Algherese or Alguerese ( autonym: ) is the variety of Catalan spoken in the city of

Alghero Alghero (; ; ; ) is a city of about 45,000 inhabitants in the Italian province of Sassari in the north west of the island of Sardinia, next to the Mediterranean Sea. The city's name comes from ''Aleguerium'', which is a mediaeval Latin word m ...

( in Catalan), in the northwest of

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

, 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 Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, then by

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

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,

and

Logudorese Logudorese Sardinian (, ) is one of the two written standards of the Sardinian language, which is often considered one of the most, if not the most conservative of all Romance languages. The orthography is based on the spoken dialects of centra ...

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

, located in the northwest of

. The language, though distinct, is initially derived from, and thus considered a variant of, the

Catalan language Catalan () is a Western Romance languages, Western Romance language and is the official language of Andorra, and the official language of three autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic I ...

. The origins of the language can be traced back to 1372, when Catalan invaders repopulated the city of

after exiling the indigenous populations in

. Despite the city's increasing Italianisation, the use of this Catalan dialect remained widespread until at least the 1970s.

Present status

As a result of the city's extensive Italianisation,

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 recognised "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

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 recognised 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 standardisation in its city statute.

Phonology

;Vowels : : :Notes: :* The close-mid and mid-close vowels and 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 approximately midway between an open vowel and a close vowel. Other n ...

s ( and , here transcribed without diacritics) in Modern Alguerese. :* Coalescing of unstressed vowels , () and to ~ (transcribed as ) unlike the rest of Eastern Catalan, which uses or even (transcribed as ): ''aura'' ('aura') (Eastern Standard), (Algherese). :* Unstressed () reduces to like most Eastern Catalan dialects. ;Consonants : :Notes: :* Algherese preserves as a distinct phoneme from , like Balearic and most of

Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...

: ''viu'' ('he/she lives') (Algherese). :* Mutation of intervocalic and to : ''Barceloneta'' (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'Barcelonette'; and ''vila'' ('town') and ''vida'' ('life') are homophones in Algherese . :* Mutation of syllable final (or ) 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, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

is further simplified to : ''forn'' (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'oven'. :* Depalatalisation of syllable final sonorants: lateral to , nasal to : ''ball'' (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'dance'; ''any'' (Eastern Standard), (Algherese) 'year'.

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. *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 ...

s from Sardinian,

and

: nearly half of the vocabulary is not from Catalan.

Differences from Standard Catalan

The Algherese variant is Eastern Catalan, but it has many differences from

Central Catalan Central Catalan () 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 Northern Catalan ...

, 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, Pasquale Scanu and Maria Chessa Lai. 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 and Franca Masu. In 2015 Carla Valentino published an Algherese translation of

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...

's ''

The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...

''.

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 Organisation * 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'alguerés

Associació per a la Salvaguarda del Patrimoni Historico-cultural de l'Alguer

''New York Times'', 21 November 2016. {{Navboxes , title = Articles related to Algherese / Alguerese , list = {{Languages of Italy {{Sardinia {{Catalan dialects {{Romance languages Catalan dialects Languages of Sardinia Endangered diaspora languages Province of Sassari Alghero City colloquials