Mirandese language

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Central Mirandese reading of the poem "" (Template:Xlat), written originally in the Sendinese dialect ("").

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A sticker located in New York City showing the Mirandese text (Template:Xlat). An unofficial flag for the Mirandese people is displayed behind the text.

Mirandese ( )Template:Notetag is an almost extinct language or variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in eastern Tierra de Miranda, an ethnocultural region comprising the area around the municipalities of Miranda de l Douro, Mogadouro and Bumioso. It is extinct in Mogadouro and present in Bumioso only in some eastern villages, like Angueira. The Assembly of the Republic granted Mirandese official recognition alongside Portuguese for local matters with Law 7/99 of 29 January 1999. In 2001, Mirandese was officially recognised by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, which aims to promote the survival of the least-spoken European languages.

Mirandese has a distinct phonology, morphology and syntax. It has its roots in the local Vulgar Latin spoken in the northern Iberian Peninsula.

The language is a descendant of the Asturleonese variety spoken in the Kingdom of León and has both archaisms and innovations that differentiate it from the modern varieties of Asturleonese spoken in Spain. In recognition of these differences, and due to its political isolation from the rest of the Asturleonese-speaking territory, Mirandese has adopted a different written norm to the one used in Spain for Asturleonese.

History

Mirandese is a descendant of the Old Leonese language spoken in the Kingdom of León in medieval Iberia. In the early 16th century, Old Leonese began to split, alongside Galician–Portuguese, into the varieties existing today, one of them being Mirandese.

File:AsturleoneseHistoricalDistribution.png

Rough geographical distribution of Old Asturleonese (in light purple) in northeastern Portugal and surrounding areas, in comparison to its modern descendants, including Mirandese (in dark purple).

Until 1884, Mirandese was a purely spoken language, but in that year, José Leite de Vasconcelos wrote the book (Template:Xlat, in Mirandese), in which he proposed a writing system for Mirandese. The system included a large number of diacritics which have helped to convey how Mirandese sounded in the 19th century.

Transcribed below is a poem included in as a sample text, (Template:Xlat, spelled in the modern orthography):

Vasconcelos's orthography (1884)	First official orthography (1990s)	Current orthography	English translation

In the 19th century, Leite de Vasconcelos described Mirandese as "the language of the farms, of work, home, and love between the Mirandese". Since 1986–87, it has been taught optionally to students at the primary and lower secondary level, and has thus been somewhat recovering. By Law 7/99, Mirandese was given official recognition by the Assembly of the Republic alongside Portuguese. The law provides for its promotion and allows its usage for local matters in Miranda de l Douro.

In 1999, Mirandese gained its first official orthography, which was later tweaked in 2000. Today Mirandese retains speakers in most of the villages of the municipality of Miranda de l Douro and in some villages of Bumioso (such as Vilar Seco and Angueira); and some linguistic influence can be observed at other villages of the municipality of Bumioso and the municipalities of Mogadouro, Macedo de Cavaleiros and Bragança.

A 2020 survey by the University of Vigo, carried out in Miranda de l Douro, estimated the number of speakers of the language to be around 3,500, with 1,500 of them being regular speakers. The study observed strong decline in the usage of the language in younger people.

Orthography

Mirandese is written using the Latin alphabet, and its orthography is based on that of Portuguese:

Letters and Digraphs		Names	IPA
Uppercase	Lowercase
A	a	á	,
AN	an	—
B	b	bé	,
C	c	cé, qué	,
Ç	ç	cé de cedilha	,
D	d	dé	,
E	e	é	, ,
EN	en	—	,
F	f	fé
G	g	gué	, ,
H	h	hagá	—
I	i	i	,
IN	in	—	, (Sendinese)
J	j	jé
L	l	lé	,
LH	lh	—
M	m	mé	,
N	n	né	, ,
NH	nh	—
O	o	ó	, , ,
ON	on	—
P	p	pé
Q	q	qué
R	r	ré	,
RR	rr	—
S	s	sé	,
SS	ss	—
T	t	té
U	u	u	, ,
UN	un	—	,
X	x	xiç
Y	y	i griego
Z	z	zé

Variants

Three primary variants of the Mirandese language exist: Border Mirandese (), Central Mirandese () and Sendinese (). Most speakers of Mirandese also speak Portuguese.

File:Rue ̠Ou ̠Ruga.png

Map demonstrating the dialectal variations of the word “street” in Mirandese: .

Despite there being a singular writing system for Mirandese, there is one phoneme that is written differently in different dialects. In the Sendinese dialect, many words that in other dialects are said with Template:Angbr, are said with Template:Angbr: examples include for Template:Gloss; for Template:Gloss; for Template:Gloss.

The main orthographical differences between Mirandese in Portugal and the Asturleonese languages in Spain are caused by the dominant languages in each region. And while Mirandese has been influenced phonetically and in lexicon by Portuguese and the Asturleonese languages in Spain by Spanish, they retain more similarities among themselves than to the main languages of each country. Another difference is that Mirandese and Leonese remain very conservative, while Asturian has undergone a greater amount of change.

Phonology

Development

Some historical developments in Mirandese are the following:

• Mirandese maintains distinct reflexes of all seven Ibero-Romance sibilants:

Proto–Ibero-Romance	Mirandese	Portuguese	Northern/Template:ZwspCentral Spanish
	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
or	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr
	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr
	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr
	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr / Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr
	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr	Template:Angbr

and indicate apico-alveolar sibilants (as in modern Catalan, northern/central peninsular Spanish and coastal northern European Portuguese), while and are dentalized laminal alveolar sibilants (as in most modern Portuguese, French and English). The unrelated Basque language also maintains a distinction between and (Basque has no voiced sibilants), which suggests that the distinction originally was an areal feature across Iberia.

Portuguese spelling still distinguishes all seven sibilants and is identical to Mirandese spelling in this respect, but in pronunciation, Portuguese has reduced them to four except in northern hinterland European Portuguese dialects, including those in the area where Mirandese is also spoken. Northern/central Peninsular Spanish has also reduced them to four but in quite a different way: . Western Andalusian Spanish and Latin American Spanish have further reduced them to three: .

• Retention of the initial from Latin, like nearly all dialects of Western Romance but unlike Spanish, which underwent the sound change .
• Development of the Latin initial consonant clusters , , evolve into , as in Leonese and Galician-Portuguese.
• Development of the medial clusters and as , like in Galician-Portuguese.
• The cluster /-mb-/ is kept.
• Development of as , like in Galician-Portuguese: lūm'nem > .
• Preservation of the falling diphthongs , .
• Raising of final to , as in Portuguese.
• Retention of voiced sibilants, like Portuguese, but unlike Spanish.
• Retention of intervocalic , , like Spanish, but unlike Portuguese.
• Frequent diphthongization of Western Romance , to , , as in Italian; this happens not only before palatals, as in Aragonese, but also before nasals.
• Word-initial palatalization of , as in other Asturleonese languages and Catalan.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	(Template:IPA link) Template:AngbrTemplate:Notetag
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr			Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
	voiced	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr			Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Affricate	voiceless				Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
	voiced		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Approximant	median				Template:IPA link Template:Angbr	(Template:IPA link) Template:Angbr
	lateral		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr		Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Trill				Template:IPA link Template:Angbr
Tap				Template:IPA link Template:Angbr

• As stated above, the laminal dental sibilants correspond to Portuguese . These are spelled c/ç and z. The corresponding alveolar sibilants are apical and are spelled s(s) and s. Furthermore, there is an additional palatal affricate ch that is distinct from the fricative , spelled x. The voiced is spelled j or g, as in Portuguese. Standard Portuguese has reduced all these sounds to just four fricatives: .
• The "hard" or "long" R is an alveolar trill , as in other varieties of Asturleonese and in Spanish. The Portuguese uvular fricative Template:IPAblink is not found in Mirandese. The "soft" or "short" R is an ordinary alveolar tap Template:IPAblink commonly found in the Iberian Peninsula. As in other languages spoken in the region, the two contrast only in word-internal position.
• Voiced stops may be lenited as fricatives .Template:Sfnp

Vowels

Mirandese has the same basic oral and nasal vowel phonemes as European Portuguese, but with different allophones:

Oral vowels Front Central Back Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Near-close Template:IPA link Close-mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Open-mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Open Template:IPA link

Nasal vowels Front Central Back Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Near-close Template:IPA link Close-mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Open-mid Template:IPA link Near-open Template:IPA link

• has allophones of , of , and of . Additionally, the nasal vowel sounds are allophones of .
• Vowels can become glides when preceding or following other vowels.Template:Sfnp

Dialectal variations

Pronunciation differences between the three Mirandese dialects may be illustrated with the following example:

Dialect	Sentence	IPA	Meaning
Raiano	Hai más fuogo alhá, i ye deimingo!	ˈaj ˈmas̺ ˈfwo.(ɣ)u/ ɐˈʎa, ˈi ˈje dejˈmĩ.gʲʊ/u	There's more fire over there, and it's Sunday!
Central	Hai más/mais fuogo alhá, i ye deimingo!	ˈaj ˈma(j)s̺ ˈfwo.ɣʊ/u ɐˈʎa, i je dejˈmĩ.gʊ/u
Sendinese	Hai más fuogo alá, i ye demingo!	ˈaj ˈmas̺ ˈfu.ɣʊ/u ɐˈla, ˈi ˈ(j)i dɨˈmʊ̃j̃.gʲʊ/u

Morphology

As in Portuguese, Mirandese still uses the following synthetic tenses:

• Synthetic pluperfect in -ra.
• Future subjunctive in -r(e).
• Template:Ill in -r(e), which has the same endings as the future subjunctive but often differs as the personal infinitive always uses the infinitive stem, whereas the future subjunctive uses the past.

Influence on Transmontano Portuguese

Mirandese was formerly spoken in the general area of the district of Bragança ( in Mirandese), that speaks the Transmontano dialect of Portuguese. Although Mirandese has been lost in this region, it left some words and phonetic influences behind.

Words used in eastern Trás-os-Montes of (likely) Mirandese origin

Portuguese of Campo de Víboras	Mirandese	Rest of Trás-os-Montes/Standard Portuguese	English Translation
alcaforro	alcaforro	abutre	vulture
amalinado	amalinado	adoentado	sick
anubrado	anubrado	nublado	cloudy
assomar	assomar (false friend with Portuguese assomar)	espreitar	to peek
bardeiro	bardeiro	vassoura	broom
betxe	beche (false friend with Portuguese beche)	bode	billy-goat
botxe	boche	bofe	lung (vulgar)
catxo	cacho	bocado	bit
canhona	canhona	ovelha	sheep
carambelo	carambelo	gelo	ice
txafurgo	chafurgo	mergulho	dive
curgidoso	curjidoso	curioso / desenrascado	curious / resourceful
d'apeto	(d')apeto	de propósito	on purpose
desinjum	zinjun	pequeno-almoço / desjejum (rare)	breakfast
emantes	mentes	enquanto	while
(ele) fai	(el) fai	(ele) faz	(he) does
forfalha	forfalha	migalha	crumb
guitxo	guicho	esperto / alerta	smart / alert
ai	hai	há	there is
scuma	scuma	espuma / escuma (archaic)	foam

Lack of protection measures

There are significant limitations in the protection of the Mirandese language:

• Portugal has not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
• There is no Mirandese law, its use in courts or public administration is not legal.
• The budget for the protection and promotion of Mirandese is not implemented.
• Lack of specialized teacher training, translations and media
• Education in Mirandese is not mandatory and discouraged
• Windows, macOS, Linux and Big Tech does not support it
• Impossible to type on computers due to the lack of an official keyboard layout; the Portuguese layout does not include ũ, it was possible on typewriters.

• On mobile, Gboard dosn't suport it, only SwiftKey and Heliboard.

The following measures have been taken to protect and develop Mirandese:

• Allow primary teaching staff in the district of Miranda de l Douro to teach in Mirandese, since 1986/1987, thanks to the ministerial authorisation published on 9 September 1985.
• Publish books in Mirandese and about the Mirandese language, promoted by the Council of Miranda de l Douro.
• Facilitate annual celebrations in the city as well as a literary competition, promoted by the Council of Miranda do Douro.
• Use Mirandese in town celebrations, official commemorations and, occasionally, on social media.
• Publish two volumes of the Asterix comic books.
• Translate all the toponymic signs in Miranda do Douro, promoted by the Council of Miranda do Douro in 2006.
• Develop studies by research centres in Portugal, such as , by the at University of Lisbon, and , by the University of Coimbra.
• Create Biquipédia, a Mirandese-language Wikipedia.
• Make sites available in Mirandese, such as Photoblog and WordPress.
• Record Mirandese music, with singers including Roberto Leal in his albums (2007) and / (2010).
• Integrated into the SwiftKey keyboard in 2018, with autocorrect and word suggestions.
• Participation in the European Language Equality project (2021–2022), which promotes digital equality by 2030.
• Create a GNOME Translation Team to help translate Linux distros into Mirandese.

Sample text

The following is a sample text of the Mirandese language, written by Amadeu Ferreira and published in the newspaper Público on 24 July 2007.

Mirandese	Portuguese	English
		Many languages take pride in their ancient scrolls, their centuries-old literature, and in famous writers, today standards of those languages. But there are others which can't boast of any of this, as in the case of Mirandese.

Then a comparison of the previous text in three modern languages of the Asturoleonese group:

Mirandese	Leonese	Asturian

Superseded orthography

When Mirandese was first officially recognised and a writing system was established, it used Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr (like Portuguese) to represent and respectively in the diphthongs Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr. These have since fallen in disuse because this rendering was only accurate in the Central and Raiano dialects, where these diphthongs read and , unlike in the Sendinese dialect, where they had been reduced to and .

In 2000, the (Template:Gloss) was made to the Mirandese orthography, quickly followed by a second one two years later, but only the first was put to use officially, removing the glyphs Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr and allowing Sendinese speakers to spell their unpalatalised pronunciation of words using Template:Angbr instead of Template:Angbr, among other small changes.

File:Pruoba placa.jpg

Bilingual sign in the village of (), with the glyph Template:Angbr used in the superseded orthography; the sign reads , or Thank you (Template:Lit) for your visit and bon voyage.

Comparative table

Latin	Mirandese	Leonese	Central Asturian	Montañés Cantabrian	Pasiegu Cantabrian	Extremaduran	Portuguese	Galician	Xalimego	Spanish	Aragonese	Catalan	Gascon	English
altus	alto	altu	altu	altu	altu	artu	alto	alto	altu/cirulalgu, firulalgu	alto	alto	alt	haut	high/tall
quasi	quaije/quaisque	cuasi	cuasi, cuásique	cuasi	casi	cuasi, abati	quase	case	caishi/cashi/casi/cuashi/cuasi	casi	cuasi	quasi	quasi	almost
dicere	dezir	dicire	dicir	dicir/icir	dicer/dicir/icir	izil	dizer	dicir	idil/idel	decir	decir	dir	díser	to say
facere	fazer	facere	facer	ḥacer	hacel	hazel	fazer	facer	fel/ficel	hacer	fer	fer	har	to do
focus	fuogo	fueu	fuebu/fueu	ḥueu	ḥuigu/ḥuegu	hueu	fogo	fogo	fogu	fuego	fuego	foc	huec	fire
flamma	chama	chama	llama	llapa	llama	flama	chama	chama	chama	llama	flama	flama	ehlama	flame
legere	lher (Sendinese: lher)	lliere	lleer	leer	leyer	leel	ler	ler	leel/lel	leer	leyer	llegir	léger	to read
lingua	lhéngua (Sendinese: léngua)	llingua	llingua/llengua	lengua	lengua	luenga/léngua	língua	lingua	lengua	lengua	luenga	llengua	lengua	tongue/language
lumbum	lhombo (Sendinese: lombo)	llombu	llombu	lombu/llombu	lumu/lomu	lombu	lombo	lombo	lombu/lomu	lomo	lomo	llom	lom	loin
mater	mai/madre	mai	ma	madre	madri	mairi	mãe	nai	madri/mairi	madre	mai	mare	mair	mother
merula	mierlo/mielro	mielru	ñarbatu/mierbu	miruellu	miruilu	mielru	melro	merlo		mirlo	merla	merla	mèrlo	blackbird
monstrare	amostrar	amosare	amostrar	amostrar	mostrar	muestral	mostrar	mostrar	mostral	mostrar	amostrar	mostrar	muishar	to show
noster	nuosso	nuesu	nuestru	nuestru	muistru	muestru/nuestru	nosso	noso	nosu	nuestro	nuestro	nostre	noste	ours
tussis	tuosse	tose	tose/tos	tus	tus	tossi	tosse	tose	tosi	tos	tos	tos	tos	cough

Recognition

Mirandese, given its status as a recognised language in Portugal after Portuguese, has been the subject in recent years of some publicity and attention in other parts of Portugal. A monthly chronicle in Mirandese, by researcher and writer Amadeu Ferreira, appears in the daily Portuguese national newspaper Público. The first volume of the Adventures of Asterix, named Asterix, L Goulés (Asterix the Gaul), was published in a Mirandese translation by Amadeu Ferreira in 2005, and sold throughout Portugal. Amadeu Ferreira also translated into Mirandese the epic poem by Camões, Os Lusíadas (Ls Lusíadas), under his pseudonym Francisco Niebro, and published it in 2009. In 2011, the four Gospels of the Bible's New Testament were translated into Mirandese, and in 2013 the entire Bible was translated into the language by Domingos Augusto Ferreira.

See also

• Asturian language
• Extremaduran language
• Leonese language
• Cantabrian language

External links

• Excerpt of The Lusiads in Mirandese
• Template:In lang Lei n. 7/99 dre.pt – Legislation which officially recognizes Mirandese as a language of Portugal
• Seth Kugel, "In Portugal, Mirandese spoken here—and only here", The New York Times, 17 January 2012