Algherese or Alguerese (Algherese: ) is the variant of
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
spoken in the city of
Alghero ( in Catalan), in the northwest of
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
, Italy.
The dialect has its roots in 1372, when Catalan-speaking colonists were allowed to repopulate Alghero and expel the
native population, after several revolts. Catalan was replaced as the official language by
Spanish, then by
Italian in the mid-18th century. Today the language has semi-official recognition alongside Italian.
Studies give an approximate number of 20,000 to 30,000 native speakers of the language worldwide. In communities where Algherese is spoken,
Italian and
Logudorese Sardinian are often used as well.
History
Algherese is a regional dialect spoken by anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 individuals, most of whom reside in the town of
Alghero, located in the northwest of
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
.
The language, though distinct, is initially derived from, and thus considered a variant of, the
Catalan language
Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spa ...
.
The origins of the language can be traced back to 1372, when Catalan invaders repopulated the city of
Alghero after exiling the indigenous populations in
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
.
Despite the city's increasing
Italianization
Italianization ( it, italianizzazione; hr, talijanizacija; french: italianisation; sl, poitaljančevanje; german: Italianisierung; el, Ιταλοποίηση) is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or a ...
, the use of this Catalan dialect remained widespread until at least the 1970s.
Present status
As a result of the city's extensive Italianization,
Italian is now the predominant language in Alghero,
being estimated by a 2004 survey to be first language of close to 60% of those surveyed.
The use of the dialect in schools and media, to name a few, remains sparse. Teaching of the dialect in school is also rare. However, in an attempt to reverse the trend, the Regional Council of Sardinia officially recognized "Algherese Catalan" as a separate language in 1997, in order to promote its use and circulation.
According to the 2004 survey, Algherese was used by approximately 14% of the population for daily interactions. The dialect is mostly a local language, often used to supplement
Italian and/or
Sardinian in relatively small circles.
The following figures were obtained from the ''Enquesta d’usos lingüístics a l’Alguer'' ("Survey of linguistic usage in Alghero", EULAL) of 2004 and the ''Els usos lingüístics a l’Alguer'' of 2015 (EULA 2015), both of which were studies conducted in the town of Alghero about the general use of Algherese in several media.
Official recognition
In 1999, Catalan and Sardinian were among the twelve minority languages officially recognized as Italy's "
historical linguistic minorities" by the Italian State under Law No. 482/1999. Prior to this, the Regional Council of Sardinia had passed the Regional Law No. 26 of 15 October 1997 which, aside from promoting the equality in dignity of the Sardinian language with the Italian language throughout the island, provided that the other languages of smaller scope be afforded the same treatment as the aforementioned languages, among which Catalan is cited, in the city of Alghero. The city council, for its part, promulgated its protection and standardization in its city statute.
Phonology
A narrow transcription is provided here to clarify the sounds of Algherese. Note that transcriptions elsewhere should use a broader transcription.
Algherese has these phonetic features :
*Like in other languages of Sardinia and may merge into
mid vowel
A mid vowel (or a true-mid vowel) is any in a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned midway between an open vowel and a close vowel.
Other names for a mid ...
s and (here transcribed without diacritics), respectively.
*Coalescing of unstressed vowels , and to (transcribed without the diacritic for the sake of simplicity) (unlike the rest of
Eastern Catalan
The Catalan dialects feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between its dialects is very high, estimat ...
, which uses ): ''aura'' ('aura') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese)
*Algherese preserves as a distinct phoneme from , like
Balearic and most of
Valencian: ''viu'' ('he/she lives') (Algherese).
*Mutation of intervocalic and to : ''Barceloneta'' ('Barcelonette') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese); and ''vila'' ('town') and ''vida'' ('life') are homophones in Algherese .
*Mutation of syllable final to lateral , and the possible resulting group +
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
is further simplified to : ''forn'' ('oven') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese).
*Depalatalization of syllable final sonorants: lateral to , nasal to : ''ball'' ('dance') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese); ''any'' ('year') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese).
Morphology
*The simple past is replaced by the present perfect (present of ''haver'' "to have" + past participle), possibly by Italian influence.
*The imperfect past preserves etymological -v- in all conjugations: 1st -''ava'', 2nd -''iva'', 3rd -''iva'' unlike modern Eastern and Western Standard Catalan, which use 1st -''ava'', 2nd -''ia'', 3rd -''ia'', a feature shared with the
Ribagorçan dialect
Ribagorçan (autonym: ''ribagorsano'' or ''ribagorzano'') ; ca, label=Standard Catalan, ribagorçà is a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain.
The area corresponds ...
.
*Large-scale lexical borrowing and
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
s from
Sardinian,
Spanish and
Italian: nearly half of the vocabulary is not from Catalan.
Differences from Standard Catalan
The Algherese variant is
Eastern Catalan
The Catalan dialects feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between its dialects is very high, estimat ...
, but it has many differences from
Central Catalan
Central Catalan ( ca, català central) is an Eastern Catalan dialect spoken in the whole province of Barcelona, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona and most of the province of Girona, except for its northern part, where a transition to ...
, with some of the most obvious ones as follows:
Vocabulary
The following abbreviations are used: m. (masculine), f. (feminine), pl. (plural), f. pl. (feminine plural), inf. (informal), f. (formal).
The following phrases were gathered from a Catalan translation set, but the common phrases in Algherese are similar:
Literature
The ''Premi Rafael Sari'', organised by the ''Obra Cultural de l'Alguer'', is a series of prizes awarded in September each year to the best literary works of poetry and prose written in Algherese Catalan.
Notable poets include
Rafael Sari Rafael Sari (Alghero, 1904 - 1978) was a popular Sardinian poet and writer in Catalan. He worked as a school teacher and archivist of Alghero. From 1929 onwards he regularly published, in newspapers and magazines in Alghero in the Algherese dialect ...
,
Pasquale Scanu
Pasquale is a masculine Italian given name and a surname mainly found in southern Italy. It is a cognate of the French name Pascal, the Spanish Pascual, the Portuguese Pascoal and the Catalan Pasqual. Pasquale derives from the Latin ''pasch ...
and
Maria Chessa Lai
Maria Chessa Lai (born 1922 in Monti, Italy, died 2012 in Alghero, Italy) was a poet writing in the Catalan Algherese dialect. She was three times winner of the Premio Ozieri awarded annually for the best new poetry written in a Sardinian minorit ...
. There is also a long tradition of writing and performing songs in Algherese Catalan and the ''Premi Pino Piras'' is awarded for new songs written in the language. Notable singer-songwriters include
Pino Piras
Pino or Piño may refer to:
People
* Danny Pino (born 1974), American actor
* Domenico Pino (1760–1826), Italian general of the Napoleonic Wars
* Fernando Solanas (born 1936), aka "Pino" Solanas, Argentine filmmaker
* Frank J. Pino (1909– ...
and
Franca Masu
Franca Masu (born 1962 in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy) is a singer songwriter working in the Catalan Algherese dialect. At her debut Tony Scott declared her "one of Italy's top vocal talents".
Her songs often incorporate the work of Algherese poets. ...
.
In 2015
Carla Valentino
Carla is the feminized version of Carl, Carlos or Charles, from ''ceorl'' in Old English, which means "free man". Notable people with the name include:
* Carla, French singer and former member of the children's music group Kids United
* Carla Abe ...
published an Algherese translation of
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...
's ''
The Little Prince
''The Little Prince'' (french: Le Petit Prince, ) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 an ...
''.
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
* Ballone, Francesc (2008)
L'Alguer and Alguerese Catalan Corpus Oral de l'Algueres
*
*
*
*
* Cabrera-Callis, Maria (2015)
Morphologically Conditioned Intervocalic Rhotacism in Algherese Catalan Variations within and Across Romance Languages
* Moseley, Christopher (2016)
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
* Hammarstrom, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspelmath, Martin & Bank, Sebastian (2017)
Dialect: Algherese Glottolog
* Ager, Simon (1998–2017)
Useful Catalan Phrases Omniglot.
* Various Sources (2017)
Algherese Catalan The Endangered Languages Project
*
External links
Diccionari d'alguerésAssociació per a la Salvaguarda del Patrimoni Historico-cultural de l'Alguer ''New York Times'', 21 November 2016.
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