Murcian (
endonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
: ) is a variant of
Peninsular Spanish
Peninsular Spanish ( es, español peninsular) (also known as the Spanish of Spain ( es, español de España, links=no), European Spanish ( es, español europeo, links=no), Iberian Spanish ( es, español ibérico, links=no) or Spanish Spanish ( es ...
, spoken mainly in the
autonomous community
eu, autonomia erkidegoa
ca, comunitat autònoma
gl, comunidade autónoma
oc, comunautat autonòma
an, comunidat autonoma
ast, comunidá autónoma
, alt_name =
, map =
, category = Autonomous administra ...
of
Murcia
Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...
and the adjacent ''
comarcas
A ''comarca'' (, or , or ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, ...
'' of
Vega Baja del Segura
Vega Baja del Segura (in Spanish) or Baix Segura (in Valencian) is a ''comarca'' in the province of Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain.
To the north its neighbouring ''comarcas'' are the Baix Vinalopó and Vinalopó Mitjà. Its southern limits ...
and
Alto Vinalopó in the
province of Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is the second most populated Valencian province. Likewise, the second and third biggest cities in the Valencian Community (Alica ...
(
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
), the
corridor of Almansa in Albacete (Castile-La Mancha). In a greater extent, it may also include some areas that were part of the former
Kingdom of Murcia
After roughly two decades as a protectorate of the Crown of Castile, the territory of the Taifa of Murcia became the Kingdom of Murcia ( es, Reino de Murcia, links=no, a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile) in the wake of its Conques ...
, such as southeastern Albacete (now part of Castile La Mancha) and parts of Jaén and Almería (now part of Andalusia).
The linguistic varieties of Murcian form a dialect continuum with Eastern Andalusian and Manchego Peninsular Spanish.
Murcian is considered a separate language of Spanish by some of its native speakers, who call it . The term is also used to designate the Murcian language, however it mostly refers to the variety spoken in the of the .
History
Murcian emerged from the mixture of several linguistic varieties that joined in the
Kingdom of Murcia
After roughly two decades as a protectorate of the Crown of Castile, the territory of the Taifa of Murcia became the Kingdom of Murcia ( es, Reino de Murcia, links=no, a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile) in the wake of its Conques ...
after the conquest of the
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon ( , ) an, Corona d'Aragón ; ca, Corona d'Aragó, , , ; es, Corona de Aragón ; la, Corona Aragonum . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of B ...
and the
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accessi ...
between 13th and 14th centuries. The linguistic varieties were mainly
Tudmir
Theodemir or Theudimer (died 743) was a Visigothic ''comes'' (count) prominent in the southeast of Carthaginensis (the region around Murcia) during the last decades of the Visigothic kingdom and for several years after the Moorish conquest. He rul ...
's
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
(a type of
Andalusi Romance
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance languages, Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue fo ...
),
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Aragonese,
Old Castilian
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
and
Occitano-
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 ...
. In modern times Murcian has also been influenced by
French and
Caló.
Phonetic features of Murcian
The Murcian dialectal features differ among areas, villages, social classes and individuals in accordance with the communicative situation in which they are involved, this is because of the influence of standard rule. This dialect has similarities and differences with Spanish, Aragonese and Catalan languages.
Consonants
Historical postvocalic consonants in the syllable coda assimilate to both the place and the manner of articulation of the following consonant, producing a geminate. For instance, historical , and all fall together as , rendering ''cacto'' 'cactus', ''casto'' 'chaste' and ''capto'' 'I understand' homophonous as . Historical also joins this neutralization, rendering ''sexta'' 'sixth' (f.) homophonous with ''secta'' 'sect' as . Other historical postvocalic clusters affected by this include , in each case producing a geminated second element: (with being an alternative to ). This produces minimal pairs differentiated by consonant length, such as ''cisne'' 'swan' vs. ''cine'' 'cinema'. This process also occurs across word boundaries, as in ''los nenes'' 'the kids'.
Word-final is realized as velar .
In older working-class rural speech, syllable-final surfaces as before word-initial consonants (particularly the voiced plosives and ), as in ''los vasos'' 'the glasses'. are lenited after this allophone. The replacement of with is perceived as a very marked feature of rural Murcian, and it is disapproved of by the local population.
Phonetic development
There are linguistic phenomena that are (or were) usual in other linguistic varieties (Aragonese, Mozarabic, Catalan, Andalusian, etc.):
* The frequent preservation of voiceless intervocalic consonants or other voiceless consonants that used to be voiced or are voiced in standard Spanish: ( in Spanish), , ( in Spanish), (), (), (), , , , , , (), (), (), , (a place in Mula), (), (), (), , , , , (a place in Blanca), (Lorca), , etc.
* The frequent voicing of voiceless consonants: (), (), (), (), (), (lat. ), etc.
* The frequent preservation of Latin group : , 'llamar' and also "pl" ().
* The frequent preservation of Latin group : (llama, calor), (llameante), , etc.
* The frequent maintenance of Latin in its original form (, etc.) or aspirated (it is always aspirated before like in , etc.; it is maintained in certain cases before like in , etc. and before in , etc.
* The presence of the intervocalic consonant cluster : , etc.
* A consonantal alternation between voiceless and : or , (), (), ( < ), (, in Cieza), etc.
* Change from to : (, from Arabic Ibn Hud), (cabota), etc.
Vowels
![Murcian Spanish vowel chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Murcian_Spanish_vowel_chart.svg)
The vowel system of Murcian Spanish is essentially the same of Eastern Andalusian.
The open-mid vowels as well as the open front are realizations of (where stands for any consonant other than ) in the syllable coda. Due to
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, the close-mid and the open central (hereafter transcribed without the diacritic) are banned from occurring in any syllable preceding that with . This change is sometimes
[E.g. by ] called ''vowel
opening
Opening may refer to:
* Al-Fatiha, "The Opening", the first chapter of the Qur'an
* The Opening (album), live album by Mal Waldron
* Backgammon opening
* Chess opening
* A title sequence or opening credits
* , a term from contract bridge
* , ...
'', but this is completely inaccurate for , which is not only more back than but also ''lower'' than it. Thus, the contrast between ''mañanas'' and the singular form ''mañana'' 'morning' surfaces as a contrast of vowel quality: , rather than the presence of terminal in the former word.
The close vowels have no contextual allophones, and they are consistently realized as close . Thus, there is no difference between underlying and in most contexts, with both being realized as , without any trace of the final fricative in the latter case.
See also
*
L’Ajuntaera pa la Plática, l'Esturrie y l'Escarculle la Llengua Murciana
*
Language secessionism
Language secessionism (also known as linguistic secessionism or linguistic separatism) is an attitude supporting the separation of a language variety from the language to which it has hitherto been considered to belong, in order to make this var ...
*
Spanish dialects
Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar.
While all Spanish dialects adhere to approximately the same written standard, ...
Notes
Bibliography
* Alberto Sevilla. ''Vocabulario Murciano''
* García Soriano. ''Vocabulario del Dialecto Murciano''
* García Cotorruelo-Emilia. ''Estudio sobre el habla de Cartagena y su comarca''.
* Molina Fernández, Patricio. ''Parablero Murciano''.
* Muñoz Cortés-Manuel. ''El habla de la Huerta.''
* Aguilar Gil, Pedro. ''Raíces, habla y costumbres de los huertanos''. A.A.V.V. Torrealta. Molina. 1999.
* Álvar López, Manuel. ''Estudios sobre las hablas meridionales''. Universidad de Granada. Granada. 2004.
* Álvar López, Manuel. ''Las hablas meridionales de España y su interés para la lingüística comparada''. Atlas Lingüístico de Andalucía, Tomo 1, nº. 2. Universidad de Granada. Granada. 1956.
* Díez de Revenga, Francisco Javier y De Paco, Mariano. ''Historia de la literatura murciana''. Editora Regional. Murcia. 1989.
* Ibarra Lario, Antonia. ''Materiales para el conocimiento del habla de Lorca y su comarca''. Universidad de Murcia. Murcia. 1996.
*
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