Mirandese language

Mirandese (mirandés [mi.ɾɐ̃ˈdɛs̺; mi.ɾɐnˈdɛs̺]; lhéngua mirandesa [ˈʎɛ̃.gwɐ/ˈʎɛn.gwɐ mi.ɾɐ̃ˈdɛz̺ɐ/ mi.ɾɐnˈdɛz̺ɐ] in Central and Raiano, and léngua mirandesa [ˈlɛ̃.gwɐ/ˈlɛn.gwɐ mi.ɾɐ̃ˈdɛz̺ɐ/ mi.ɾɐnˈdɛz̺ɐ] in Sendinese) is an Asturleonese language or variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in eastern Tierra de Miranda (made up of the municipalities of Miranda de l Douro, Mogadouro and Bumioso, being extinct in Mogadouro and present in Bumioso only in some eastern villages, like Angueira). The Assembly of the Republic granted it 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.
Mirandese is a descendant of the Astur-Leonese variety spoken in the Kingdom of León and has both archaisms and innovations that differentiate it from the modern varieties of Astur-Leonese spoken in Spain. In recognition of these differences, and due to its political isolation from the rest of the Astur-Leonese speaking territory, Mirandese has adopted a different written norm to the one used in Spain for Astur-Leonese.
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 existent today, one of them being Mirandese.
Until 1884, Mirandese was a purely spoken language, but in that year, José Leite de Vasconcelos wrote Flores Mirandézas (Froles Mirandesas in Mirandese, "Mirandese Flowers"), a book with his own proposal for a Mirandese writing system, with a large number of diacritics, which have helped to convey what Mirandese sounded like in the 19th century.
One of the texts in Flores Mirandézas, "LHÊNGUA MIRANDÉZA" 'MIRANDESE LANGUAGE' (LHÉNGUA MIRANDESA in modern Mirandese), transcribed:
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 do 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 University of Vigo, carried out in Miranda do 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.
Mirandese is written using the Latin alphabet, with a Portuguese basis for orthography due to its political situation:
Three variants of the Mirandese language exist: Border Mirandese (Mirandés Raiano), Central Mirandese (Mirandés Central) and Sendinese (Sendinés). Most speakers of Mirandese also speak Portuguese.
Despite there being a singular writing system for mirandese, there is one aspect that is written differently in different dialects. In the Sendinese dialect, many words that in other dialects are said with /ʎ/ ⟨lh⟩, are said with /l/ ⟨l⟩ (alá for alhá 'over there', lado for lhado 'side', luç for lhuç 'light', amongst others)
The main orthographical differences between Mirandese in Portugal and the Astur-Leonese 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 Astur-Leonese 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.
Some historical developments in Mirandese are the following:
All oral and nasal vowel sounds and allophones are the same from Portuguese, with different allophones:
The main differences between the three mirandese dialects are in the pronunciation of words.
As in Portuguese, Mirandese still uses the following synthetic tenses:
Mirandese was formerly spoken in the general area of the district of Bragança (Bergáncia in Mirandese), that speaks the Transmontano dialect of Portuguese. Although Mirandese has been lost in said region, it left some words and phonetic influences behind.
The following measures have been taken to protect and develop Mirandese:
The following is a sample text of the Mirandese language, written by Amadeu Ferreira, and published in the newspaper Público, on 24 July 2007.
Then a comparison of the previous text in three modern languages of the Asturo-leonese group:
When Mirandese was first officially recognised and a writing system was established, it had ⟨ê⟩ and ⟨ô⟩ (like Portuguese) to represent [e] and [o] respectively in the diphthong ⟨uô⟩ and ⟨iê⟩. These have since fallen in disuse due to the fact that this rendering was only accurate in the Central and Raiano dialect, where said diphthongs were read [wo] and [je], unlike the Sendinese dialect, where they had been reduced to [u] and [i].
In 2000, the "purmeira adenda" 'first addendum' 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 ⟨ê⟩ and ⟨ô⟩, allowing Sendinese speakers to write their unpalatalised versions of words with ⟨l⟩ instead of ⟨lh⟩, among other small tweaks.
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.