Extremaduran language

File:WIKITONGUES- Daniel speaking Extremaduran.webm

An Extremaduran speaker, recorded in the Netherlands.

Extremaduran (Template:Langx , Template:Langx) is a group of vernacular Romance dialects, related to the Asturleonese language, spoken in Extremadura and adjoining areas in the province of Salamanca. It is difficult to establish the exact boundary between Extremaduran and the Spanish varieties spoken in most of Extremadura.

Dialects

The linguistic varieties of Extremadura are usually classified in three main branches: Northern or "High" (artu estremeñu), Central or "Middle" (), and Southern or "Low" (). The northern branch is usually considered to be the language proper, and is spoken in the north-west of the autonomous region of Extremadura, and the south-west of Salamanca, a province of the autonomous region of Castile and León. The central and southern branches are spoken in the rest of Extremadura, and are not different enough from standard Spanish to be considered anything but dialects of the language, since at least the 18th century.

Northern Extremaduran is also spoken in a few villages of southern Salamanca, being known there as the "palra d'El Rebollal", which is now almost extinct.

History

The late 19th century saw the first serious attempt to write in Extremaduran, until then an oral language, with the poet José María Gabriel y Galán. Born in Salamanca, he lived most of his life in the north of Cáceres, Extremadura. He wrote in a local variant of Extremaduran, full of dialectal remains, but always with an eye on Spanish usage.

After that, localisms are the pattern in the attempts to defend the Extremaduran language to the extent that today only a few people are trying to revive the language and make northern Extremadura a bilingual region, whereas the government and official institutions seem to think the best solution is for northwestern Extremadurans to speak a Castilian dialect without any kind of protection.

There are also attempts to transform the southern Castilian dialects ("castúo", as some people named them using the word which appeared in Luis Chamizo Trigueros's poems) into a language, which makes it even harder to defend High Extremaduran, considered more frequently a "real" language and makes it easier for the administration to reject co-officiality and the normalisation of Extremaduran. It is in serious danger of extinction, with only the oldest people speaking it at present, while most of the Extremaduran population cannot speak the language, since the majority of Extremadurans, and even its own speakers, regard it as poorly spoken Spanish.

In 2013, the people of Serradilla created the first feature film in Extremaduran, Territoriu de bandolerus.

Phonology

• Features related to Astur-Leonese:
  • Post-tonic o becomes u, e.g. oru 'gold'.
  • Post-tonic e becomes i, e.g. calli or 'street'.
  • Latin word-final e, chiefly after d, is not lost, e.g. redi 'net'.
  • Some cases of palatalization of word-initial n, e.g. ñíu 'nest'.
  • Conservation of the consonantic group mb in intermediate position, e.g. lambel 'to lick'.
  • Frequent conservation of word-initial Template:IPAblink derived from a Latin f-. This consonant is lost in most Spanish varieties, but is common with much of Andalusia, e.g. 'fig'.
  • Occasional conservation of word-initial f, e.g. 'home, hearth'.
• Features related to southern peninsular Spanish:
  • General loss of intervocalic d, e.g. 'fear'.
  • Debuccalization of post-vocalic , and into (s-aspiration), e.g. estal 'to be'.
• Other features:
  • Infinitives in -l, e.g. dil 'to go'.
  • Metathesis of the consonant cluster rl into lr, e.g. 'to talk'.
  • Occasional interchange of the liquid consonants l/r, e.g. 'clear'.
  • Preservation of some old voiced fricatives, such as some instances of Template:IPAblink corresponding to in Portuguese or Template:IPAblink corresponding to in Portuguese (both corresponding to /θ/ in Spanish). This feature is an archaism preserved from Old Spanish or Old Astur-Leonese, as it happens only when it is etymologically justified. When a voiced fricative appears, one also does in languages such as Catalan or Portuguese: Extremaduran tristeza 'sadness' (still voiced in Portuguese tristeza , voice lost in Spanish tristeza ), but Extremaduran cabeça 'head' (voiceless also in Portuguese cabeça , Spanish cabeza ). The feature is dying out quite fast but is found all over the High Extremaduran speaking area.

Morphology

• Anteposition of the article before the possessive pronoun, as in Old Spanish or in many Romance languages such as Leonese, Portuguese, Catalan or Italian.
• Anteposition of the particle lu (or lo), in some interrogative sentences.
• Use of diminutives inu and ina, as heritage from Leonese (as in Portuguese).
• Occasional formation of gerund, derived from a form of the verb in past tense.
• Usage of a vocative-exclamative case. When nouns are in the vocative, the closing of post-tonic vowels (e into i and o into u) disappears and those vowels open. (Ramiro wants to come), but Ramiro, ven pacá (Ramiro, come here!). Sé quién lo vidu, Pepi (I know who saw it, Pepe did), but Sé quién lo vidu, Pepe (I know who saw it, Pepe). This is a characteristic shared with the Fala language. Extremaduran and the Fala language are actually the only western Romance languages with a distinct form of vocative case for nouns formed with a change in the ending.
• Usage of the preposition a with the verbs andal and estal indicating static temporal location, contrasting with the usage of en. Está a Caçris "He's at Cáceres (for a few days)", Está en Caçris "He's in Cáceres", Está pa Caçris "He's around Cáceres".
• A very frequent usage of deictic forms to which enclitic pronouns can be added at the end. They can be used in the middle of a sentence: Velaquí la mi casa (Here is my house), velallilu (there he is), velaquí lechugas, millu... (Look, lettuce, corn and so on is grown here).
• Usage of reduplicated forms of plural pronouns with a reciprocal sense (ellus y ellus, vujotrus y vujotrus...): Estaban brucheandu ellus y ellus: They were wrestling with each other.

Vocabulary

• Usage of terms considered in Spanish as archaisms: ludia (Spanish levadura, "yeast").
• Presence of common terms from Andalusian Arabic: zagal (from Andalusian Arabic zaḡál, "boy").

Comparative tables

Latin	Italian	Romanian	Catalan	Gascon	Aragonese	Spanish	Judezmo	Portuguese	Galician	Extremaduran	Leonese	English
altus	alto	(în)alt	alt	haut	alto	alto	alto	alto	alto	artu	altu	high/tall
quasi	quasi	(aproape)	quasi	quasi	cuasi	casi	kaji	quase	case	cuasi, ábati	cuasi	almost
dicere	dire	zice	dir	díser	decir	decir	dizir	dizer	dicir	izil	dicire	to say
facere	fare	face	fer	har	fer	hacer	(f)azer	fazer	facer	hazel	facere	to do
focus	fuoco	foc	foc	huec	fuego	fuego	fuego,huego	fogo	fogo	hueu	fueu	fire
flamma	fiamma	flamă	flama	ehlama	flama	llama	yama	chama	chama	flama	chama	flame
legere	leggere	(citi)	llegir	léger	leyer	leer	meldar	ler	ler	leyel	lliere	to read
lingua	lingua	limbă	llengua	lengua	luenga	lengua	elguenga	língua	lingua	luenga/léngua	llingua	tongue
lumbum	lombo	((zona) lombară)	llom	lom	lomo	lomo	lombo	lombo	lombo	lombu	llombu	loin
mater	madre	mamă	mare	mair	mai	madre	madre	mãe	nai	mairi	mai	mother
merula	merlo	mierlă	merla	mèrlo	merla	mirlo		melro	merlo	mielra	mielru	blackbird
monstrare	mostrare	mustra	mostrar	muishar	amostrar	mostrar	amostrar	mostrar	mostrar	muestral	amuesare	to show
noster	nostro	nostru	nostre	noste	nuestro	nuestro	muestro,muesho	nosso	noso	muestru/nuestru	nuesu	ours
tussis	tosse	tuse	tos	tos	tos	tos	toz	tosse	tose	tossi	tose	cough

* The words in this table refer only to High Extremaduran.

** Extremaduran words in this table are spelled according to Ismael Carmona García's orthography.

Literature

The language of Extremadura began to appear in documentation from the 13th century. In the 17th century, texts in the Talaveran subdialect appeared (1638). Extremaduran began to have more presence in literature with Vicente Barrantes and his Días sin sol of 1875.

In 1984, José María Alcón Olivera published Requilorios, the first novel written in Extremaduran. It was not until the 2000s that new publications in Extremaduran were seen, in this case, in the El Rebollar variant, with El corral los mis agüelus, by José Benito Mateos Pascual. This was followed by the Primera Antología de Poesía Extremeña in 2005. In 2011, La nueva literatura en estremeñu was published, followed in 2012 by a second part.

In 2012, Ismael Carmona García published the poetry collection Pan i verea. The siblings Miguel Herrero Uceda and Elisa Herrero Uceda published two books of short stories in Extremaduran: one in 2012, entitled Ceborrincho, relatos extremeños, and another in 2015, entitled Mamaeña, relatos extremeños. Other books in subsequent years include La huélliga by Marcos Cruz Díaz and El sol del lobu by Aníbal Martín. In 2025, Vicente Costalago published Euris estremeñus i sotras poemas, divided into three parts: the first with epic poems about various Extremaduran heroes; the second with religious poems; and the last with individual poems.

Organizations

There is a regional organization in Extremadura, OSCEC Estremaúra, that tries to defend the language, one journal (Belsana) and one cultural newspaper, Iventia, written in the new unified Extremaduran and the old dialect "palra d'El Rebollal".

Textual example

Portuguese	Galician	Leonese	Asturian	Extremaduran	Spanish	Ladino	English	Catalan	Cantabrian	Aragonese
O estremenho é uma língua falada no noroeste da comunidade autónoma da Estremadura.	O estremeño é unha lingua falada no noroeste da comunidade autónoma de Estremadura.	L'estremennu yía una llingua falada nel noruesti la comunidá autónoma Estremadura.	L'estremeñu ye una llingua falada nel noroeste de la comunidá autónoma d'Estremadura.	El estremeñu es una luenga palrá nel noroesti de la comuniá autónoma d'Estremaúra.	El extremeño es una lengua hablada en el noroeste de la comunidad autónoma de Extremadura.	El ekstremadurano es una lingua favlada en el noroeste d'la komunitate autonoma d'Ekstremadura.	Extremaduran is a language spoken in the northwest of the autonomous community of Extremadura.	L'extremeny és una llengua parlada al nord-oest de la comunitat autònoma d'Extremadura.	L'Extremaduran ye una llingua que se habla nel noroeste de la comunidá autónoma d'Extremadura.	L'extremaduran ye una llingua que se parla en o noroeste de l'autonomía d'Extremadura.

Writers

• José María Gabriel y Galán
• Miguel Herrero Uceda
• Elisa Herrero Uceda

See also

• Chinato
• Ramón Menéndez Pidal

External links

• Languages of Spain and map Template:In lang
• APLEx Extremadura Cultural Society Template:Webarchive
• Linguistic cartography of Extremadura, which offers 418 linguistic and ethnographic maps on rural lexicon Template:In lang
• a Short Comparative Grammar of the Astur-leonese Languages (in French) a linguistic comparison of all Astur-Leonese languages