User:Rgk50/Aragonese language

Aragonese (aragonés in Aragonese), sometimes referred to as fabla or patués, is an endangered language originally spoken by the people of Aragon, located within modern day Spain. The amount of native speakers is currently up for debate, but it is generally agreed upon to be around ten and eleven thousand native speakers.The decline in speakers of the language is mainly attributed to the replacement of the language to Spanish in education and the media, the migration away from rural areas, less transmission between generations, new people moving to native regions, and tourism. In recent years, there have been pushes to preserve, and bring the language back to life.

Historically, people referred to the language as fabla ("talk" or "speech"). Native Aragonese people usually refer to it by the names of its local dialects such as cheso (from Valle de Hecho) or patués (from the Benasque Valley).

History
The Aragonese language has been in a decline since the 15th century. Although the exact time when Aragonese originated is unknown, it can be estimated that the language began developing in the eighth or ninth century. Some Aragonese words have been found in Latin texts during the ninth century (pueyo for example). The earliest known written account of Aragonese is The Glosas Emilianenses from the 11th century, and by the end of the 12th century, Aragonese was commonly used in a plethora of different literary texts. Then in the 15th century, when the Castillian dynasty took over Aragon, the upper class and monarchs chose Castilian Spanish as their primary language. Aragonese wes then relegated to use in only rural areas and domestically. By the 16th century, there was almost no more usage of Aragonese in writing. The language has been in decline since. During the end of the 19th century, there was a small boom of Aragonese literature, but it went back into decline again during the next century. During the 20th century, Aragonese was replaced by Spanish in education and media. The Franco dictatorship pushed to eradicate any use of the language in favor of Spanish. This sparked the decline of the resurging language. Parents stopped teaching their children Aragonese in favor of spanish because it was barely used. Tourism, more roads, and the rural flights also brought more Spanish speakers into Aragonese speaking towns, and took Aragonese speakers away to Spanish cities. These reasons are greatly attributed to the recent decline. Fortunately today, the government of Aragon has begun making pushes to protect the language. On December 22, 2009, the President of the Autonomous Community of Aragon put in place new legislation to protect and promote the language. Today, with the support of the government, and many trying to revive their ancestral language, citizens of Aragon are making efforts to bring it back. Today, the publication of Aragonese grammar, literature, radio, music, and legal actions are making efforts to revive the language.

Progression through Medieval Origins


Aragonese, which developed in portions of the Ebro basin, can be traced back to the High Middle Ages. It spread throughout the Pyrenees to areas where languages similar to Basque were previously spoken. The Kingdom of Aragon (formed by the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza) expanded southward from the mountains, pushing the Moors farther south in the Reconquista and spreading the Aragonese language.

The union of the Catalan counties and the Kingdom of Aragon which formed the 12th-century Crown of Aragon did not merge the languages of the two territories; Catalan continued to be spoken in the east and Navarro-Aragonese in the west, with the boundaries blurred by dialectal continuity. The Aragonese Reconquista in the south ended with the cession of Murcia by James I of Aragon to the Kingdom of Castile as dowry for an Aragonese princess.

The best-known proponent of the Aragonese language was Johan Ferrandez d'Heredia, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in Rhodes at the end of the 14th century. He wrote an extensive catalog of works in Aragonese and translated several works from Greek into Aragonese (the first in medieval Europe).

The spread of Castilian (Spanish), the Castilian origin of the Trastámara dynasty, and the similarity between Castilian (Spanish) and Aragonese facilitated the recession of the latter. A turning point was the 15th-century coronation of the Castilian Ferdinand I of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera.

In the early 18th century, after the defeat of the allies of Aragon in the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V ordered the prohibition of the Aragonese language in the schools and the establishment of Castilian (Spanish) as the only official language in Aragon. This was ordered in the Aragonese Nueva Planta decrees of 1707.

In recent times, Aragonese was mostly regarded as a group of rural dialects of Spanish. Compulsory education undermined its already weak position; for example, pupils were punished for using it. However, the 1978 Spanish transition to democracy heralded literary works and studies of the language.

Modern Aragonese
Aragonese is the native language of the Aragonese mountain ranges of the Pyrenees, in the comarcas of Somontano, Jacetania, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza. Cities and towns in which Aragonese is spoken are Huesca, Graus, Monzón, Barbastro, Bielsa, Chistén, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla, Benasque, Campo, Sabiñánigo, Jaca, Plan, Ansó, Ayerbe, Broto, and El Grado.

It is spoken as a second language by inhabitants of Zaragoza, Huesca, Ejea de los Caballeros, or Teruel. According to recent polls, there are about 25,500 speakers (2011) including speakers living outside the native area. In 2017, the Dirección General de Política Lingüística de Aragón estimated there were 10,000 to 12,000 active speakers of Aragonese.

In 2009, the Languages Act of Aragon (Law 10/2009) recognized the "native language, original and historic" of Aragon. The language received several linguistic rights, including its use in public administration. Some of the legislation was repealed by a new law in 2013 (Law 3/2013).

Geographic Distribution
Aragonese comes from the central Pyrenean valleys—more particularly from the Anso valley in the west to the Benasque valley in the east. The language most notably originates from the autonomous community of Aragon, located within Spain (hence the name). Today, it is primarily spoken in the northern Pyrenean area. It is broken up into several closely related dialects within different geographical regions of Aragon.

Individual List

 * Western dialect: Ansó, Valle de Hecho, Chasa, Berdún, Chaca
 * Central dialect: Panticosa, Biescas, Torla, Broto, Bielsa, Yebra de Basa, Aínsa-Sobrarbe
 * Eastern dialect: Benás, Plan, Bisagorri, Campo, Perarrúa, Graus, Estadilla
 * Southern dialect: Agüero, Ayerbe, Rasal, Bolea, Lierta, Uesca, Almudévar, Nozito, Labata, Alguezra, Angüés, Pertusa, Balbastro, Nabal

Dialectal Areas
There are various individual dialectal areas of Aragonese each with their own distinguishing characteristics. The varieties can be broken up into seven different geographic areas with their own dialects. The following regional classifications are designed by Brain Mott, who drew from the work of Nagore and Gimeno in 1989.


 * 1) The first area, Aragonés occidental, is from the western province of Navarre to the Eastern River of Aragon. The Ansó and Hecho valleys each have their own specifically well defined local dialects. El cheso is spoken in Hecho village, but the dialect of Ansó is not preserved well.
 * 2) The second area, Aragonés  pirenaico  central, is bordered between the Gállego River to the River Cinca from the west to east, and by the Guarga and Basa rivers in the south. There is little remaining of this dialect because the Castilian language has largely taken over within the region. Fortunately, there are still some distinct differences in dialect from the speakers remaining in the area.
 * 3) The third area is called Aragonés meridional which is from the sub-areas known as Somontano de Huesca and Somontano de Barbastro. This region has become a homogeneous Castilian area. Speakers from here do, however, continue to use residual Aragonese elements in their language. An example of this is the preposition enta/ta (towards) and grammatical articles like o, a, os, as, etc.
 * 4) The fourth area is known as Aragonés oriental. It is spoken between the Cina and Ésera rivers in the north, and around Fonz in the south. The best surviving version of this dialect is called Chistabino from Gistaín which remains in use to this day.
 * 5) The fifth area is called  the  Catalan  of  Aragon. The area has Catalan varieties related to Catalonia. It ranges from the east of Benasque in the north to the southern Province of Castellón.
 * 6) The sixth area may be referred to as the transition area between Aragonese and Catalan. It ranges from Benasque in the north down to San Esteban de Litera in the south. Due to repopulation in the southern areas, less has survived there. The Benasqués dialect is a common topic of discussion in this region with an equal number of Catalan and Aragonese features.
 * 7) The final region is known as the Castillian of Aragon. The southern and western border of Aragonese are cut off by a line that runs from Fago, through Biel, Biscarrués, Almudébar, Barbués, Torres de Alcanadre and Berbegal to Fonz. There is not any Aragonese spoken to the south or west of the line besides some Castilian with an Aragonese accent. However, Fernando Romanos has been working to note surviving elements of Aragonese in northern villages of Zaragoza.

Official Status
Aragonese is officially recognized as a historical language of the Autonomous community of Aragon, alongside Spanish and Catalan. The government of Aragon has even begun taking legal action in attempts to preserve Aragonese due to its historical significance and link to the community.

Classification
Aragonese is a Romance language language, from the Indo-European language family that derived from Common Latin during the High Middle Ages.

Traits
Aragonese has many historical traits in common with Catalan. Some are conservative features that are also shared with the Astur-Leonese languages and Galician-Portuguese, where Spanish innovated in ways that did not spread to nearby languages.

Shared with Catalan

 * Romance initial F- is preserved, e.g. FILIUM > fillo ("son", Sp. hijo, Cat. fill, Pt. filho).
 * Romance palatal approximant (GE-, GI-, I-) consistently became medieval, as in medieval Catalan and Portuguese. This becomes modern ch , as a result of the devoicing of sibilants (see below). In Spanish, the medieval result was either /, (modern ), , or nothing, depending on the context. E.g. IUVENEM > choven ("young man", Sp. joven , Cat. jove ), GELARE > chelar ("to freeze", Sp. helar , Cat. gelar ).
 * Romance groups -LT-, -CT- result in, e.g. FACTUM > feito ("done", Sp. hecho, Cat. fet, Gal./Port. feito), MULTUM > muito ("many"/"much", Sp. mucho, Cat. molt, Gal. moito, Port. muito).
 * Romance groups -X-, -PS-, SCj- result in voiceless palatal fricative ix, e.g. COXU > coixo ("crippled", Sp. cojo, Cat. coix).
 * Romance groups -Lj-, -C'L-, -T'L- result in palatal lateral ll, e.g. MULIERE > muller ("woman", Sp. mujer, Cat. muller), ACUT'LA > agulla ("needle", Sp. aguja, Cat. agulla).

Shared with Catalan and Spanish

 * Open O, E from Romance result systematically in diphthongs, , e.g. VET'LA > viella ("old woman", Sp. vieja, Cat. vella). This includes before a palatal approximant, e.g. > ueito ("eight", Sp. ocho, Cat. vuit). Spanish diphthongizes except before yod, whereas Catalan only diphthongizes before yod.
 * Loss of final unstressed -E but not -O, e.g. GRANDE > gran ("big"), FACTUM > feito ("done"). Catalan loses both -O and -E; Spanish preserves -O and sometimes -E.
 * Voiced stops may be lenited as approximants.

Shared with Spanish

 * Former voiced sibilants become voiceless.
 * Voiced palatal sonorant can most often be heard as a voiced fricative.

Shared with neither

 * Latin -B- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: teneba, teniba ("he had", Sp. tenía, Cat. tenia), dormiba ("he was sleeping", Sp. dormía, Cat. dormia).
 * High Aragonese dialects (alto aragonés) and some dialects of Gascon have preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. CLETAM > cleta ("sheep hurdle", Cat. cleda, Fr. claie), CUCULLIATAM > cocullata ("crested lark", Sp. cogujada, Cat. cogullada).
 * Several Aragonese dialects maintain Latin as geminate.
 * Variants of the mid-vowels can be heard as, mainly in the Benasque dialect.

Orthography
In 2010, the Academia de l'Aragonés (founded in 2006) established an orthographic standard to modernize medieval orthography and to make it more etymological. The new orthography is used by the Aragonese Wikipedia.

Aragonese had two orthographic standards:
 * The grafía de Uesca, codified in 1987 by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa (CFA) at a convention in Huesca, is used by most Aragonese writers. It has a more uniform system of assigning letters to phonemes, with less regard for etymology; words traditionally written with $⟨v⟩$ and $⟨b⟩$ are uniformly written with $⟨b⟩$ in the Uesca system. Similarly, $⟨ch⟩$, $⟨j⟩$, and $⟨g⟩$ before $⟨e⟩$ and $⟨i⟩$ are all written $⟨ch⟩$. It uses letters associated with Spanish, such as $⟨ñ⟩$.
 * The grafia SLA, devised in 2004 by the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa (SLA), is used by some Aragonese writers. It uses etymological forms which are closer to Catalan, Occitan, and medieval Aragonese sources; trying to come closer to the original Aragonese and the other Occitano-Romance languages. In the SLA system $⟨v⟩$, $⟨b⟩$,$⟨ch⟩$, $⟨j⟩$, and $⟨g⟩$ before $⟨e⟩$ and $⟨i⟩$ are distinct, and the digraph $⟨ny⟩$ replaces $⟨ñ⟩$.

During the 16th century, Aragonese Moriscos wrote aljamiado texts (Romance texts in Arabic writing), possibly because of their inability to write in Arabic. The language in these texts has a mixture of Aragonese and Castilian traits, and they are among the last known written examples of the Aragonese formerly spoken in central and southern Aragon.

Grammar
Aragonese grammar has a lot in common with Occitan and Catalan, but also Spanish.

Articles
The definite article in Aragonese has undergone dialect-related changes, with definite articles in Old Aragonese similar to their present Spanish equivalents. There are two main forms: These forms are used in the eastern and some central dialects.

These forms are used in the western and some central dialects.

Lexicology
Neighboring Romance languages have influenced Aragonese. Catalan and Occitan influenced Aragonese for many years. Since the 15th century, Spanish has most influenced Aragonese; it was adopted throughout Aragon as the first language, limiting Aragonese to the northern region surrounding the Pyrenees. French has also influenced Aragonese; Italian loanwords have entered through other languages (such as Catalan), and Portuguese words have entered through Spanish. Germanic words came with the conquest of the region by Germanic peoples during the fifth century, and English has introduced a number of new words into the language.

Gender
Words that were part of the Latin second declension—as well as words that joined it later on—are usually masculine:


 * FILIU(M) > fillo (son)
 * SCIURU + OLU(M) > esquiruelo (squirrel)

Words that were part of the Latin first declension are usually feminine:
 * FILIA(M) > filla (daughter).

Some Latin neuter plural nouns joined the first declension as singular feminine nouns:
 * FOLIA > fuella (leaf).

Words ending in -or are feminine:
 * a honor, a calor, a color, and (in Medieval Aragonese) la amor

The names of fruit trees usually end in -era (a suffix derived from Latin -ARIA) and are usually feminine:
 * a perera, a manzanera, a nuquera, a castanyera, a tellera / o tilero, a olivera, a ciresera, l'almendrera

The genders of river names vary:


 * Many ending in -a are feminine: a Cinca/a Cinga, a Cinqueta, a Garona, L'Arba, a Noguera, a Isuela, La Uecha, La Uerva, etc. The last was known as río de la Uerba during the 16th century.
 * Many from the second and the third declension are masculine: L'Ebro, O Galligo, O Flumen, L'Alcanadre.

Pronouns
Just like most other Occitano-Romance languages, Aragonese has partitive and locative clitic pronouns derived from the Latin inde and ibi: en/ne and bi/i/ie; unlike Ibero-Romance.

Such pronouns are present in most major Romance languages (Catalan en and hi, Occitan ne and i, French en and y, and Italian ne and ci/vi).

En/ne is used for:
 * Partitive objects: No n'he visto como aquello ("I haven't seen anything like that", literally 'Not (of it) I have seen like that').
 * Partitive subjects: En fa tanto de mal ("It hurts so much", literally '(of it) it causes so much of pain')
 * Ablatives, places from which movements originate: Se'n va ra memoria ("Memory goes away", literally '(away from [the mind]) memory goes')

Bi/hi/ie is used for:
 * Locatives, where something takes place: N'hi heba uno ("There was one of them"), literally '(Of them) there was one')
 * Allatives, places that movements go towards or end: Vés-be ('Go there (imperative)')

Literature
Aragonese was not written until the 12th and 13th centuries; the history Liber Regum, Razón feita d'amor, Libre dels tres reys d'orient, and Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca date from this period, there is also an Aragonese version of the Chronicle of Morea, differing also in its content and written in the late 14th century called Libro de los fechos et conquistas del principado de la Morea.

Early modern period
Since 1500, Spanish has been the cultural language of Aragon; many Aragonese wrote in Spanish, and during the 17th century the Argensola brothers went to Castile to teach Spanish. Aragonese became a popular village language. During the 17th century, popular literature in the language began to appear. In a 1650 Huesca literary contest, Aragonese poems were submitted by Matías Pradas, Isabel de Rodas and "Fileno, montañés".

Contemporary literature
The 19th and 20th centuries have seen a renaissance of Aragonese literature in several dialects. In 1844, Braulio Foz' novel Vida de Pedro Saputo was published in the Almudévar (southern) dialect. The 20th century featured Domingo Miral's costumbrist comedies and Veremundo Méndez Coarasa's poetry, both in Hecho (western) Aragonese; Cleto Torrodellas' poetry and Tonón de Baldomera's popular writings in the Graus (eastern) dialect and Arnal Cavero's costumbrist stories and Juana Coscujuela' novel A Lueca, historia d'una moceta d'o Semontano, also in the southern dialect.

Modern Day Push to Revitalize Aragonese
The first modern-day legal recognition of Aragonese was in 1999 when the Ley de Patrimonio Cultural Aragonés (Aragonese Cultural Heritage Bill) was approved which declared Aragonese and Catalan (another language from the region) as, “cultural assets to be especially protected by the administration.” Then in December of 2009, a bill for the use, protection, and promotion of the languages of Aragon was passed in order to protect and promote the language. It contained 36 articles related to the protection and use of Aragonese in the media, socially, educationally, legally, and even in anthroponymy (recognized Aragonese names and surnames, as well as allowed people to change their names to the Aragonese equivalents).

Aragonese on the Internet
The internet has become a vital attribute in the revitalization of Aragonese. The language first appeared online in 1994, on the Cultural Association Nogara-Religada’s website. Although there is no use of Aragonese in commercial or business pages, it is through the use of individuals, private blogs, and cultural and religious associations that bring it use today. The first Aragonese blogs began in 2004. Although still few, the amount of blogs increased since then with varieties of topics. Most blogs were written by speakers who learned Aragonese as a second language. Social media sites are also used for personal communication and groups for Aragonese speakers. Social networking has allowed for increased contact between both the native speakers and new speakers. There are also now multiple online tools and services that can be used to learn and teach Aragonese. Although the new speakers who have learned from the internet are helping revitalize the language, they generally learn a standard model of Aragonese, creating a gap between them and many native speakers. There are a multitude of micro communities of Aragonese speakers with various dialects and differences that are not necessarily well represented online.

Pre School:
Some pre-schools offer Aragonese lessons, taught by their primary teachers. These lessons are given during the regular school day. Students taking these classes receive lessons for 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes every week. There are no official materials for Aragonese primary school education. Teachers create their own material for these lessons. There were a total of nine different schools that offered Aragonese lessons to 262 students in the 2014/2015 year.

Primary School:
In the 2014/2015 year, a new primary education curriculum included Aragonese as an elective examinational subject to be taught in school up to one and a half hours per week. The schools teaching Aragonese however, chose to make it a non-examinative subject to be taught outside of normal school hours. Unfortunately, teachers were given uncertain contracts, little materials, and since it was after-school, students who lived in different towns had trouble taking the course. To add on to the problem, there were only seven teachers, most of which were part time, and none of which were permanent during the year of the new curriculum. Of the nine schools, there were 320 primary students who took Aragonese.

Secondary School:
Aragonese became a voluntary subject to be taken in secondary education. In recent years, only two highschools taught Aragonese as a non-curricular subject after school hours. During the 2013/2014 school year, the students taking Aragonese received a specialist teacher and two hours of lessons per week. In 2007, the secondary education curriculum made it possible to use Aragonese as the main language for multiple course instructions, but wasn’t used. There is no officially approved material for secondary school, so teachers had to create their own materials or adapt them from other languages. There were a total of 14 students who took Aragonese lessons in secondary education from the two schools that offered it.

Vocational Education:
There isn’t any Aragonese included within any vocational school curriculum.

Higher education:
There is not yet a degree for the study of Aragonese nor is the language used for instruction. In the 1986/87 year, Aragonese was implemented into a class called Filología Aragonesa (Aragonese Philology) at university campus Huesca of the University of Zaragoza. In 1994/95, it became an elective subject for the Bachelor’s degree for primary school teachers on Huesca’s campus. The subject unfortunately disappeared in 2011. Aragonese Philosophy and Aragonés Medieval were later added fortunately. The University of Zaragoza also established a non-official course meant to train Aragonese teachers as well as offer postgraduates general linguistic training and knowledge about the language in general.

Adult Education:
For adults who want to learn about the language, many groups and associations in Aragon teach the language, as well as many introductory lessons that teach beginner and intermediate levels of the language. There are also courses that teach Aragonese in territories outside of the general home of the language. It is also taught in some towns near the Pyrenees where the language no longer survives. The villages that continue to use Aragonese also teach courses in their local dialects. Zaragoza, the main and central city of Aragon, has the largest numbers of students taking courses on the Language. In the 2013/2014 year, 412 adult students took Aragonese courses, 213 of which were in Zaragoza.