Status of Valencian
Valencian is similar to the Catalan spoken in West Catalonia and Andorra and is nearly indistinguisable from the Catalan spoken in Southwest Catalonia. Linguists tend to regard Valencian simply as a variant or dialect of the Catalan language or even as merely a different name for the same reality. However, some groups in Valencia claim Valencian to be a distinct language.
There is no mention of Valencian or Catalan or any language other than Spanish in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 The Estatut d'Autonomia (Autonomy Statute) refers to the vernacular language as Valencian, a name used traditionally since the 15th century, but makes no point about whether it is a different language from Catalan or not. In fact, this issue has been explicitly established by the official Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, which has opposed firmly the politically motivated attempts of some minority sectors to split Valencian and Catalan norms apart. There is an unofficial so-called Valencian Language Royal Academy that campaigns for Valencian as a separate language with a different written norm.
Features of Valencian
- A system of 7 stressed vowels /a,E,e,i,O,o,u/, reduced to 5 in unstressed position (/E,e/ > [e], /O,o/ > [o]) (feature shared with Nord-occidental Catalan and Ribagorçan)
- In general, use of modern forms of the determinate article (el,els) and the 3rd person unstressed object pronouns (el,els). 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 (or reforced) ones (em,et,es,en)
- Valencian has preserved medieval prepalatal afficates [dZ],[tS] in contexts where other modern dialects have developed fricatives [Z] or [jZ] (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
- Valencian preserves the final oclusive in the groups [mp,nt,Nk,lt] (feature shared with modern Balearic)
- Valencian is the only modern Catalan variant that articulates etymological final [r] in all contexts
- Valencian preserves the medieval system of demonstratives with three different deixis (este/açò/ací, eixe/això/aquí, aquell/allò/allí) (feature shared with modern Ribagorçan)
- Valencian has -i- as tematic vowel for incoative verbs of the 3rd conjugation este servix (this one serves) (like Nord-occidental Catalan)
- An exclusive feature of Valencian is the subjunctive imperfect morph /ra/: que ell vinguera (that he come)
Dialects of Valencian
- Septentrional: spoken in most of the province of Castellon de la Plana, and the area of Matarraña in the province of Teruel. Septentrional 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. Apitxat has two distinct features:
- All voiced sibillants get unvoiced (that is, apitxat pronounces ['tSove] ['kasa] (young man, house), where other Valencians would pronounce ['dZove], ['kaza]) (feature shared with and Ribagorçan)
- It preserves the strong simple perfect, which has been substituted by a analytic perfect with VADERE + infinitive in the rest of modern Catalan variants (simple perfect is still preserved incomplete in Ibiza).
- Meridional: spoken in most of the province of Alicante, and the area of Carxe in the province of Murcia
Valencian was the home language of the Borgia family.
