This page deals with language. For other uses of Valencian, see Valencia (disambiguation).

Valencian flag flying atop a guard tower in the city of Valencia

Wikipedia articles written in this language are located at the

Valencian Wikipedia

There is consensus amongst linguists that Valencian is the name for, or rather, distinct dialect of the Catalan language which is spoken in the Autonomous Community of Valencia, Spain. It is thus the official name for one of two co-official languages declared in the Valencian Statute of Autonomy: Valencian (a branch of the same system as Catalan) and Castilian (Spanish).

The word is also used to refer to dialect of this territory to differentiate it from Catalan as a whole, or from the Catalan of Barcelona. In this sense it can be considered a sub-dialect of the Western Catalan variety, which also includes the varieties of the Aragonese Fringe, Lleida province and most of Tarragona province, or it could be considered a legitimate dialect of the language, much in the same way that Catalan and Majorcan both are.

Note that, for many in the Valencian Community, the use of the term is a statement of belief in the idea that there is a language called Valencian which is quite separate from Catalan. This belief, which is not supported by Catalonian linguists or most international observers, derives from political viewpoints that rightly or wrongly see Catalonia as an overbearing or even imperialistic force. This impression derives from the "Catalonian countries" platform--the idea that the common language (split in dialects) of Valencia and the Balearic Islands composes the larger Catalonian nation.

History and status of Valencian

Catalan was brought to the territories that became the Kingdom of Valencia during the Reconquista. This novel, "Tirant lo Blanc", was declared to have been written in "the vulgar Valencian language" by its author, a statement which often produces headaches for Catalonian linguists, who laud it off as one of the greatest literary achievements of the Catalan language. In addition, the "lo" found in this title is much more present in traditional Valencian than traditional Catalan. Whilst Castile moved south conquering New Castile and Andalusia, the Aragonese and Catalan settlers from the Crown of Aragon came and conquered Valencia. Most of these settlers came from South-West Catalonia, and to this day Valencian (from the Castellón region) is almost indistinguishable from the dialect of these people. This is the history presented by the Catalonian Generalitat. However, there is much debate to the contrary, given the existence of texts written in Arabic cypher but that spell out in an old form of Valencian that pre-date this Catalonian invasion.

Since Valencian is, from a broad view, the same language as Catalan, both names can be used almost interchangeably, with "Catalan" emphasising the pan-Catalan nature of the language, and "Valencian" emphasising local features--though if you use the word "Valencian" in Catalonia, you will often by laughed at, and conversely, if you use the word "Catalan" in Valencia, you will often be jeered at. The choice to use one name or the other is more a matter of politics than anything else, and is the central force and weapon behind the "Catalan countries" concept. Maria Josep Cuenca, lecturer at the Department of Catalan Language Studies (note the name) of the University of Valencia, in her book El valencià és una llengua diferent? (ISBN 84-8131-452-8), notes that the number of people identifying with their Autonomous Community rather than with Spain is actually greater in Castile-La Mancha than in the Valencian Community. This is perhaps surprising in a region that is supposed to be one of the països catalans or Catalan countries--yet not so surprising, considering that most Valencians reject this imperialist notion, heavily promulgated by Jordi Pujol, known to many as the father of modern Catalonian nationalism. In fact, Valencia's "españolismo", arguably the strongest in Spain and thus the world, is in part a response to the neighbors to the North telling it what its national identity and llanguage are. There is obviously a complicated mixture of feelings of belonging due to various historical events, and the result is that the local language in Valencia is normally called "Valencian" and is often held to be a separate language, whereas in the Balearic Islands, Aragonese Fringe, Alghero and Roussillon the local dialects are at least as different from the speech of Barcelona as Valencian is, and yet it does not occur to these speakers to call their language anything but Catalan--at a governmental level. Most Balearic people refer to their language as either Majorcan (the most common), or Menorcan. However, since the survival of this Community depends on the peninsula, and because the various dialects of the Balearic system generated internal conflict, the region eventually capitulated to the wishes of their Barcelona brethren.

There is no mention of Valencian or Catalan or any language other than Spanish in the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The Autonomy Statute (http://www.gva.es/cidaj/cas/c-normas/5-1982.htm#8) refers to the vernacular language as valencià, a name used traditionally since the fifteenth century. There is a private institution called Lo Rat Penat (http://www.loratpenat.org/) that campaigns for Valencian as a separate language with a different written norm and has firmly supported the motivated attempts of a majority of Valencian sectors (often related to right-wing political parties) to split Valencian and Catalan norms apart. However, their theories are not supported by universities or Romance-language experts, who know little more than what the Catalonians have told them. Officially, the rules for Valencian are decided by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, which follows the same rules as for the rest of the Catalan language, set by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. These rules, known as the "Norms of Castellò" were arrived at early in the 20th century, after recognizing that Valencian and Catalan indeed are part of the same lingüistic system, and thus were an attempt to bring the two disparate dialects closer together. In practice, it is pure Catalan, with approximately 300 words of the traditional Valencian lexicon. It is interesting to note, though, that one underpopularized headache for the "Institut d'Estudis Catalans" is the Catalan resemblance with Occitanian, and how while Catalan and Occitanian could possibly be of the same family or origin, the similarity is not so clear with Valencian. The alternative Valencian normative is supported by the "Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana", which uses a set of rules called "Les Normes del Puig", which are much more representative of Valencian as Valencians know it.

The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of the approval of the European Constitution in 2004. The Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian, but the Catalan and Valencian versions, initially disparate, were later found to be identical after Pasquall Maragall, President of the Catalonian Generalitat, submitted a copy of the Valencian version as equally representative of the Catalan language. While professing the unity of the Catalan language, the Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of the Autonomous Community of Valencia calls the regional language "Valencian", while that of Catalonia calls its regional language "Catalan". This is a rushed oversimplification that came as the result of internal petty politics--the influential Carod-Rovira, a politician within the Catalonian tri-partite system, threatened not to support the Government budgets if Zapater, President of the central government, did not capitulate to his linguistic tastes.

Catalan/Valencian is not spoken as much in the capital city of Valencia as it is in its surrounding areas--where pure Valencian is used. Catalan/Valencian, the aforementioned combination of dialects, is spoken at some points of the city, mostly by the schoolchildren who are now being raised in a hybrid dialect. Spanish is the everyday language of most people, and in much cases the one used if the language of the other person is not known. As in Barcelona, the main reason for this is that cities are more cosmopolitan and attract more immigrants, who are likely to speak only Spanish.

Valencian was the home language of the Borgia family.

Features of Valencian

Note that this is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian (Catalan spoken in the Valencian Community) that differ from those of other Catalan dialects, particularly from the Central or literary varieties of the language. For more general information on the features of the Valencian language, see Catalan language. Note also that there is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and the features below do not apply to every speaker at all.

• A system of 7 stressed vowels /a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ, u/, reduced to 5 in unstressed position (/e, ɛ/ > [e], /o, ɔ/ > [o]) (a feature shared with North-Western Catalan and Ribagorçan)
• In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el, els) and the 3rd person unstressed object pronouns (el, els), though some sub-dialects have 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 ones (em, et, es, en)
• Valencian has preserved mediaeval prepalatal afficates [dʒ],[tʃ] in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives [ʒ] or [jʒ] (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
• Valencian preserves the final stop in the groups [mp, nt, ŋk, lt] (feature shared with modern Balearic)
• Valencian is the only modern Catalan variant that articulates etymological final [r] in all contexts, although this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which do not articulate the final [r]
• Valencian preserves the mediaeval system of demonstratives with three different levels of demonstrative precision (este or aquest/açò/ací, eixe or aqueix/això/aquí, aquell/allò/allí or allà) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
• Valencian has -i- as theme vowel for incoative verbs of the 3rd conjugation este servix (this one serves) (like North-Western Catalan), although, again, this cannot be generalized since there are valencian sub-dialects which pronnounce an -ie- (aquest serveix)
• An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morpheme /ra/: que ell vinguera (that he might come).
• Several variations for nosaltres, vosaltres (we, you):mosatros, moatros, natros, vosatros, voatros, valtros.
• Numbers: Huit, deneu, xixantahuit, doscentes, milló, quint, sext, vigesim for vuit, dinou, seixanta-vuit, dues-centes, milió, cinqué, sisé, vinté.
• En for amb.
• Meua, teua, seua for meva, teva, seva.
• Hui for avui.
• Gemination of D in some contexts

Some other features, such as the use of molt de or the lack of hom or geminate L, are often given as examples of differences between Valencian and other forms of Catalan. However, these are in reality differences between colloquial and literary language, and, again, are particular of concrete geographical areas. In fact, northern and southern variants of Valencian share more features with Eastern Catalan than with central Valencian and for this reason most of the features listed previously do not apply to them. As we have seen, the central / capital city area of Valencian suffers from the biggest Castilian interferences and are one of the causes of these differences.

Sub-varieties of Valencian

• Northern: spoken in most of the province of Castelló, and the area of Matarranya in the province of Teruel. Northern Valencian is very similar to the Catalan of the Tortosa area, in the province of Tarragona.
• Central or apitxat, spoken in Valencia city and its area, and taken as a standard for Valencian by the local Valencian public television channel Canal 9. Apitxat has two distinct features:
  • All voiced sibillants get unvoiced (that is, apitxat pronounces ['tʃove] ['kasa] (young man, house), where other Valencians would pronounce ['dʒove], ['kaza]) (feature shared with Ribagorçan)
  • It preserves the strong simple past, which has been substituted by an analytic past with VADERE + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan variants (the simple past is still preserved incomplete in Eivissa).
• Southern: spoken in most of the province of Alacant, and the area of Carxe in the province of Murcia, shares many features with oriental Catalan.

External links

• Institut d'Estudis Catalans (http://www.iecat.net/)
• Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (http://www.avl.gva.es/)
• Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana (http://www.racv.es/)

ca:Valencià de:Valencianische Sprache es:Idioma valenciano pl:Język walencki sv:Valenciano