Valencian language

Valencian (valencià) or the Valencian language (llengua valenciana) is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan, either as a whole or in its Valencia-specific linguistic forms. The Valencian Community's 1982 Statute of Autonomy officially recognises Valencian as the name of the native language.
Valencian displays transitional features between Ibero-Romance languages and Gallo-Romance languages. According to philological studies, the varieties of this language spoken in the Valencian Community and Carche cannot be considered a single dialect restricted to these borders: the several dialects of Valencian (Alicante's Valencian, Southern Valencian, Central Valencian or Apitxat, Northern Valencian or Castellon's Valencian and Transitional Valencian) belong to the Western group of Catalan dialects.
There is political controversy within the Valencian Community regarding whether it is a glottonym or an independent language. Official reports from 2014 showed that the majority of the people in the Valencian Community considered it as a separate language, different from Catalan, although the same studies show that this percentage decreases among younger generations and people with more education. According to the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, Valencian is regulated by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL), following the legacy established by the Castelló Norms, which adapt Catalan orthography to Valencian idiosyncrasies.
Some of the most important works of Valencian literature experienced a Golden Age during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Important works include Joanot Martorell's chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanch, and Ausiàs March's poetry. The first book produced with movable type in the Iberian Peninsula was printed in the Valencian variety. The earliest recorded chess game with modern rules for moves of the queen and bishop was in the Valencian poem Scachs d'amor (1475).
The Valencian language is usually assumed to have spread in the Kingdom of Valencia when Catalan and Aragonese colonists settled the territory after the conquests carried out by James the Conqueror. A new resettlement in the 17th century, after the expulsion of the Moriscos, largely led by Castilians, defined the Spanish language varieties of inland Valencia. However, Valencian has historically been the predominant and administrative language in the kingdom.
The first documental reference to the usage of the term valencià to refer to the spoken language of the Valencians is found in a judicial process of Minorca against Gil de Lozano, dated between 1343 and 1346, in which it is said that the mother of the indicted, Sibila, speaks valencianesch because she was from Orihuela (formerly Oriola).
The concept of Valencian language appeared in the second half of the 14th century and it was progressively consolidated at the same time that its meaning changed due to events of a diverse nature (political, social, economic). In the previous centuries the Catalan spoken in the territory of the Kingdom of Valencia was called in different ways: romanç (13th century) and catalanesch (during the 14th century, for the medieval concept of nation as a linguistic community). The concept of the Valencian language appeared with a particularistic character due to the reinforced nature of the legal entity of the Kingdom of Valencia for being the Mediterranean commercial power during the 14th and 15th centuries, becoming in the cultural and literary centre of the Crown of Aragon. Thus, the Valencians, together with the Majorcans, presented themselves to other peoples as Catalans while they referred to themselves as Valencians and Majorcans to themselves to emphasise the different legal citizenship of each kingdom.
In the 15th century, the so-called Valencian Golden Age, the name "Valencian" was already the usual name of the predominant language of the Kingdom of Valencia, and the names of vulgar, romanç or catalanesch had fallen into disuse. Joanot Martorell, author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, said: "lit. 'Me atrevire expondre: no solament de lengua anglesa en portuguesa. Mas encara de portuguesa en vulgar valenciana: per ço que la nacio d·on yo so natural se·n puxa alegrar'." ("I dare to express myself: not only in English in Portuguese. But even so from Portuguese to vulgar Valencian: for that the nation I am from born can rejoice").
Since the Spanish democratic transition, the autonomy or heteronomy of Valencian with respect to the rest of the Valencian-Catalan linguistic system has been the subject of debate and controversy among Valencians, usually with a political background. Although in the academic field (universities and institutions of recognised prestige) of linguists the unity of the language has never been questioned since studies of the Romance languages, part of Valencian public opinion believes and affirms that Valencian and Catalan are different languages, an idea that began to spread during the turbulent Valencian transition by sectors of the regionalist right and by the so-called blaverisme (Blaverism). There is an alternative secessionist linguistic regulation, the Normes del Puig (Norms of El Puig), drawn up by the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), an institution founded in 1915 by the Deputation of Valencia, but its use is very marginal.
The official status of Valencian is regulated by the Spanish Constitution and the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, together with the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian (ca).
Article 6 of the Valencian Statute of Autonomy sets the legal status of Valencian, establishing that:
Passed in 1983, the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian develops this framework, providing for the implementation of a bilingual educational system, regulating the use of Valencian in the public administration and judiciary system, where citizens can freely use it when acting before both, or establishing the right to be informed by media in Valencian among others.
Valencian is also protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ratified by Spain. However, the Committee of Experts of the Charter has pointed out a considerable number of deficiencies in the application of the Charter by the Spanish and Valencian governments.
Unlike in other bilingual autonomous communities, Valencian has not historically been spoken to the same extent throughout the Valencian Community. Slightly more than a quarter of its territory, equivalent to 10-15% of the population (its inland and southernmost areas), is Spanish-speaking since the Middle Ages. Additionally, it is also spoken by a small number of people in the Carche comarca, a rural area in the Region of Murcia adjoining the Valencian Community. Nevertheless, Valencian does not have any official recognition in this area. Nowadays about 600 people are able to speak Valencian in Carche.
The Valencian language is traditionally spoken along the coast and in some inland areas in the provinces of Alicante and Castellón, from Vinaròs (northernmost point of the extension of Valencian on the coast of the Valencian Community) to Guardamar (southernmost point of Valencian).
In 2010 the Generalitat Valenciana, or Valencian government, published a study, Coneixement i ús social del valencià (Knowledge and Social Use of Valencian), which included a survey sampling more than 6,600 people in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante. The survey simply collected the answers of respondents and did not include any testing or verification. The results were:
The survey shows that, although Valencian is still the common language in many areas in the Valencian Community, where slightly more than half of the Valencian population are able to speak it, most Valencians do not usually use Valencian in their social relations.
Moreover, according to the most recent survey in 2021, there is a downward trend in everyday Valencian users. The lowest numbers are in the major cities of Valencia and Alicante, where the percentage of everyday speakers is at single-digit numbers. However, the percentage of residents who claim to be able to understand and read Valencian seems to have increased since 2015.
Due to a number of political and social factors, including repression, immigration and lack of formal instruction in Valencian, the number of speakers has severely decreased, and the influence of Spanish has led to the appearance of a number of barbarisms.
This is a list of features of the main forms of Valencian. There is a great deal of variety within the Valencian Community, and by no means do the features below apply to every local version. For more general information about other linguistic varieties, see Catalan language.
The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL) specifies Standard Valencian as having some specific syntax, vocabulary, verb conjugations and accent marks compared to Standard Catalan.
Valencian vocabulary contains words both restricted to the Valencian-speaking domain, as well as words shared with other Catalan varieties, especially with North-Western ones. Words are rarely spread evenly over the Valencian Community, but are usually contained to parts of it, or spread out into other dialectal areas. Examples include hui 'today' (found in all of Valencia except transitional dialects, in Northern dialects avui) and espill 'mirror' (shared with North-Western dialects, Central Catalan mirall). There is also variation within Valencia, such as 'corn', which is dacsa in Central and Southern Valencian, but panís in Alicante and Northern Valencian (as well as in North-Western Catalan). Since Standard Valencian is based on the Southern dialect, words from this dialect are often used as primary forms in the standard language, despite other words traditionally being used in other Valencian dialects. Examples of this are tomaca 'tomato' (which is tomata outside of Southern Valencian) and matalaf 'mattress' (which is matalap in parts of Valencia, including the Southern Valencian area).
Below are a selection of words which differ or have different forms in Standard Valencian and Catalan. In many cases, both standards include this variation in their respective dictionaries, but differ as to what form is considered primary. In other cases, Valencian includes colloquial forms not present in the IEC standard. Primary forms in each standard are shown in bold (and may be more than one form). Words in brackets are present in the standard in question, but differ in meaning from how the cognate is used in the other standard.
Valencian and Catalan use the Latin script, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan-Valencian orthographies are systematic and largely phonologically based. Standardisation of Catalan was among the topics discussed during the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), founded in 1911, published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. In 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló de la Plana to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló (Castelló Norms), a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms.
The letters k, y and w only appear in loanwords. In the case of y it also appears in the digraph ny. Most of the letters are pronounced the same in both standards (Valencian and Catalan). The letters c and g have a soft and hard pronunciation similar to English and other Romance languages, ç (found also in Portuguese and French) always has a soft pronunciation and may appear in word final position. The only differences between the main standards are the contrast of b /b/ and v /v/ (also found in Insular Catalan), the treatment of long consonants with a tendency to simplification in Valencian (see table with main digraphs and letter combinations), the affrication (/d͡ʒ/) of both soft g (after front vowels) and j (in most cases), the affrication (/t͡ʃ/) of initial and postconsonantal x (except in some cases) and the lenition (deaffrication) of tz /d͡z/ in most instances (especially the -itzar suffix).
The Academy of Valencian Studies (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL), established by law in 1998 by the Valencian autonomous government and constituted in 2001, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian. Currently, the majority of people who write in Valencian use this standard.
Standard Valencian is based on the standard of the Institute of Catalan Studies (Institut d'Estudis Catalans, IEC), used in Catalonia, with a few adaptations. This standard roughly follows the Castelló Norms (Normes de Castelló) from 1932, a set of othographic guidelines regarded as a compromise between the essence and style of Pompeu Fabra's guidelines, but also allowing the use of Valencian idiosyncrasies.
Until its dissolution in November 2013, the public-service Ràdio Televisió Valenciana (RTVV) was the main broadcaster of radio and television in Valencian language. The Generalitat Valenciana constituted it in 1984 in order to guarantee the freedom of information of the Valencian people in their own language. It was reopened again in 2018 in the same location but under a different name, À Punt, and it is owned by À Punt Media, a group owned by the Generalitat Valenciana. The new television channel claims to be plural, informative and neutral for all of the Valencian population. It is bilingual, with a focus on the Valencian language. It is recognised as a regional TV channel.
Prior to its dissolution, the administration of RTVV under the People's Party (PP) had been controversial due to accusations of ideological manipulation and lack of plurality. The news broadcast was accused of giving marginal coverage of the Valencia Metro derailment in 2006 and the indictment of President de la Generalitat Francisco Camps in the Gürtel scandal in 2009. Supervisors appointed by the PP were accused of sexual harassment.
In face of an increasing debt due to excessive expenditure by the PP, RTVV announced in 2012 a plan to shed 70% of its labour. The plan was nullified on 5 November 2013 by the National Court after trade unions appealed against it. On that same day, the President de la Generalitat Alberto Fabra (also from PP) announced RTVV would be closed, claiming that reinstating the employees was untenable. On 27 November, the legislative assembly passed the dissolution of RTVV and employees organised to take control of the broadcast, starting a campaign against the PP. Nou TV's last broadcast ended abruptly when Spanish police pulled the plug at 12:19 on 29 November 2013.
Having lost all revenues from advertisements and facing high costs from the termination of hundreds of contracts, critics question whether the closure of RTVV has improved the financial situation of the Generalitat, and point out to plans to benefit private-owned media. Currently, the availability of media in the Valencian language is extremely limited. All the other autonomous communities in Spain, including the monolingual ones, have public-service broadcasters, with the Valencian Community being the only exception despite being the fourth most populated.
In July 2016 a new public corporation, Valencian Media Corporation, was launched in substitution of RTVV. It manages and controls several public media in the Valencian Community, including the television channel À Punt, which started broadcasting in June 2018.
Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian community, the Valencian Language Academy (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) considers Valencian and Catalan to be two names for the same language.
The AVL was established in 1998 by the PP-UV government of Eduardo Zaplana. According to El País, Jordi Pujol, then president of Catalonia and of the CiU, negotiated with Zaplana in 1996 to ensure the linguistic unity of Catalan in exchange for CiU support of the appointment of José María Aznar as Prime Minister of Spain. Zaplana has denied this, claiming that "[n]ever, never, was I able to negotiate that which is not negotiable, neither that which is not in the negotiating scope of a politician. That is, the unity of the language". The AVL orthography is based on the Normes de Castelló, a set of rules for writing Valencian established in 1932.
A rival set of rules, called Normes del Puig, were established in 1979 by the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which considers itself a rival language academy to the AVL, and promotes an alternative orthography, treating Valencian as an independent language, as opposed to a variety of Catalan. Compared to Standard Valencian, this orthography excludes many words not traditionally used in the Valencian Community, and also prefers spellings such as ⟨ch⟩ for /tʃ/ and ⟨y⟩ for /j/ (as in Spanish). Besides, these alternative Norms are also promoted and taught by the cultural association Lo Rat Penat.
Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the North-Western varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (Province of Lleida and most of the Province of Tarragona). The various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible (ranging from 90% to 95%)
Despite the position of the official organisations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority (65%) of the Valencian people (both Valencian and Spanish speakers) consider Valencian different from Catalan: this position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicate that younger people educated in Valencian speaking areas are considerably less likely to hold these views. According to an official poll in 2014, 54% of Valencians considered Valencian to be a language different from Catalan, while 41% considered the languages to be the same. By applying a binary logistic regression to the same data, it was also found that different opinions about the unity of the language are different between people with certain levels of studies and the opinion also differs between each of the Valencian provinces. The opinion agreeing on the unity of Valencian and Catalan has significant differences regarding age, level of education and province of residence, with a majority of those aged 18–24 (51%) and those with a higher education (58%) considering Valencian to be the same language as Catalan. This can be compared to those aged 65 and above (29%) and those with only primary education (32%), where the same view has its lowest support. People living in the province of Castellón are more prone to be in favor of the unity of the language, while people living in the province of Alicante are more prone to be against the unity of the language, especially in the areas where Valencian is not a mandatory language at schools. Later studies also showed that the results differ significantly depending on the way the question is posed.
The ambiguity regarding the term Valencian and its relation to Catalan has sometimes led to confusion and controversy. In 2004, during the drafting of the European Constitution, the regional governments of Spain where a language other than Spanish is co-official were asked to submit translations into the relevant language in question. Since different names are used in Catalonia ("Catalan") and in the Valencian Community ("Valencian"), the two regions each provided one version, which were identical to each other.