Talk:Asturleonese language

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Leonese spoken in Portugal?
quoting: "asturianu, or bable, in the Spanish province of Asturias; Leonese language, llïonés, in parts of the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca and in the District of Bragança (Portugal); and Mirandese in Miranda do Douro (Portugal)" Leonese is NOT spoken in Portugal. The only astur-leonese language in Portugal is Mirandese, spoken in Miranda do Douro, District of Bragança. Unless you consider all the three languages to be the same language, which doesn't seem to be the case. I suggest you change to "asturianu, or bable, in the Spanish province of Asturias; Leonese language, llïonés, in parts of the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca; and Mirandese in Miranda do Douro, District of Bragança (Portugal)"

McKagan 20:33 11 November 2009 (GMT)

The article seems to imply that the varieties of astur-leonese spoken in Rio Onor (which are now extinct) are closer to Leonese instead of Mirandese. The source (2) doesn't make it clearer. In the source, when Rionorese is mentioned as a variety of Leonese, so is Mirandese. Unless Rionorese was actually closer to Leonese than Mirandese, this should be changed.

McKagan 11:59 10 October 2011 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.136.114.141 (talk)
 * Rionor and Guadramil are very close to the Spanish border, and very far from Mirando do Douro. Check Google maps, for instance. That should be proof enough. Jotamar (talk) 11:56, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Jotamar, I'm sorry but it isn't enough proof (in my opinion). Miranda do Douro is also on the spanish border. That doesn't make it the same as leonese. That's like saying extremaduran is closer to portuguese than leonese, because Extremadura is very close to the portuguese border and very far from Leon...

PS: If you look with more attention to the map in this page, you'll realize that very same map says mirandese is/was spoken in Rio de Onor (or that rionorese and mirandese are dialects of the same language). Which one is right? I have no idea. But you have to admit how contradictory it is.

McKagan 21:12 22 January 2012 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.42.225 (talk)
 * The map must be wrong. I've added a very clear source. -Jotamar (talk) 02:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The new source isn't any different. It still states BOTH Rionorese and Mirandese as dialects of Leonese. There is no source specifically grouping Rionorese inside the Leonese language while keeping Mirandese outside of it. You're classifying two languages/dialects with two different rules. It gives the impression Rionorese is just a variety of the Leonese language while Mirandese is a completely different language. Maybe that's true (I don't know, that's why I'm looking for it in wikipedia), but there's no source to confirm it. You'll find sources saying Mirandese and Rionorese are varieties of the Leonese language (as you did), you'll find sources saying Leonese, Rionorese and Mirandese are separate languages of the same language family. Both are right in their own way. But the article chooses to consider Rionorese as part of the Leonese language, and in a twist, arbitrarily leaves Mirandese outside. Your source is a good source, the problem is the article itself is not coherent with the source.

PS: Quoting source 3: "por otro, en la zona oriental, hablado en la Terra de Miranda, el mirandés, el mas marcadamente leonés de todos los dialectos de factura leonesa" Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this source actually saying Mirandese is the "most leonese" of the "leonese dialects", even after mentioning Rionorese and other leonese dialects in Portugal? This source (unlike the article) actually makes me think Mirandese is closer to Leonese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.54.239.131 (talk) 03:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

McKagan 03:22 13 January 2013 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.54.239.131 (talk)

Leonese
What is the relation with the Leonese language? Is it the same or not? Belgian man 11:12, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * That depends on when a language becomes a language group. There are several related Astur-Leonese dialects from East Asturias to Extremadura. There is an Academy working for an Asturian standard. I don't know if there is some attention to Leonese features. -- Error 01:09, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Belgian man 18:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The connection with the article on Mirandese might be compared, with mutual advantage. --Wetman 06:14, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The Asturian (or Bable) is a Leonés dialect derived, and not vice versa, although with time is the first that has been imposed on the population. LasMatas01 14:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.217.161.126 (talk)

Not very plausible
I commented this out:
 * "Speakers are prevented from using it in its daily life because neither the administration nor private institutions will accept documents written in Asturian and usually do not pay attention to people trying to deal with them in Asturian."

I've grown up with a minority language not used by administration or (large) private institutions, though this never kept anyone from using the language in daily life... Guaka 00:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No one in León speaks the Leonese language, it is largely an invention of those who seek greater political autonomy for León and to break away from Castile. I believe this article gives the false impression that it is a genuine spoken language.
 * The language is NOT an invention. It exists, and has been spoken for a very limited extent during centuries, specially in the mountain regions of León. Now it's true that Leonese autonomists have greatly exaggerated the importance of Leonese and to a certain extent distorted history: I'm a Leonese and Leonese language is not my heritage, the language of my ancestors for generations has been Castillian. But Leonese IS a genuine language, if quite almost dead. (UNSIGNED)

I'd also like to add that while many do not pay attention to the claims of those seeking greater political autonomy for the province/city, there is an increasing impact on youth.--eleuthero 06:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Article title and mirandese inclusion
The article doesn't directly define the title. Asturian is one of the languages in the Asturian-Leonese branch, as well as Mirandese. Saying that Asturian is official in Portugal under the name Mirandese makes as much sense as saying that Mirandese is unnoficial in Spain and known under the name Asturian. The correct would be to either name this article Asturo-Leonese/Leonese or erasing/adapting the Mirandese and Leonese parts of it.

Leonese is NOT an invention and it is NOT almost dead as some of you say. Still some leonese writers publish books in the leonese langauge. In some part of the north of Leon, where I come from, even young people learn and speak daily the leonese lanaguage even though most of them do not even release or do it constantly. My parents spoke leonese which then they tough me and that is the same way I will teach my sons. A recent study of the language in the north of Leon done by the Asturian Language Academy states that still about 30.000 people use leonese daily and even a bigger amount use it mixed with castillian.

Well, 30,000 speakers out of well over a million, that's what I call almost dead. Unoffensive text or character 09:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It depends on how those speakers are distributed geographically. If they're old people scattered throughout the country, that's bad. If they're concentrated in certain communities (villages and small towns), the language can still be a viable community language, as in the Gaeltachtaí in Ireland. For an even more extreme example, about 60,000 speakers of Faroese in Denmark, a country of about 5.7 million, doesn't sound like a lot if you don't know that most of them are concentrated on the isolated Faroese archipelago and form a tight-knit and vibrant community who care about their language very much, and include plenty of child speakers. Numbers alone never tell the whole story, and you see the same with native languages in North America, a few of which are still very vigorous and have devoted communities using them. In the Caucasus, a language may be limited to a single village of a few thousand inhabitants, but not endangered at all because all of them use the language regularly in daily life as their main language, including the children. On the other hand, languages spoken by millions in Central Asia or Indonesia may be acutely endangered because only the older generation uses them anymore. That's why you always need to know the sociolinguistic structure, not just raw numbers. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Proposed rename and merge
I propose to (a) merge Mirandese language here, as a sub-section of a new "Dialects" section; and then (b) move this article to "Astur-Leonese language".

Rationale: This article is called "Asturian language" but apparently covers "Astur-Leonese", including Leonese and Mirandese. The differences between the three languages seem to be small, and many sources consider them dialects of the same language.

There is a Mirandese language article that claims significant differences from Asturian, but judging from Talk:Mirandese language the evidence is hard to come by.

The Leonese language article was just a stub with no significant info, so I already made it into a redirect to the present article.

The merge would concentrate the scarce edit efforts, reduce duplication of information, and give readers a better view of the whole branch. Also, it seems unlikely that separate Mirandese and Leonese articles will grow to a size comparable to that of Asturian any time soon.

Given its present contents, and assuming Mirandese language is merged into it, the name "Astur-Leonese language" is more accurate than "Asturian language".
 * No Mirandese is an officialy recognised language of Portual. Astur-Leonese is not a language it is a language group. No matter how small the differences in your 'opinion' one is an officialy recognised language, the other is not.
 * Maybe. If an english-speaking country stops legally recognizing english, that doesn't magically make the local english dialect not english. Furthermore, if you look on the Asturian wikipedia, you can see at the top that it includes Mirandese. From this and the opinions/research of others, I believe Mirandese should be considered a dialect.
 * However, there are examples on our own Wikipedia where the same language is listed differently for political reasons. The example I'm thinking of is Romanian language and Moldovan language (they're the same language!!!) The Moldovan language page explicitly states that fact, however. Here's what I suggest. Either:


 * Merge the two, if the combined article is not too long and is unlikely to become too long.
 * Keep them separate, and explicitly state that Mirandese is a dialect of the Asturian language, recognized differently for political reasons.
 * Those are my thoughts. Grand  master  ka  16:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

NOMirandese language requires a sepearte entity as it is a recognized minority language of Portugal216.95.23.169 19:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No, keep seperate. Considering that I decided that I should come back after seeing this discussion, it's odd that I'd forget about it.  The Ethnologue counts Mirandese and Asturian as two seperate languages, but Moldovan as an alternate name for Romanian.  They don't even count Serbian and Croatian as seperate languages, so there must be a reason for counting Mirandese as seperate.  And considering the history Spain, I think I can see it.  The gradual Reconquista brought the Christian settlers into the valleys slowly over time, with a number of petty states in the mountains.  Mountain regions historically, though not always, tend to isolate by valley, as happened with the five original spanish dialects as they were brought south.--Quintucket 00:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That's not exactly true. Ethnologue has a separate section for Mirandese, but says that there are asturian-speakers in Portugal, in Miranda do Douro. Actually, looking at Portugal section, you could think that both Portuguese, Asturian and Mirandese are different languages spoken in Miranda do Douro, what is obviously a mistake of the Ethnologue Base. Anyway, it could be interesting to maintain a separate article for Mirandese, as some speakers think this is, for political and historical reasons, a separate language from Asturian (this doesn't occur with Leonese). But that's only because of political and ortographical reasons, and is not the opinion of the majority of philological studies. This case is similar to Galician and Portuguese one, but in a different historical stadium. However, Asturian speakers feel Mirandese as the same language and probably some Mirandese speakers do the same (in fact, Asturian and Mirandese wikipedia is the same one), so it would be important to give a global view in both articles, if both are kept. Guestia 15:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No. Mirandese is co-official (by law) in that small region of northern Portugal and the article must be kept separate because it is specific to Portugal. I must also remember that the language is known there as Mirandese, not Asturian.
 * No. I agree with Quintucket. If Mirandese is mostly considered a separate language, it must to be kept in a separate article. Thanks. --Dpc01 19:37, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. Hello, I am Portuguese. I hope I'm not too late to the conversation. First, some information, for those who can read Portuguese: here is the piece of legislation which recognized Mirandese as a language in Portugal. It does not say anything about it being an official language, but allows the teaching and the promotion of Mirandese in the regions where it is spoken, as well as its use in public offices (does this make it official?...) It also says nothing at all about the relation between Mirandese and Asturo-Leonese. Now for my opinion: I am in favour of a merger. It is true that the situation of Mirandese and Asturo-Mirandese is similar to the relation between Galician and Portuguese, but there are also important differences:
 * With Portuguese and Galician, you have a language that is official in a state, and another that is regional in another state. But Asturo-Leonese is not recongized at all by the Spanish state, I believe.
 * Portuguese and Galician have official institutions that set their orthography, their vocabulary, etc., and which, in the case of Galician, define the two as separate languages. Asturo-Leonese and Mirandese do not. Although a committee of linguists has come up with an orthography for Mirandese when it was recognized, I don't think they have any official authority. As far as I know, no institution has officially declared that Asturo-Leonese and Mirandese are separate languages.
 * Mirandese is very clearly related to Asturo-Leonese, and is spoken in a very small area. Asturo-Leonese itself is spoken in a modest area. It saves space to discuss them together. Needless to say, the merged article should have separate sections for each. FilipeS 15:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

NO I am a Mirandese, and I am planing to further improve the article on Mirandese soon. I would agree to a merge in some kind of Astur-leonese article. Mirandese, like Asturian, can be seen as one of the dialects in Astur-leonese. Not as an Asturian sub-dialect. I have been countless times in Asturias and the differences to their dialects are quite big. There's often no mutual inter-comprehension, and even if that's not a decisive characteristic when defining languages' areas, it just proves how wrong it would be to include Mirandese in the Asturian branch of Astur-leonese dialects. To FilipeS, Mirandese is recognized as an official language, even if its use is given a geographical limit. The 1st article in the 7/99 law reads as: "This diploma means to recognize and promote the Mirandese language". I really cannot see how this could be abiguous. Either way, when people mention Mirandese they are never reffering to a wider group of astur-leonese dialects: "mirandese" is itself a denomination that isolates the Astur-leonese dialects spoken in Portugal (and never the Asturian dialects). Further connection with a page about Astur-leonese dialects would be welcomed though.

Opinion from Salamanca
Well, my father was born in Cáceres (Extremadura) and my mother is from a Zamora family and was born here in a village in the province of Salamanca. I'm from Salamanca and I haven't used this language in my entire life :).

It was used a lot of time ago but, at least in the entire province in Salamanca is not used anymore. Maybe a little in the northern provinces of Spain, and the Castile-León community.

Be careful with some opinions. They could be only for politicals purposals (there is a political party that claims for a "Païs Llionés" but of course here in Salamanca they cannot say that, nobody would understand them :)). They only are a product of the secesionist and leftist movements in Spain. A pity.

PD: And of course Salamanca is a very good place -one of the best- to learn and talk in Spanish ;).

Emilio.


 * Well, that you haven't used it don't mean that it doesn't exist ok? i haven't used Mandarin in my life but don't think that in China the people speaks German. You don't understand them obviously because you are Castilian, and they not. I'm Asturian and i speak in Asturian, and i have heard in Llion some people talking it too...wait, i'm a leftist and all this is a pity. Good point.


 * I am from a village in the Salamanca province, near to the Portuguese border and I DO SPEAK LEONESE. You cannot hear it in the city but in my region yes. Please let's separate politics from linguistics. In some regions of Salamanca Leonese is spoken, and since the language belongs to its speakers don't mess things and let us speak our language.

Neutrality (please share your thoughts)

 * This article is entirely written from the perspective of asturian language champions.
 * Sources are not provided, but given the list of links suggested, everything seems to
 * come from organizations with an agenda on the subject. These organizations have direct
 * interests (political and economic) in portraying the asturian language in a certain way
 * and therefore their views should be balanced.
 * As it is, this article is not informative, but propaganda. To point out a few things:

Unless you are willing to admit that if 450000 can speak/understand asturian is because it is nothing but a dialect very similar to spanish.
 * The 100000 and 450000 figures must come from thin air, they are extraordinary high.


 * Data from Etnologue: 100000 and 450000 . Guestia 12:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, this figure comes from F.F. Botas, who I asume is(was) a jesuit priest very involved in the promotion of asturian. Don´t know if he was a linguist but he is hardly an unbiased source.Elartistamadridista 15:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Being involved in Asturian promotion doesn't mean to be POV. This is only true if you don't work with scientific method (and yes, linguistics it's a science, and many times a pretty exact one). However, I didn't choose Etnologue as a source because of its bibliography, but because it's very used in Wikipedia (although it has a lot of errors, because of its enormous database) to take information on languages, especially on small ones. And yes, Etnologue's source it's Federico Fierro Botas (who was a jesuist priest involved in asturian language promotion) but that's not the primary source. They're taken from Llera Ramo, F. (1994) Los Asturianos y la Lengua Asturiana: Estudio Sociolingüístico para Asturias-1991. Oviedo: Consejería de Educación y Cultura del Principado de Asturias, a book with the results of a sociolinguistic study made by Asturian Administration (yes, Llera Ramo too is involved in Asturian language promotion, but he's also the director of Euskobarometro, a basque public institution of social studies). There's a more recent study, organized too by the Asturian government, Llera, Francisco J. y San Martín, Pablo (2003) Segundo Estudio Sociolingüístico de Asturias, Uviéu, Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, but I haven't got it here to consult. If you have the data of this study, we can put more recent data. But these numbers of 1991 seems to be the more accepted ones, not only by those "involved in the promotion of asturian" but also by recognised international institutions. Besides the Etnologue database, some examples are Mercator Education (part of a european network on information of minoritized languages, directed by the Fryske Akademy in the Netherlands) or Euromosaic  (a project of the European Comission). However, I can accept, quoting the last web, that "these data has to be interpreted with care: the diglossic condition of Asturian generates different situations which are difficult to fit into a survey". But there's no POV with no other data of such acceptability in specialized studies. If you find one, we could (we should) put both. Guestia 21:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "The denial of recognition of Asturian or Leonese as an official language has driven Asturian and Leonese to an apparent dead end." Says who?


 * Wurm, Stephen A. (ed) (2001) Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Unesco. Page 55 (Puts Leonese as a "Seriously endangered language, i.e: the youngest speakers have reached or passed middle age" and Asturian as a "Endangered language, i.e: the youngest speakers are young adults" Guestia 12:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * But who says it is because it is unofficial?Elartistamadridista 15:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't really like how this paragraph it's written. But I must say it is because it's unofficial (not only, but this is one of the causes). Danger of disappearing is a situation where languages ends because of its minorization. That's produced because an unequal relation of power, not only because of laws, but also politics, economics and some other. Almost all sociolinguistic studies would agree on that (I only will give one reference, being brief and avoiding to talk of catalan sociolinguistics: Calvet, Louis Jean (1974) Linguistique et colonialisme. Petit traité de glottophagie, Paris, Payot). Being unofficial it's clearly for Asturian language a situation of minorization if the Language A (i.e: Spanish) it's official and has a bigger use in Administration (almost all the use of Administration). However, I don't like the sentence because, really, to be official wouldn't mean for Asturian language to survive. There are a lot of other factors and those should be considered, too. Guestia 21:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "(...)intellectual groups and politically active Asturians and Leonese proud of their regional identity." Such as the author(s) of this article.


 * "Proud of their regional identity" is clearly POV, you can feel free to supress it. Guestia 12:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Just trying to point out who seems to have wrote this article.Elartistamadridista 15:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Several authors had wrote this, like all the articles in Wikipedia. Looking to article's history, I can count pretty more than 100 different ones. Even when some are minor changes, I can presume not all of them were involved in Asturian promotion. But the argument shouldn't be who wrote this, but if there's some statements who are not NPOV. Let's look for those supposed statements and not for the supposed ideology of the authors. Guestia 21:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem to obtain a NPOV here is that there is a group of people who cares very
 * much about the subject but there isn´t a counterpart to balance it. Since I am not a linguist I won´t correct anything for the moment.


 * I would like to hear comments about what (if anything) should be done about this
 * article.Elartistamadridista 10:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * PS: Sorry about the clumsy paragraphs I am still learning.


 * Anyway, the article needs more information and many sources. I really don't like it much. If I'll have time, I would reform it completely and add sources, but I didn't have time to yet. And only to be honest, I'm involved in Asturian language defense, but I'm also a linguist, and I have always tried to made a good work in my field of study. Guestia 21:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This is intended to be a general response to Guestia. I respect the science of linguistics, but my concern is that people involved in the promotion of Asturian may have a personal interest in the subject. I am not saying this is your case, but certain groups of Asturian advocates stand to gain a lot if, for example, it is made official: lots of public jobs (translators, teachers...) and money would have to be allocated. Politically, it would also be good for nationalism/regionalism. Of course, that does not mean there is nothing wrong in defending Asturian, but it could interfere with an honest exposition of the subject.
 * I am glad to see that this article has at least been checked by a linguist, because I had doubts about it. I may be wrong and this article may be portraying the subject in a neutral way, that is why I wanted to hear some thoughts about it. Thank you for your time.Elartistamadridista 07:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

What the heck does this even mean?
"is disputed the fact of speaking a dialect of Spanish Language or a variety of Astur-Leonese."

What does this mean in English? I would be bold and correct it but I haven't the least idea whatsoever what it means. Is the writer trying to say,

"There is a dispute as to whether Cantabrian is a dialect of Astur-Leonese or simply a dialect of Spanish."

OR does it mean,

"There is a dispute as to whether Cantabrian and Extramaduran are dialects of Astur-Leonese or simply dialects of Spanish."

OR something else I haven't thought of.

You'll notice that the two sentences above have completely different meanings, and to be honest the way it's written right now I don't know which is right. At any rate, that phrase shouldn't be tacked on to the back of the sentence like a caboose. -- Charlene 23:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite understand it either. I have changed the term "speech" for "idiom", which is more neutral in English following the WP article dialect: <> I hope this helps for the future correction of this very sentence :-) Max-hu 19:08, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Language basics
The paragraph (or rather sentence) on language basics is, excuse me, pure nonsense. Or is this basically castellano?

El Llïonés ye una llingua que carez de reconocencia oficial nenguna y qu’apenas tien tan siquiera reconocencia llegal cona eseición de Miranda del Douru (estáu pertués) onde tien un rangu de cooficialidá al empar que’l pertués. Menos entovía posibilidá de deprendizax nas escuelas ou cualquier outra istitución académica pública, al pesiare de los informes de la Unesco, Unión Europea y milentos chamamientos d’espertos llinguistas de mediu mundu del sou inminente riesgu de desapaición polas presiones d’outras llinguas comu’l gallegu-pertués y el castellán, qu’invaden selemente’l dominu llinguísticu llïonés.

Though I am not familiar with the current linguistic situation (from what I read, Asturo-Leones is on its way to extinction), I can assure you that the language that used to be spoken by peasants in Asturias and Leon in the first half of the 20th century was very much distinct from Castellano.Unoffensive text or character 09:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect it's very artificial and modelled on Spanish, basically a literal translation. Of course it's nothing like spontaneous everyday speech, but then, how else would you translate a formal text like this to Asturian? If you translate a formal, written text about a topic like this from Standard German to Bavarian dialect, it sounds very unnatural, stilted and foreign too, depending on how literal the translation is, but a not-too-literal translation can sound silly, clumsy and weird too because traditional Bavarian is not well suited to talk about many topics; many words are missing, for once, so you need to use Standard German words or use paraphrases. The only solution is to expand, standardise and formalise the language (Ausbau), especially with neologisms (newly coined words), but the result will always sound unusual and foreign to native speakers, and they will probably not understand it nor accept the result as genuine – unless they have studied the new, expanded, standardised and formalised form of their language. As a less politically charged parallel, consider what happens when you try to translate a modern text into an ancient language such as Latin. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:50, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Interwikis
Most interwikis are wrong. Only these are correct:
 * ca:Asturlleonès
 * es:Asturleonés
 * eu:Asturleonera
 * gl:Asturleonés
 * pt:Asturo-leonês

The others do not separate the linguistic group from asturian language, which is just one of the languages that belongs to Astur-leonese group.

Note: I do not want to put the asturian interwiki ast:Dominiu llingüísticu astur because of its doubtful credibility. --Galician 14:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Language Differences
One thing I noticed is there isn't an explanation on not only how this group differs from the neighboring Castilian, but also how they differ from each other. I hear arguments that they are all separate languages, but I think it would be helpful if someone knowledgeable could explain this in the article. I have reviewed Asturian and can see the difference from Castilian, but I do wonder how much different could the other ones be. Kman543210 (talk) 02:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I think to translate this article from Wikipedia in Asturian (Uiquipedia) --Der Künstler (talk) 00:45, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I want to put a comparative tables. What do you think? --Der Künstler (talk) 21:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Analyses
The analyses recently included in the lead strike me as speculative and with little informative substance. In addition, they contain at least one gross mistake. Before I remove them, I'd like to hear other opinions. Jotamar (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

As a minor concern, I'd like to mention that the term lect is not particularly popular among linguists, and not everyone in the general public understands it. Linguistic variety, encompassing both languages and dialects, is the preferred term nowadays. Jotamar (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I proceed to remove the analyses. Jotamar (talk) 14:38, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose to merge this article with Asturian dialect and Leonese dialect because "Asturian", "Bable", "Leonese" and "Asturleonese" are different native names for the same language as you can see on the ISO-639-2 lists http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php and http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ast --Mikel (talk) 23:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm against the merger. First, there is already this page to deal with the larger linguistic area. Second, there's no reason why a dialect, as opposed to a language, should not merit its own page. Third, a language is also a social and ideological entity, and for that reason some editors might consider the merger a scorn to the Leonese identity, the Asturian identity, etc. Jotamar (talk) 17:43, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Mike, are you saying that Extremaduran and Mirandese are dialects of Asturian? — kwami (talk) 00:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Mirandese is a dialect of Asturian influeted by Portuguese, Extremaduran is also a dialect maybe from Asturian but I think is more near to Castilian (like Montañés or Galician-Asturian is a Galician dialect), but Asturian (or Asturian-Leonese, not used by spekaers) is the name for the three most spoken dialects, eastern, central (most spoken) and western. Leonese is a endonym used in Leon for Asturian western dialect (the only dialect spoken in Leon). So if finally it's not merged we have to move Asturian dialect to Asturian language (also Leonese dialect) or move all other languages to dialects (like Galician language and Portuguese language, dialects of Galician-Portuguese and starts Castillian dialect for Spanish spoken in Spain)--Mikel (talk) 12:11, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Currently the articles read as if Asturian and Leonese were separate languages. I have no problem with Asturian being the "language" and Leonese a dialect of Asturian, as long as the articles are consistent. If Mirandese is also treated as a dialect, then yes, we could merge with the parent article. If we do not merge, I suggest we choose a better name – Astur-Mirandese, perhaps, since "Astur-Leonese" is a synonym for Asturian. (Extramaduran is often placed with Castillian, so it's not a problem.) — kwami (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Astur-Leonese is the most common name among scholars nowadays. Another older term (the one used by Menéndez Pidal) is Leonese, that is, including Asturian as a dialect, but it's obvious that we should avoid using Leonese with that generic meaning. Astur-Mirandese is a new name, and I don't think it's in the spirit of Wikipedia to invent new names. Jotamar (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ramón Menéndez Pidal wrote a work titled "El dialecto leonés" (The Leonese dialect) in (1906). Ethnologue says the following: (see article and map). We can not take steps back. --Astur (talk) 19:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It is incorrect to say "Asturian dialect" because in Asturies no single variety as such. The western variety of the language is common between the Principality of Asturies, the Province of Lleón, Zamora and Miranda l Douro. In fact, mirandese is part of the "western bloc". This is equivalent to discursion -overcome- about "Catalan language" ¿Catalan? ¿Catalan-Valencian...? "Asturianu" is most used by the speakers, and the most traditional and institutional use. The solution is clear: Asturian language — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.27.220.243 (talk) 01:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

A point that might be missed by editors from outside Spain is that most peole in Spain would understand Asturian/Leonese/whatever dialect as dialects of Spanish! Jotamar (talk) 13:24, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

With the lastest editions by Kwamikagami I think that articles are pretty good, so I'll remove the merger proposal... if I can't no remove the proposal (because must to be done by an admin) please revert my changes, thanks.--Mikel (talk) 17:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)


 * So, we're okay w "Astur-Leonese_languages" being Astur-Leonese plus Mirandese? (and not Extremaduran, for which there's a related problem at Castilian languages?) — kwami (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes I think is a better classification, Asturian and Mirandese are very similar but they have different orthography so is better to have them in different articles (is similar to Dutch and Afrikaans). About Extremaduran is quite controversial some experts said is a dialect from Asturian and others from Castilian, others said that is a mix of the old Asturian and Castilian (the dominant language in the region since 18th century), this is probably the most logical because it's a dialect very close to both languages.--Mikel (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Suddenly, Leonese has become a dialect of Asturian. Can someone tell me what is the rationale behind that? Jotamar (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Leonese, also known as Asturian occidental dialect, is a dialect (also speaked in Asturias) otherwise it could redirect to Asturian language as is the autoglotonym for the language in León, but in that case we should move the article to Asturian occidental dialect.--Mikel (talk) 23:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You haven't answered my question. Do you have any reliable source stating that Leonese is a dialect of Asturian? I can get reliable sources that state that Asturian is a dialect of Leonese. Jotamar (talk) 15:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I answared your questions, the sources are plubished on the articles... this the first one http://www.ethnologue.com/language/ast --Mikel (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If you like Ethnologue, perhaps you should read their report in full, for example when they say: Leonese may be a separate language. I'm going to make some changes to return to a more neutral wording. Jotamar (talk) 16:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Read all the texts, also this phrase is into "Dialects" section. Is the same case as Valencian I think that the reasons to catalogue languages on wikipedia may be the linguistics aspects and no politicals "opinions". Like Valencian, Leonese has not an own ISO code, because are integrated into the 'ca' (catalan) and 'ast' (asturian) codes respectively.--Mikel (talk) 19:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Your comparison with Valencian does not work, because there is no consensual name for Catalan-Valencian other than Catalan; however, there is a name for Asturian-Leonese which is consensual and the one used by most specialists, and that name is Astur-Leonese. The code ast probably stands for Astur-Leonese, not Asturian. I'm not dealing with the linguistic uniformity of the language, I'm just dealing with the name of it. Jotamar (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Most speakers known their own language like Asturian, in León is know as Leonese, but in León only the occidental dialect is spoken. Also some experts created the term "Astur-leonese" to show that is the same language (that's the reason I proposed the merge). Here you have the ISO code list, all this names, Asturian; Bable; Leonese; Asturleonese are listed into ast. Like ca list Catalan, Valencian with the same code so they are no different languages.--Mikel (talk) 17:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Let's see, Jotamar, you say: "there is a name for Asturian-Leonese which is consensual and the one used by most specialists, and that name is: Astur-Leonese". Ok, it's your opinion. I know a lot of specialists, in Asturias, in the Academy of the Asturian Language, in Royal Institute of Asturian Studies, even though most specialists born in Leon that say that the whole domain is simply Asturian, (with variants, but for political reasons they have different names or endonyms). But, I would like to point that's what you say now: because it's a pretty suspicious that you have worked hard in Leonese dialect during a long time, and I still can read the following (testual): "The Leonese and Asturian dialects have long been recognized as constituting a single language, which is currently called Astur-Leonese (or Asturian-Leonese, etc.) by most scholars, but which formerly was termed just Leonese ". Hmmm... Maybe it's a typo you missed? And I remember that you were against the merger, and you didn't like it when Leonese page was moved to "Leonese dialect" page. Are the data valids only when you want or so?. --Astur (talk) 20:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about what User:Astur is hinting at. I think I wrote this: ... which formerly was termed just "Leonese"". Yes, it was termed so by Menéndez Pidal. What is wrong about stating it? As for your claim that even Leonese specialists use the tag Asturian to refer to the whole linguistic area, that is in overwhelming contradiction with my readings ... unless you refer to Leonese specialists working in Asturias, of course. My experience is that using the name Asturian to include all the linguistic area is rejected, sometimes fiercely, in both León and Miranda. It is therefore a non-neutral name, for which an alternate neutral name already exists, namely Astur-Leonese. End of the story. Jotamar (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting quotation in this blog entry. Jotamar (talk) 18:43, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Usage in Spanish and Asturian is irrelevant. We're interested in what the language is called in English. There are two common names: Asturian and Asturian-Leonese, sometimes Astur-Leonese. The latter tends to be used when emphasizing that it's a dialect chain, the former when presenting it as a coherent language—I think. One has the benefit of brevity and accessibility, the other the benefit of being unambiguous. But the sensitivities in Leon or wherever are not our concern.
 * Dryer 2005 in WALS calls it "Asturian". Ethnologue uses "Asturian". In ELL2, "Asturian" sometimes includes Leonese, and sometimes is contrasted with it. The Romance volumes from CUP etc. don't go into enough detail to determine which they prefer. — kwami (talk) 22:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Ethnologue says about "Asturian": Leonese may be a separate language. Which means that they are clueless about the matter. WALS takes the name from Ethnologue (the other names are Spanish). They're clueless too, and it's not clear if they include Leonese and Mirandese or not. Astur-Leonese is simply a fairly unknown subject in the English-speaking world, and for that reason there is no established name for it. On the other hand, I profoundly disagree with your opinion that the sensitivities in Leon or wherever are not our concern. Why not? Jotamar (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Because we're English WP. People can use whichever endonym they like, but for us what is important is what it's called in English. We're not going to move 'Spain' to 'España' or 'China' to 'Zhōngguǒ' just because someone objects to being called by a foreign name. — kwami (talk) 04:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Keep glotonyms "Asturian, Leonese, Asturleonese separate is just a ridicolous way to describe one single language. ¿Should we say that American English is another languaje different from British English? Really, people, don't pay attention to Etnologue because at this very case at least, they don't have FI of what the heck are they talking about. Dialects of astur-leonese are 3: werstern, central and eastern, that's all; and they go from north to south, from the very coast of Asturias to the very north of Portugal in the case of the Western Astur-leonese. No dialect of this language goes from west to east as the political border do (so Asturian, Leonese and all those uselees names and discussions without any scientific base that you'll find in Spanish wiki are just invections of different nacionalists movements from Asturias, Madrid and Leon to mix up everything). My sincer advice as a speaker of this language since my chillhood: take Catalonian article about Astur-leonese and traslate it entirely to English: is the only one worth of appear in an enciclopedy in the whole Wikipedia (regarding Astur-leonese), and you'll get a document that, I belive, any serious filologist would approve. What you have now is just a bad joke. It's up to you to follow the ravings of some Spanish editors with to much politics on head or to do things right. Good luck and best wishes. --Cocedi (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Good example of linguistic 'anschluss'in Wikipedia
This article is a nice exercise in imagination by authors lacking the ethic sense. This people change the headlines of the articles to impose by the force the criterion of the own group, without quotes, without arguments and ignoring any truth that does not agree with their preconceived political ideas.

How can we understand a map that includes areas as far away as is the town of Braganza, the cradle of the Portuguese monarchy, or the region Eo-Navia, in where was spoken galician-portuguese since the Middle Ages as can be seen examining to the parchments of the Monastery of Oscos?

The Mirandes language is spoken in the concello of Miranda and in two villages, (parrish) on the eastern Concello of Vimioso and in this article includes over thirty municipalities. Here seems like whole Northeast of Portugal speaks 'leones' when only eight thousand people in Portugal speak that language.

In my opinion, I think that this is another show of the pan-nationalist totalitarian movements that unfortunately have found in Wikipedia the adecuate place for their paranoid madnesses, without the slightest respect for the cultural and linguistic heritage of humanity and with total disregard for the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Candalín (talk • contribs) 21:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * What's your point? This article is about linguistics, not politics. The dialects and languages listed in this article have been determined by linguistic experts such as Pidal to be closely related and to form a group termed Astur-Leonese. That's just an empiric, linguistic fact. There's no political program attached to it.
 * Never mind that your comment betrays that you are yourself anything but neutral and have your own political agenda. "The truth" isn't automatically on your side only because you pontificate about it and believe you are in its possession. In fact, "the truth" is usually simply what the speaker happens to find convenient for themselves. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:57, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * --Florian Blaschke Guys, you just don't get it, you have fallen in the trap of the Spanish politics (a real mess and balderdash). There are indeed 3 dialects of Astur-leonese that Pidal described perfectly, and one single language: ASTUR-LEONESE. The very tittle of these article is a joke. Morover none of the 3 dialects matches with the so called "asturian", "leonese" or "mirandese" supposed borders, because these three are mere glotonyms. Even more, the distribution of the real dialects goes from north to south crossing the borders of Asturias and Leon, so is the case of the Western Astur-Leonese, Central Astur-Leonese and Eastern Astur-Leonese. These are the real dialects described by Pidal, neither Asturian nor Leonese were described as so, because they weren't dialects, and the first prove of it is that he called the whole languaje just Leonese, (as he could have called simply Asturian). Western Astur-Leonese is spoken, for example, in Miranda (Portugal), in Sanabria (Zamora), in Cabreira (Leon) and in the very coast of Asturias (Valdés). Leonese, Asturian, "Bable", etc. are just glotonyms without any lingüistic value, they are just names to call the same language and I'll repeat it once again: THEY DON'T MATCH WITH THE REAL DIALECTS OF ASTURLEONESE.


 * Please, don't fall in the stupid political discussions of the Wikipedia in Spanish. Make yourself a favor and take the article about Astur-leonese from the Wikipedia in Catalan language, is the only one serious that I found so far. I am myself a native speaker of Astur-leonese and I know that all this polemic is just seeking for discredit and weaken the language by questioning its unity. It is only an endless struggle of nationalisms disguised as supposed academic discussion. If you keep taking as reference the Spanish article and the current text and title, you are just joining the ridicolous circus organized buy some Spaniards with not idea about philology or linguists but a lot of politics in their heads. I would even advise that in order to ensure a impartial edition, just native speakers of English edit this article, or believe me, this circus will never end. Best wishes and good luck from Spain. --Cocedi (talk) 12:28, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I hope you're not trying to repeat here the discussion we already had in the Spanish WP, where, by the way, after several months I'm still waiting for you to address some of my arguments. --Jotamar (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Arguments Jotamar? What arguments? Political ideas without any scientific basis I'd rather say. Political ideas are very interesting, but should have nothing to do with an article about a language in a serious encyclopedia. I quote your "arguments": "A language is not only grammar or lexicon, it is also the social environment in which it lives, and in this case, where we speak of variants not so different from their neighboring languages, that environment is even more important than purely microlinguistic data". From which linguistic or philological article about Asturleonese did you get such ideas? Amazing argument indeed: environment is even more important than purely microlinguistic data.


 * I repeat it once again, please just native English speakers should edit this articles about astur-leonese in order to avoid these political points of view from Spaniards getting all the time in the text. Otherwise, this sad show will go on... Without any intention of offending, you have a pretty good example of this problem in the "arguments" of jotamar. --Cocedi (talk) 13:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC).


 * For your enlightenment: Microlinguistics. --Jotamar (talk) 22:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * So according to your theory of the bigger importance of the enviroment over the dialects, Leonese exist as a separate lingüistic entity from Asturian. So given that what people speak in Laciana, Palacios del Sil, Degaña, Cangas del Narcea and Somiedo (counties from Leon and Asturias) is totally identical, Leonese is spoken in western Asturias, but Asturian is spoken in northern extreme of central mountains of Leon? How does it works? What do speak then people from eastern Asturias and fron north-eastern Leon? Asturian or Leonese? Neither? A third language? Explain me that with "the enviroment". Explain me how is posible that this article include 3 variants in the text and 3 totally different ones in the map (the real ones described by Menéndez Pidal). Don't you see any contradiction? --Cocedi (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't have any theory, I'm just trying to make sure that this and other pages mention all the relevant concepts and connect them in a way that is informative for readers. Perhaps this discussion would be more productive if you listed some specific points that should be changed in the page. What I'm not going to do is to adapt all the content to a single source written about one century ago. --Jotamar (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

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