingual educational system, and regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both.

Valencian is recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages as "Valencian".

Distribution and usage

Distribution

Valencian is not spoken all over the Valencian Community. Roughly a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10% of the population (its inland part and areas in the extreme south as well), is traditionally Castilian-speaking only, whereas Valencian is spoken to varying degrees elsewhere.

Additionally, it is also spoken by a reduced number of people in Carche, a rural area in the Region of Murcia adjoining the Valencian Community; nevertheless Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area. Although the Valencian language was an important part of the history of this zone, nowadays only about 600 people are able to speak Valencian in the area of Carche.

Knowledge and usage

Knowledge of Valencian according to the 2001 census. Note that the light green areas inland and in the southernmost part are not historically Valencian speaking (large).

In 2010 the Generalitat Valenciana published a study, Knowledge and Social use of Valencian, which included a survey sampling more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante. The survey simply collected the answers of respondents and did not include any testing or verification. The results were:

Valencian was the language "always, generally, or most commonly used":

• at home: 31.6%
• with friends: 28.0%
• in internal business relations: 24.7%

For ability:

• 48.5% answered they speak Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (54.3% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 10% in the Castilian-speaking areas)
• 26.2% answered they write Valencian "perfectly" or "quite well" (29.5% in the Valencian-speaking areas and 5.8% in the Castilian-speaking areas)

The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Valencian Community, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually speak in Valencian in their social relations. The statistics hide the fact that in the areas where the language is still strong, most people use Valencian in preference to Castilian in all everyday situations.

Moreover, according to a survey in 2008, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and Alicante, where the percentage of everyday speakers is in single figures. All in all, in the 1993–2006 period, the number of speakers fell by 10 per cent. One of the factors cited is the increase in the numbers of immigrants from other countries, who tend to favour using Spanish over local languages; accordingly, the number of residents who claim no understanding of Valencian sharply increased. One curiosity in the heartlands mentioned above, is that most of the children of immigrants go to public school and are therefore taught in Valencian and are far more comfortable speaking this with their friends. However, some children of Valencian speakers go to private schools run by the Church where the curriculum is in Castilian and consequently this becomes their preferred language.

Features of Valencian

Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian as a group of dialectal varieties that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central variety of the language. For more general information on the features of Valencian, see Catalan language. There is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version.

Phonology

Main article: Catalan phonology

Vowels

Vowels of Valencian, from Saborit Vilar (2009:23)

Vowels of Valencian

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Near-open / Open	ɛ	ɔ
	a

• Valencian has a system of seven stressed vowels /i, u, e, o, ɛ, ɔ, a/.
  • The vowels /i/ (i.e. [i̽]) and /u/ ([u̽]) are more open and centralised than in Castilian.
  • The vowel /e/ is retracted and /o/ is advanced both in stressed and unstressed syllables. /e/ and /o/ can be realised as mid vowels in some cases. This occurs more often with /o/.
  • The so-called "open vowels" (vocals obertes), /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, are generally as low as /a/ in most Valencian dialects. The phonetic realisations of /ɛ/ approaches [æ] (as in American English bad) and /ɔ/ is as open as [ɒ] (as in traditional RP dog). This feature is also found in Balearic.
    • /ɛ/ is slightly more open and centralised before liquids /l, r/ and in monosyllabics.
    • /ɔ/ is most often a back vowel. In some dialects (including Balearic) it can be unrounded like in American English.
  • The vowel /a/ is slightly more fronted and closed than in Central Catalan (but less fronted and closed than in Majorcan). The precise phonetic realisation of the vowel /a/ in Valencian is [ɐ ~ ä], this vowel is subject to assimilation in many instances.
    • /a/ can be retracted in contact with velar consonants, and fronted in contact with palatals.
    • Final unstressed /a/ may be [ɐ ~ ä], depending on the preceding sounds and/or dialect, e.g. taula [ˈtɑ̟wɫɐ ~ ˈtɑ̟wɫä] 'table'.
  • All vowels are phonetically nasalised between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal.
  • Vowels can be lengthened in some contexts.
• While unstressed vowels are more stable than in Eastern Catalan dialects, there are many cases where they merge
  • In some Valencian subvarieties, unstressed /o/ and /ɔ/ are realised as [ʊ] before labial consonants (e.g. coberts [kʊˈbæ̈ɾ(t)s] 'cutlery'), before a stressed syllable with a high vowel (e.g. sospira [sʊsˈpiɾä] or [sʊsˈpiɾæ̈] 'he/she sighs'), in contact with palatal consonants (e.g. Josep [dʒʊˈzæp] 'Joseph') and in monosyllabic clitics (e.g. mon [mʊn] 'my') (note also in many colloquial speeches initial unstressed /o ~ ɔ/ are often reduced to [ɑ̈w] or [äw] (also [ʊ] in fewer cases), such as olor [ɑ̈wˈɫo̞ɾ]) 'smell (n)'). Similarly, unstressed /e/, and /ɛ/ are realised as [a] in contact with palatals, approximants or before certain sounds (e.g. eixam [ajˈʃam] 'swarm', clevill [kɫaˈʋiʎ] 'crevice', terròs [taˈrɒ̈s] 'clod',) and ([ɑ̈] or [ä])) in fewer cases near velars (e.g. enclusa [ɑ̈ŋˈkɫuzɑ̈] or [ɑ̈ŋˈkɫuzæ̈] 'anvil'). Likewise, unstressed /e ~ ɛ/ merges with /i/ ([ɪ]) in contact with palatal consonants (e.g. genoll [dʒɪˈno̞ʎ] 'knee'), and especially in lexical derivation with the suffix -ixement to -iximent (e.g. coneiximent [konejʃiˈment] 'knowledge').^[1]
  • Many Valencian subdialects, especially Southern Valencian, feature some sort of vowel harmony (harmonia vocàlica). This process is normally progressive (i.e. preceding vowels affect those pronounced afterwards) over the last unstressed vowel of a word; e.g. hora /ˈɔɾa/ > [ˈɒɾɒ̈] 'hour'. However, there are cases where regressive metaphony occurs over pretonic vowels; e.g. tovallola /tovaˈʎɔla/ > [tɒ̈ʋɒ̈ˈʎɒɫɒ̈] 'towel', afecta /aˈfɛkta/ > [æ̈ˈfæktæ̈] 'affects'. Vowel harmony differs greatly from dialect to dialect, while many subvarieties alternate [æ̈] and [ɒ̈], according to the previous stressed vowel (e.g. terra [ˈtæræ̈] 'Earth, land' and dona [ˈdɒnɒ̈] 'woman'); others will favor just one realisation (either [æ̈] in all, or some, instances; or [ɒ̈]), thus, terra and dona can be pronounced [ˈtæræ̈] and [ˈdɒnæ̈] (by those who favour [æ̈]) or [ˈtærɒ̈] and [ˈdɒnɒ̈] (by those who favour [ɒ̈]).
    • In a wider sense, vowel harmony can occur in further instances, due to different processes involving palatalisation, velarisarion and labialisation.
  • An epethentic vowel (usually pronounced [ɐ] or [ɜ], but transcribed here as [ə]) may be inserted in some environments in the coda in some accents:
    • Eh tu! Vine ací [ˈeː ˈtuːə̯ | ˈvine äˈsiːə̯] "Hey you! Come here".

In the table below, the vowels are transcribed in a very narrow transcription. In the rest of the article, the symbols [a̠, ɑ̝, ɑ̝̈, ɒ̝̈, e̠, ɪ̞, i̞, ɒ̝, o̟, ʊ̞, u̞] are written [a, ɑ, ɑ̈, ɒ̈, e, ɪ, i, ɒ, o, ʊ, u] for the sake of simplicity.

Main vocalic allophones

Phoneme	Phone / Allophone	Usage	Example
/a/	[ä] / [ɐ] [a̝] / [a̠] [ɑ̝] / [ɑ̝̈] [æ̈ ~ ɒ̝̈] / [a̠] / [ɑ̝̈]	– Found in most instances – Before/after palatals (*) – Before/after velars – Final unstressed syllables (vowel harmony) (*)	mà llamp poal terra / dona
/ɛ/	[æ] [æ̈]	– Found in most cases (*) – Before liquids and in monosyllabic terms	tesi set
/e/	[e̠] / [e̞] [a̠] [ɑ̝̈] [ɪ̞]	– Found in most instances – Found in some unstressed syllables near palatals or approximants (vowel harmony) (*) – Found in fewer cases in some unstressed syllables near velars (vowel harmony) (*) – Found in the suffix -ixement, dial. also in contact with palatals (*).	sec eixam entenc naixement
/i/	[i̞] / [ï] [j]	– Found in most instances – Unstressed position before/after vowels	sis iogurt
/ɔ/	[ɒ̝]	– Found in most cases (*)	dona poc
/o/	[o̟] [o̞] [ʊ̞]	– Found in most instances – Found in final stressed syllables, especially in the suffix -dor – Unstressed position before labials or in contact with palatals (*)	molt cançó Josep
/u/	[u̞] / [ü] [w]	– Found in most instances – Unstressed position before/after vowels	suc meua

Consonants

Consonants of Valencian

	Bilabial/ Labiodental		Dental/ Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n		ɲ
Stop	p	b	t	d			k	ɡ
Affricate			ts	dz	tʃ	dʒ
Fricative	f	v	s	z
Approximant						j		w
Lateral				l		ʎ
Flap				ɾ
Trill				r

• The voiced stops /d, ɡ/ are lenited to approximants [ð, ɣ] after a continuant, i.e. a vowel or any type of consonant other than a stop or nasal (exceptions include /d/ after lateral consonants). These sounds are realised as voiceless plosives in the coda in standard Valencian.
  • /b/ can also be lenited in betacist dialects.
  • /d/ is often elided between vowels following a stressed syllable (found notably in feminine participles); e.g. fideuà [fiðeˈwɑ̈ː] ( < fideuada) ' fideuà'.
  • Unlike other Catalan dialects, the clusters /bl/ and /ɡl/ never geminate or fortify in intervocalic position (e.g. poble [ˈpɒbɫe] 'village').
• The velar stops /k/, /ɡ/ are fronted to pre-velar position before front vowels.
• Valencian has preserved in most of its subvarieties the mediaeval voiced alveolo-palatal affricate /dʒ/ (similar to the j in English "jeep") in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricative consonants /ʒ/ (like the si in English "vision"); this is a feature shared with modern Ribagorçan. Nonetheless, the fricative [ʒ] may appear as a voiced allophone of /ʃ/ before vowels and voiced consonants; e.g. peix al forn [ˈpejʒ ɑ̈ɫ ˈfo̞ɾn] 'oven fish' (literally 'fish to the oven').
• /v/ occurs in Balearic, Alguerese, standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia. It has merged with /b/ elsewhere.
• Deaffrication of /dz/ in verbs ending in -itzar; e.g. analitzar [ɑ̈nɑ̈ɫiˈzɑ̈ɾ] 'to analise'.
• Most subvarieties of Valencian preserve final stops in clusters (e.g. /mp/, /nt/, /nk/ ([ŋk]), and /lt/): camp [kɑ̈mp] (a feature shared with modern Balearic). Dialectally, all final clusters can be simplified.
• /l/ is normally velarised ([ɫ]), save for some dialects.
  • /l/ is generally dropped in the word altre ([ˈɑ̈tɾe] 'other'), as well as in derived terms.

Morphology

• The present first-person singular of verbs differs from Central Catalan. All those forms without final -o are more akin to mediaeval Catalan and contemporary Balearic Catalan.

Comparison of present first-person singular with Central Catalan

Stem	Infinitive		Present first person singular
	Catalan	English	Valencian		Central		English
				IPA		IPA
-ar	parlar	to speak	parle	[ˈpaɾ.le]	parlo	[ˈpar.lu]	I speak
-re	batre	to beat	bat	[ˈbat]	bato	[ˈba.tu]	I beat
-er	témer	to fear	tem	[ˈtem]	temo	[ˈte.mu]	I fear
-ir	sentir	to feel	sent	[ˈseŋk]	sento	[sen'tu]	I feel
inchoative -ir	patir	to suffer	patisc	[paˈtisk]	pateixo	[pəˈte.ʃu]	I suffer
			patesc	[pəˈtesk]

• Present subjunctive is more akin to mediaeval Catalan and Spanish; -ar infinitives end ⟨e⟩, -re, -er and -ir verbs end in ⟨a⟩ (in contemporary Central Catalan present subjunctive ends in ⟨i⟩).
• An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme -ra: que ell vinguera ('that he might come').
• Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for inchoative verbs of the third conjugation; e.g. servix ('s/he serves'), like North-Western Catalan. Although, again, this cannot be generalised since there are Valencian subdialects that utilize -ei-, e.g. serveix.
• In Valencian the simple past tense (e.g. cantà 'he sang') is more frequently used in speech than in Central Catalan, where the periphrastic past (e.g. va cantar 'he sang') is prevailing and the simple past mostly appears in written language. The same, however, may be said of the Balearic dialects.
• The second-person singular of the present tense of the verb ser ('to be'), ets ('you are'), has been replaced by eres in colloquial speech.

Clitics

• In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els 'the') and the third-person unstressed object pronouns (el, els 'him, them'), though some subdialects (for instance the one spoken in Vinaròs area) preserve etymological forms lo, los as in Lleida. For the other unstressed object pronouns, etymological old forms (me, te, se, ne, mos, vos...) can be found, depending on places, in conjunction with the more modern reinforced ones (em, et, es, en, ens, us...).
  • Several variations for nosaltres, vosaltres ('we, you'): mosatros, moatros, natros; vosatros, voatros, vatros; also for the weak form mos/-mos instead of standard ens/-nos ('us').
• The adverbial pronoun hi ('there') is almost never used in speech and is replaced by other pronouns. The adverbial pronoun en ('him/her/them/it') is used less than in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.
• Combined weak clitics with li ('him/her/it') preserve the li, whereas in Central Catalan it is replaced by hi. For example, the combination li + el gives li'l in Valencian (l'hi in Central Catalan).
• The weak pronoun ho ('it') is pronounced as [ew] more often than in other dialects, especially when coming after another pronoun (e.g. m'ho dóna [mew ˈðona], dóna-m'ho [ˈdonamew] 's/he gives it to me'). However, when preceding a verb on its own it is pronounced as [u]: ho dóna [u ˈðona] 's/he gives it'. Moreover, after a verb ending in a vowel it is pronounced as [w] (e.g. dóna-ho [ˈdonaw] 'you give it'); while, when following a verb ending with a consonant it is pronounced as [o]: donar-ho [doˈnaɾo] 'to give it'.
• The personal pronoun jo ('I') and the adverb ja ('already') are not pronounced according to the spelling, but to the etymology ([ˈjɒ] and [ˈja], instead of /ˈ(d)ʒɔ/ and /ˈ(d)ʒa/). Similar pronunciations can be heard in North-Western Catalan and Ibizan.
• The preposition amb ('with') merges with en ('in') in most Valencian subdialects.
• Valencian preserves the mediaeval system of demonstratives with three different levels of demonstrative precision (este or aquest/açò/ací, eixe or aqueix/això/ahí, aquell/allò/allí or allà, where aquest and aqueix are almost never used) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan and Tortosí).

Vocabulary

Valencian vocuabulary contains words both restricted to the Valencian-speaking domain, as well as words shared with other Catalan varieties, especially with Northwestern ones. Words are rarely spread evenly over the Valencian community, but are usually contained to parts of it, or spread out into other dialectal areas. Examples include hui 'today' (found in all of Valencia except transitional dialects, in Northern dialects avui) and espill 'mirror' (shared with Northwestern dialects, Central Catalan mirall). There is also variation within Valencia, such as 'corn', which is dacsa in Central and Southern Valencian, but panís in Alicante and Northern Valencian (as well as in Northwestern Catalan). Since Standard Valencian is based on the Southern dialect, words from this dialect are often used as primary forms in the standard language, despite other words traditionally being used in other Valencian dialects. Examples of this are tomaca 'tomato' (which is tomata outside of Southern Valencian) and matalaf 'mattress' (which is matalap in most of Valencia, including parts of the Southern Valencian area).

Below are a selection of words which differ or have different forms in Standard Valencian and Catalan. In many cases, both standards include this variation in their respective dictionaries, but differ as to what form is considered primary. In other cases, Valencian includes colloquial forms not present in the IEC standard. Primary forms in each standard are shown in bold (and may be more than one form). Words in brackets are present in the standard in question, but differ in meaning from how the cognate is used in the other standard.

Standard Valencian (AVL)	Standard Catalan (IEC)	English
així, aixina	així	like this
bresquilla, préssec	préssec, (bresquilla)	peach
creïlla, patata	patata, creïlla	potato
dènou, dèneu, dinou	dinou, dènou	nineteen
dos, dues	dues, dos	two (feminine gender)
eixe, aqueix	aqueix, eixe	that
eixir, sortir	sortir, eixir	to exit, leave
engrunsadora, gronxador, gronxadora	gronxador, gronxadora	swing
espill, mirall	mirall, espill	mirror
este, aquest	aquest, este	this
estrela, estel, estrella	estel, estrela, estrella	star
hòmens, homes	homes	men (plural)
hui, avui	avui, hui	today
huit, vuit	vuit, huit	eight
lluny, llunt	lluny	far
meló d'alger, meló d'aigua, síndria	síndria, meló d'aigua, meló d'Alger	watermelon
meua, meva  teua, teva  seua, seva	meva, meua  teva, teua  seva, seua	my, mine  your(s)  his/her(s)/its
mitat, meitat	meitat, mitat	half
palometa, papallona	papallona, palometa	butterfly
per favor	si us plau, per favor	please
periodista, periodiste (-a)	periodista	journalist
polp, pop	pop, polp	octopus
quint, cinqué	cinquè, quint	fifth
rabosa, guineu	guineu, rabosa	fox
roín, dolent	dolent, (roí)	bad, evil
roig, vermell	vermell, roig	red
sext, sisé	sisè, sext	sixth
tindre, tenir	tenir, tindre	to have
tomaca, tomàquet, tomata	tomàquet, tomaca, tomata	tomato
veure, vore	veure	to see
vindre, venir	venir, vindre	to come
xicotet, petit	petit, xicotet	small

Varieties of Valencian

Standard Valencian

The Academy of Valencian Studies (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL), established by law in 1998 by the Valencian autonomous government and constituted in 2001, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian. Currently, the majority of people who write in Valencian use this standard.

Standard Valencian is based on the standard of the Institute of Catalan Studies (Institut d'Estudis Catalans, IEC), used in Catalonia, with a few adaptations. This standard roughly follows the Rules of Castelló (Normes de Castelló) from 1932, a set of othographic guidelines regarded as a compromise between the essence and style of Pompeu Fabra's guidelines, but also allowing the use of Valencian idiosyncrasies.

Valencian subdialects

Subdialects of Valencian

• Transitional Valencian (valencià de transició or tortosí): spoken only in the northernmost areas of the province of Castellón in towns like Benicarló or Vinaròs, the area of Matarranya in Aragon (province of Teruel), and a southern border area of Catalonia surrounding Tortosa, in the province of Tarragona.
  • Word-initial and postconsonantal /dʒ/ (Catalan /ʒ/ and /dʒ/~/ʒ/) alternates with [(j)ʒ] intervocalically; e.g. joc [ˈdʒɒk] 'game', but pitjor [piˈʒo] 'worse', boja [ˈbɒjʒa] 'crazy' (Standard Valencian /ˈdʒɔk/, /piˈdʒoɾ/; /ˈbɔdʒa/; Standard Catalan /ˈʒɔk/, /piˈdʒo/ and /ˈbɔʒə/).
  • Final ⟨r⟩ [ɾ] isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] (instead of /kanˈtaɾ/) 'to sing'.
  • Archaic articles lo, los ('the') are used instead of el, els; e.g. lo xic 'the boy', los hòmens 'the men'.
• Northern Valencian (valencià septentrional or castellonenc): spoken in an area surrounding the city of Castellón de la Plana.
  • Use of [e] sound instead of standard ⟨a⟩ /a/ in the third person singular of most verbs; e.g. (ell) cantava [ˈkantave] (instead of /kanˈtava/) 'he sang'. Thus, Northern Valencian dialects contrast forms like (jo) cantava [kanˈtava] 'I sang' with (ell) cantava [kanˈtave] 'he sang', but merges (jo) cante [ˈkante] 'I sing' with (ell) canta [ˈkante] 'he sings'.
  • Palatalization of ⟨ts⟩ /ts/ > [tʃ] and ⟨tz⟩ /dz/ > [dʒ]; e.g. pots /ˈpots/ > [ˈpotʃ] 'cans, jars, you can', dotze /ˈdodze/ > [ˈdodʒe] 'twelve'.
  • Depalatalization of /ʃ/ to [sʲ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkajʃa] > [ˈkajsʲa] 'box'.
• Central Valencian (valencià central or apitxat), spoken in Valencia city and its area, but not used as standard by the Valencian media.
  • Sibilant merger: all voiced sibilants are devoiced (/dʒ/ > [tʃ], /dz/ > [ts], /z/ > [s]); that is, apitxat pronounces casa [ˈkasa] ('house') and joc [ˈtʃɒk] ('game'), where other Valencians would pronounce /ˈkaza/ and /ˈdʒɔk/ (feature shared with Ribagorçan).
  • Betacism, that is the merge of /v/ into /b/; e.g. viu [ˈbiw] (instead of /ˈviw/) 'he lives'.
  • Fortition (gemination) and vocalisation of final consonants; nit [ˈnitːë] (instead of /ˈnit/) 'night'.
  • It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past (periphrastic past) with vadere + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan and Valencian variants. For example, aní instead of vaig anar 'I went'.
• Southern Valencian (valencià meridional): spoken in the contiguous comarques located in the southernmost part of the Valencia province and the northernmost part in the province of Alicante. This subdialect is considered as Standard Valencian.
  • Vowel harmony: the final syllable of a disyllabic word adopts a preceding open ⟨e⟩ [æ] or ⟨o⟩ [ɒ] if the final vowel is an unstressed -⟨a⟩ or -⟨e⟩; e.g. terra [ˈtæræ] ('earth, land'), dona [ˈdɒnɒ] ('woman').
  • This subdialect retain geminate consonants (⟨tl⟩ /lː/ and ⟨tn⟩ /nː/); e.g. guatla [ˈɡwalːa] 'quail', cotna [ˈkonːa] 'rind'.
  • Weak pronouns are "reinforced" in front of the verb (em, en, et, es, etc.) contrary to other subdialects which maintains "full form" (me, ne, te, se, etc.).
• Alicante Valencian (valencià alacantí): spoken in the southern half of the province of Alicante, and the area of Carche in Murcia.
  • Intervocalic /d/ elision in most instances; e.g. roda [ˈrɒa] 'wheel', nadal [naˈal] 'Christmas'.
  • Yod is not pronounced in ⟨ix⟩ /jʃ/ > [ʃ]; e.g. caixa [ˈkaʃa] 'box'.
  • Final ⟨r⟩ isn't pronounced in infinitives; e.g. cantar [kanˈta] 'to sing'.
  • There are some archaisms like: ans instead of abans 'before', manco instead of menys 'less', dintre instead of dins 'into' or devers instead of cap a 'towards'.
  • There are more interferences with Spanish than other dialects: assul (from azul) instead of blau (or atzur) 'blue', llimpiar (from limpiar) instead of netejar 'to clean' or sacar (from sacar) instead of traure 'take out'.

Authors and literature

Middle Ages

• Misteri d'Elx (c. 1350). Liturgical drama. Listed as Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Renaissance

• Ausiàs March (Gandia, 1400 – Valencia, 3 March 1459). Poet, widely read in renaissance Europe.
• Joanot Martorell (Gandia, 1413–1468). Knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch.
• Isabel de Villena (Valencia, 1430–1490). Religious poet.
• Joan Roís de Corella (Gandia or Valencia, 1435 – Valencia, 1497). Knight and poet.
• Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge Maria (1474) The first book printed in Spain. It is the compendium of a religious poetry contest held that year in the town of Valencia.

Media in Valencian

Main article: Ràdio Televisió Valenciana

Employees demonstrate in front of the RTVV headquarters in Burjassot the day of its closure

Until its dissolution in November 2013, the public-service Ràdio Televisió Valenciana (RTVV) was the main broadcaster of radio and television in Valencian language. The Generalitat Valenciana constituted it in 1984 in order to guarantee the freedom of information of the Valencian people in their own language. It was reopened again in 2018 in the same location but under a different name, À Punt, and it's owned by À Punt Media, a group owned by the Generalitat Valenciana. The new television channel claims to be plural, informative and neutral for all of the Valencian population. It's bilingual, with a focus on the Valencian language. It's recognised as a regional TV channel.

Prior to its dissolution, the administration of RTVV under the People's Party (PP) had been controversial due to accusations of ideological manipulation and lack of plurality. The news broadcast was accused of giving marginal coverage of the Valencia Metro derailment in 2006 and the indictment of President de la Generalitat Francisco Camps in the Gürtel scandal in 2009. Supervisors appointed by the PP were accused of sexual harassment.

In face of an increasing debt due to excessive expenditure by the PP, RTVV announced in 2012 a plan to shed 70% of its labour. The plan was nullified on 5 November 2013 by the National Court after trade unions appealed against it. On that same day, the President de la Generalitat Alberto Fabra (also from PP) announced RTVV would be closed, claiming that reinstating the employees was untenable. On 27 November, the legislative assembly passed the dissolution of RTVV and employees organised to take control of the broadcast, starting a campaign against the PP. Nou TV's last broadcast ended abruptly when Spanish police pulled the plug at 12:19 on 29 November 2013.

Having lost all revenues from advertisements and facing high costs from the termination of hundreds of contracts, critics question whether the closure of RTVV has improved the financial situation of the Generalitat, and point out to plans to benefit private-owned media. Currently, the availability of media in the Valencian language is extremely limited. All the other autonomous communities in Spain, including the monolingual ones, have public-service broadcasters, with the Valencian Community being the only exception despite being the fourth most populated.

On July 2016 a new public corporation, Valencian Media Corporation, was launched in substitution of RTVV. It manages and controls several public media in the Valencian Community, including the television channel À Punt, which started broadcasting on June 2018.

Politico-Linguistic controversy

Further information: Valencian language controversy, Language secessionism, Blaverism, and Anti-Catalanism

Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian community, the Valencian Language Academy (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) considers Valencian and Catalan to be two names for the same language.

[T]he historical patrimonial language of the Valencian people, from a philological standpoint, is the same shared by the autonomous communinites of Catalonia and Balearic Islands, and Principality of Andorra. Additionally, it is the patrimonial historical language of other territories of the ancient Crown of Aragon [...] The different varieties of these territories constitute a language, that is, a "linguistic system" [...] From this group of varieties, Valencian has the same hierarchy and dignity as any other dialectal modality of that linguistic system [...]

— Ruling of the Valencian Language Academy of 9 February 2005, extract of point 1.

Chronological map showing linguistic evolution of Valencian/Catalan in southwest Europe

The AVL was established in 1998 by the PP-UV government of Eduardo Zaplana. According to El País, Jordi Pujol, then president of Catalonia and of the CiU, negotiated with Zaplana in 1996 to ensure the linguistic unity of Catalan in exchange for CiU support of the appointment of José María Aznar as Prime Minister of Spain. Zaplana has denied this, claiming that "[n]ever, never, was I able to negotiate that which is not negotiable, neither that which is not in the negotiating scope of a politician. That is, the unity of the language".

The AVL orthography is based on the Normes de Castelló, a set of rules for writing Valencian established in 1932. A rival set of rules, called Normes del Puig, were established in 1979 by the association RACV (Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana), which considers itself a rival language academy to the AVL, and promotes an alternative orthography. Compared to Standard Valencian, this orthography excludes many words not traditionally used in the Valencian Country, and also prefers spellings such as ⟨ch⟩ for /tʃ/ and ⟨y⟩ for /j/ (as in Castilian).

Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the North-Western varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (Province of Lleida and most of the Province of Tarragona). The various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible (ranging from 90% to 95%)

Despite the position of the official organizations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority (65%) of the Valencian people (both Valencian and Spanish speakers) consider Valencian different from Catalan: this position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicate that younger people educated in Valencian are much less likely to hold these views. According to an official poll in 2014, 52% of Valencians considered Valencian to be a language different from Catalan, while 41% considered the languages to be the same. This poll showed significant differences regarding age and level of education, with a majority of those aged 18–24 (51%) and those with a higher education (58%) considering Valencian to be the same language as Catalan. This can be compared to those aged 65 and above (29%) and those with only primary education (32%), where the same view has its lowest support.

The ambiguity regarding the term Valencian and its relation to Catalan has sometimes led to confusion and controversy. In 2004, during the drafting of the European Constitution, the regional governments of Spain where a language other than Spanish is co-official were asked to submit translations into the relevant language in question. Since different names are used in Catalonia ("Catalan") and in the Valencian Community ("Valencian"), the two regions each provided one version, which were identical to each other.

See also

• Pluricentric language
• Valencian Sign Language
• Che (interjection) § Other uses (spelled xe in Modern Valencian)
• Similar linguistic controversies:
  • Names given to the Spanish language
  • Moldovan language
  • Occitan language
  • Serbo-Croatian
  • Comparison of Afrikaans and Dutch.

Bibliography

• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992). "Catalan". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 22 (1–2): 53. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Colomina i Castanyer, Jordi, (1995). Els valencians i la llengua normativa. Textos universitaris. Alicante: Institut de Cultura "Juan Gil-Albert". ISBN 84-7784-178-0.
• Costa Carreras, Joan; Yates, Alan (2009). The Architect of Modern Catalan: Selected Writings/Pompeu Fabra (1868–1948). Instutut d'Estudis Catalans & Universitat Pompeu Fabra & Jonh Benjamins B.V. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978 90 272 3264 9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Guinot, Enric (1999). Els fundadors del Regne de València. Edicions 3i4, Valencia 1999. ISBN 84-7502-592-7
• Lledó, Miquel Àngel (2011). "26. The Independent Standardization of Valencia: From Official Use to Underground Resistance". Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity : The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts (Volume 2). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 336–348. ISBN 978-0-19-539245-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Feldhausen, Ingo (2010). Sentential Form and Prosodic Structure of Catalan. John Benjamins B.V. ISBN 978 90 272 5551 8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1951). Gramàtica valenciana. Associació Cultural Lo Rat Penat. Valencia 1995. ISBN 84-85211-71-5 .
• Saborit Vilar, Josep (2009), Millorem la pronúncia, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
• Salvador i Gimeno, Carles (1963). Valencians i la llengua autòctona durant els segles XVI, XVII i XVIII. Institució Alfons el Magnànim. Valencia. ISBN 84-370-5334-X.
• Sanchis i Guarner, Manuel (1934, 1967). La llengua dels valencians. Edicions 3i4, Valencia 2005. ISBN 84-7502-082-8 .
• Valor i Vives, Enric (1973). Curs mitjà de gramàtica catalana, referida especialment al País Valencià. Grog Editions, Valencia 1999. ISBN 84-85211-45-6 .
• Veny, Joan (2007). Petit Atles lingüístic del domini català. Vol. 1 & 2. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans. p. 51. ISBN 978-84-7283-942-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wheeler, Max; Yates, Alan; Dols, Nicolau (1999), Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar, London: Routledge
• Wheeler, Max (2003). "5. Catalan". The Romance Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 170–208. ISBN 0-415-16417-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wheeler, Max (2005). The Phonology of Catalan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-19-925814-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wheeler, Max H. (2006), "Catalan", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-08-044299-0 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
• Valencian dictionary
• Institut Joan Lluís Vives

Documents

• Disputing theories about Valencian origin (in Spanish)
• The origins and evolution of language secessionism in Valencia. An analysis from the transition period until today
• Article from El País (25 October 2005) regarding report on use of Valencian published by Servei d’Investicació i Estudis Sociolinguístics (in Spanish)