Asturian language

19th-century sketch of 17th-century author Antón de Marirreguera

Jurist and neoclassical author Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811), who envisaged the Academy of the Asturian Language

Although some 10th-century documents have the linguistic features of Asturian, numerous examples (such as writings by notaries, contracts and wills) begin in the 13th century.[18][19] Early examples are the 1085 Fuero de Avilés (the oldest parchment preserved in Asturias)[20] and the 13th-century Fuero de Oviedo and the Leonese version of the Fueru Xulgu.

The 13th-century documents were the laws for towns, cities and the general population.[19] By the second half of the 16th century, documents were written in Castilian, backed by the Trastámara dynasty and making the civil and ecclesiastical arms of the principality Castilian. Although the Asturian language disappeared from written texts during the sieglos escuros (dark centuries), it survived orally. The only written mention during this time is from a 1555 work by Hernán Núñez about proverbs and adages: " ... in a large copy of rare languages, as Portuguese, Galician, Asturian, Catalan, Valencian, French, Tuscan ... ".[21]

Modern Asturian literature began in 1605 with the clergyman Antón González Reguera and continued until the 18th century (when it produced, according to Ruiz de la Peña in 1981, a literature comparable to that in Asturias in Castilian).[22] In 1744, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos wrote about the historic and cultural value of Asturian, urging the compilation of a dictionary and a grammar and the creation of a language academy. Notable writers included Francisco Bernaldo de Quirós Benavides (1675), Xosefa Xovellanos (1745), Xuan González Villar y Fuertes (1746), Xosé Caveda y Nava (1796), Xuan María Acebal (1815), Teodoro Cuesta (1829), Xosé Benigno García González, Marcos del Torniello (1853), Bernardo Acevedo y Huelves (1849), Pin de Pría (1864), Galo Fernández and Fernán Coronas (1884).

In 1974, a movement for the language's acceptance and use began in Asturias. Based on ideas of the Asturian association Conceyu Bable about Asturian language and culture, a plan was developed for the acceptance and modernization of the language that led to the 1980 creation of the Academy of the Asturian Language with the approval of the Asturias regional council. El Surdimientu (the Awakening) authors such as Manuel Asur (Cancios y poemes pa un riscar), Xuan Bello (El llibru vieyu), Adolfo Camilo Díaz (Añada pa un güeyu muertu), Pablo Antón Marín Estrada (Les hores), Xandru Fernández (Les ruines), Lourdes Álvarez, Martín López-Vega, Miguel Rojo and Lluis Antón González broke from the Asturian-Leonese tradition of rural themes, moral messages and dialogue-style writing. Currently, the Asturian language has about 150 annual publications.[23]

Astur-Leonese's geographic area exceeds Asturias, and that the language known as Leonese in the autonomous community of Castile and León is basically the same as the Asturian spoken in Asturias. The Asturian-Leonese linguistic domain covers most of the principality of Asturias, the northern and western province of León, the northeastern province of Zamora (both in Castile and León), western Cantabria and the Miranda do Douro region in the eastern Bragança District of Portugal.

Asturian place-name status, 2017

  Conceyos (municipalities) whose traditional place names have been codified

  Conceyos which have applied for approval

  Conceyos which have not applied

Traditional, popular place names of the principality's towns are supported by the law on usage of Asturian, the principality's 2003–07 plan for establishing the language[24] and the work of the Xunta Asesora de Toponimia,[25] which researches and confirms the Asturian names of requesting villages, towns, conceyos and cities (50 of 78 conceyos as of 2012).

Asturian distinguishes five vowel phonemes (these same ones are found in Spanish, Aragonese, Sardinian and Basque), according to three degrees of vowel openness (close, mid and open) and backness (front, central and back).

• When occurring as unstressed, close vowels /i u/ can become glides as [j w] in the pre-nuclear position. In the post-nuclear syllable margin, they are traditionally heard and transcribed as non-syllabic vowels [i̯ u̯].[28]

• /b, d, ɡ/ may be lenited or sonorized as [β, ð, ɣ] in certain environments, or word-initially.
• /n/ is pronounced [ŋ] in coda position.
• /ɟ/ can have different pronunciations, as a voiced plosive [ɟ], affricate [ɟ͡ʝ], or as a voiced fricative [ʝ].

The Latin alphabet was used in the earliest Asturian texts. Although the Academia de la Llingua Asturiana published orthographic rules in 1981,[29] different spelling rules are used in Terra de Miranda (Portugal).

Asturian orthography is based on a five-vowel system (/a e i o u/), with three aperture degrees. It has the following consonants: /p t tʃ k b d ʝ ɡ f θ s ʃ m n ɲ l ʎ r ɾ/. The phenomenon of -u metaphony is uncommon, as are decrescent diphthongs (/ei, ou/, usually in the west). Although they can be written, ḷḷ (che vaqueira, formerly represented as "ts") and the eastern ḥ aspiration (also represented as "h." and corresponding to ll and f) are absent from this model. Asturian has triple gender distinction in the adjective, feminine plurals with -es, verb endings with -es, -en, -íes, íen and lacks compound tenses[29] (or periphrasis constructed with "tener").

• (*) also zeda, ceda

Asturian H and Ḥ

Asturian Ḷ

Asturian has several digraphs, some of which have their own names.

The letter h and the digraph ll can have their sound changed to represent dialectal pronunciation by under-dotting the letters, resulting in ḥ and digraph ḷḷ

• The "ḥ" is common in eastern Asturian place names and in words beginning with f;[30] workarounds such as h. and l.l were used in the past for printing.

Asturian dictionary, published by the Academy of the Asturian Language

Asturian grammar is similar to that of other Romance languages. Nouns have three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), two numbers (singular and plural) and no cases. Adjectives may have a third, neuter gender, a phenomenon known as matter-neutrality.[30] Verbs agree with their subjects in person (first, second, or third) and number, and are conjugated to indicate mood (indicative, subjunctive, conditional or imperative), tense (often present or past; different moods allow different tenses), and aspect (perfective or imperfective).[30]

Asturian is the only western Romance language with three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

• Masculine nouns usually end in -u, sometimes in -e or a consonant: el tiempu (time, weather), l’home (man), el pantalón (trousers), el xeitu (way, mode).
• Feminine nouns usually end in -a, sometimes -e: la casa (house), la xente (people), la nueche (night).
• Neuter nouns may have any ending. Asturian has three types of neuters:
  • Masculine neuters have a masculine form and take a masculine article: el fierro vieyo (old iron).
  • Feminine neuters have a feminine form and take a feminine article: la lleche frío (cold milk).
  • Pure neuters are nominal groups with an adjective and neuter pronoun: lo guapo d’esti asuntu ye... (the interesting [thing] about this issue is ...).

Adjectives are modified by gender. Most adjectives have three endings: -u (masculine), -a (feminine) and -o (neuter): El vasu ta fríu (the glass is cold), tengo la mano fría (my hand is cold), l’agua ta frío (the water is cold)

Neuter nouns are abstract, collective and uncountable nouns. They have no plural, except when they are used metaphorically or concretised and lose this gender: les agües tán fríes (Waters are cold). Tien el pelo roxo (He has red hair) is neuter, but Tien un pelu roxu (He has a red hair) is masculine; note the noun's change in ending.

Plural formation is complex:

• Masculine nouns ending in -u → -os: texu (yew) → texos.
• Feminine nouns ending in -a → -es: vaca (cow) → vaques.
• Masculine or feminine nouns ending in a consonant take -es: animal (animal) → animales; xabón (soap) → xabones.
• Words ending in -z may take a masculine -os to distinguish them from the feminine plural: rapaz (boy) → rapazos; rapaza (girl) → rapaces.
• Masculine nouns ending in -ín → -inos: camín (way, path) → caminos, re-establishing the etymological vowel.
• Feminine nouns ending in -á, -ada, -ú → -aes or -úes, also re-establishing the etymological vowel: ciudá (city) → ciudaes; cansada (tired [feminine]) → cansaes; virtú (virtue) → virtúes.

Their forms are:

^*Only before words beginning with a-: l’aigla (the eagle), l’alma (the soul). Compare la entrada (the entry) and la islla (the island).

In terms of documentation of grammar in Asturian, there are manuals available online that contain extensive information on how to conjugate verbs, use adjectives and form sentences.[31] It is a complex manual that can be used in schools to facilitate learning.

Additionally, a translator that can translate English, French, Portuguese and Italian, among a few other languages, into Asturian and vice versa is offered online.[32] This software is funded and maintained by members of the University of Oviedo.[32]

Like other Romance languages, most Asturian words come from Latin: ablana, agua, falar, güeyu, home, llibru, muyer, pesllar, pexe, prau, suañar. In addition to this Latin basis are words which entered Asturian from languages spoken before the arrival of Latin (its substratum), afterwards (its superstratum) and loanwords from other languages.

Although little is known about the language of the ancient Astures, it may have been related to two Indo-European languages: Celtic and Lusitanian. Words from this language and the pre–Indo-European languages spoken in the region are known as the prelatinian substratum; examples include bedul, boroña, brincar, bruxa, cándanu, cantu, carrascu, comba, cuetu, güelga, llamuerga, llastra, llócara, matu, peñera, riega, tapín and zucar. Many Celtic words (such as bragues, camisa, carru, cerveza and sayu) were integrated into Latin and, later, into Asturian.

Asturian's superstratum consists primarily of Germanisms and Arabisms. The Germanic peoples in the Iberian Peninsula, especially the Visigoths and the Suevi, added words such as blancu, esquila, estaca, mofu, serón, espetar, gadañu and tosquilar. Arabisms could reach Asturian directly, through contacts with Arabs or al-Andalus, or through the Castilian language. Examples include acebache, alfaya, altafarra, bañal, ferre, galbana, mandil, safase, xabalín, zuna and zucre.

Asturian has also received much of its lexicon from other languages, such as Spanish, French, Occitan and Galician. In number of loanwords, Spanish leads the list. However, due to the close relationship between Castilian and Asturian, it is often unclear if a word is borrowed from Castilian, common to both languages from Latin, or a loanword from Asturian to Castilian. Some Castilian forms in Asturian are:

Loans

Spanish	echar, antoxu, guerrilla, xamón, siesta, rexa, vainilla, xaréu
Galician	cachelos, chombada, quimada
French	arranchar, chalana, xofer, espáis, foina, galipote, malvís, pote, sable, somier, tolete, vagamar, xarré
Occitan	hostal, parrocha, tolla

Although Spanish is the official language of all schools in Asturias, in many schools children are allowed to take Asturian-language classes from age 6 to 16. Elective classes are also offered from 16 to 19. Central Asturias (Nalón and Caudal comarcas) has the largest percentage of Asturian-language students, with almost 80 percent of primary-school students and 30 percent of secondary-school students in Asturian classes.[36] Xixón, Uviéu, Eo-Navia and Oriente also have an increased number of students.

Development of Asturian-language education[37][38]

According to article six of the University of Oviedo charter, "The University of Oviedo, due to its historical, social and economic links with the Principality of Asturias, will devote particular attention to the cultural aspects and collective interests of Asturias. The Asturian Language will be treated appropriately in accordance with legislation. Nobody will be discriminated against for using it".[39] Asturian can be used at the university in accordance with the Use of Asturian Act. University records indicate an increased number of courses and amount of scientific work using Asturian, with courses in the Department of Philology and Educational Sciences.[40] In accordance with the Bologna Process, Asturian philology will be available for study and teachers will be able to specialise in the Asturian language at the University of Oviedo.

• Diccionariu de la Academia de la Llingua Asturiana / Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Asturian Language
• Diccionario General de la lengua asturiana (Asturian — Spanish)
• Eslema, Asturian online translator