Ribagorçan is a romance dialect spoken in the Aragonese counties of Ribagorza and La Litera, in Huesca, and Alta Ribagorça in Lérida, Cataluña. All three counties reflect their historical geo-linguistic heritage of having belonged to the important and formerly much larger medieval County of Ribagorza. Today, depending on provincial and regional perspectives, Ribagorçan may be described in Aragon as transitional to Catalan, or in Cataluña as transitional to Aragonese.

Historically, the county and its dialect was influenced by its political alliances, conquerors and rulers - ranging from the Romans to the Goths, Navarrese, the Franks, Moors, Castilians and Catalans. As such, the spoken language evolved from an aragonese variant of Vulgar Latin and was influenced along the way by its geo-linguistic neighbors - Basque, Gascon, medieval Occitan, Castilian, French and modern Catalan.

Written Language

Being predominantly a spoken language, written documents are scarce, but they do exist - most notably, the "Pastoradas of Benabarre" compiled by Ricardo del Arco as well the writings of Tonón de Baldomera and poetry of Cleto Torrodellas; and more recently works by Ana Tena Puy, Carmen Castán and Bienvenido Mascaray Sin.

With the recognition of Aragonese as a language in 2003, intra-regional identities, among them Ribagorçan, have gained strength and there is renewed interest in preserving, teaching and developing the local dialects commonly referred to as "fabla".

Linguistic Characteristics

In Aragon, the dialect in Ribagorza can be clustered into 2 main groups Upper and Lower Ribagorçan defined by an isogloss line running east-west from the Turbon mountain. However locals prefer to demarcate 3 subdialects:

• Upper, where altorribagorzano (or Patués, c.f. Patois, a mixture of Aragonese, Gascon and Catalan) is spoken - as heard in Benasque;
• Middle, or Meyorribagorzano (transitional to Upper and Lower), as exemplified by the language spoken in Campo;
• Lower, or Baxorribagorzano, spoken in and south of Graus, and more influenced by Castilian.

In La Litera as spoken in Sant Esteve, it can be described as Catalan dominant transitional to Aragonese Ribagorçan and Castilian.

In Cataluña the Ribagorçan dialect spoken in the county of Alta Ribagorça, is also clustered. A dialectal variant exemplified by the Ribagorçan speakers of Pont de Suert, is Catalan dominant transitional to Aragonese with some traits of Aranese Gascon.

Phonology

Some examples include:

• Palatalization of L in PL, CL, FL groups, e.g. pllou ['pʎɔw] (it rains), cllau ['kʎaw] (key), an exclusive feature of this dialect.
• General loss of Latin final unstressed vowels but A, as in Catalan. Moving westward preserved final -O is more frequent.
• Occasional diphthongization of Romance short ɛ>ie,ɔ>ue, becoming more generalized moving westward. E.g. TERRA > tierra, terra; PONTE > puent, pont; FONTES > Fonts (documented ancient toponymic) > Fonz (contemporary toponymic).
• Occasional interdental fricative as solution to Latin CE,CI, e.g. cinc [θiŋk] (five). This feature gets more general moving westward.
• Different results for 2nd person plural endings of verbs (< -TIS), from west to east: -z [θ] (as in some occidental variants of Aragonese), -ts [ʦ] (as in Occitan), -u [w] (as in contemporary Catalan).
• Different results for romance voiced prepalatal africate ([ʤ] < I-, Dj- Gj-), from west to east: [ʧ] (as in some occidental variants of Aragonese and apitxat Valencian), [ʤ] (as in medieval Catalan and most of contemporary Valencian), [ʒ] (as in most of contemporary Catalan). E.g. [ʧ]ovens (West Ribagorza), [ʣ]ovens (East R.) (young ones).
• Loss of final -R of infinitives and polysyllabic words, a feature shared with most of contemporary Catalan (except Valencian variants). E.g. MULIERE > mulle(r) (woman), *TRIPALIARE > treballa(r) (to work)
• Past perfect of verbs formed with auxiliary forms derived from Latin VADERE + infinitive e.g. van fer [ban 'fe] (they did).

Donate to Wikimedia