"Aragonese" redirects here. For other uses, see Aragonese (disambiguation). Aragonese aragonés Spoken in  Spain Region  Aragon Total speakers 10,000 (30,000 total) Language family Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Pyrenean-Mozarabic Aragonese Official status Official language in None Regulated by none yet Language codes ISO 639-1 an ISO 639-2 arg  Ethnologue 14th edition: AXX ISO 639-3 arg Linguasphere – Language distribution in Aragon (Aragonese in red). Spanish is spoken across the whole area, but the yellow-green part of Aragon is monolingually Spanish-speaking. Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Aragonese (pronounced /ˌærəɡɒˈniːz/ in English, aɾaɡo'nes in Aragonese) is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon. It is also colloquially known as fabla (literally, "speech") and is the only remaining speech form derived from medieval Navarro-Aragonese languages. Contents 1 History 2 Modern Aragonese 3 Phonological characteristics 4 Orthography 5 Grammar 5.1 Pronouns 6 Dialects 7 See also 8 References 9 External links // History

Aragonese originated around the eighth century, as one of many Latin dialects developed in the Pyrenees on top of a strong Basque-like substratum. The original Kingdom of Aragon (formed by the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza) was progressively expanded from the mountain ranges towards the South, pushing the Moors farther south in the Reconquista and spreading the Aragonese language. The dynastic union of the Catalan Counties and the Kingdom of Aragon—which formed the Aragonese Crown in the twelfth century—did not result in a merging of the language forms of the two territories into a single form; Catalan continued to be spoken in the east, and Navarro-Aragonese in the west. The Aragonese reconquista to the south ended in the kingdom of Murcia, which was ceded by James I of Aragon to the Kingdom of Castile as a dowry for an Aragonese princess. The spread of Castilian, now more commonly known as Spanish, and the Castilian origin of the Trastamara dynasty and a strong similarity between Castilian and Aragonese, meant that further recession was to follow. One of the key moments in the history of Aragonese was when a king of Castilian origin was appointed in the fifteenth century: Ferdinand I of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand of Antequera. The mutual union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile and the progressive suspension of all capacity of self-rule from the sixteenth century meant that Aragonese, while still widely spoken, was limited to a rural and colloquial use, as the nobility chose Spanish as their symbol of power.

During the rule of Francisco Franco in the twentieth century and the spreading of compulsory schooling, Aragonese was regarded as a mere dialect of Spanish, and therefore was frowned upon (for example, pupils were punished in schools for using it). Then, the constitutional democracy voted by the people in 1978 also meant the debut of literary works and studies conducted in and about the Aragonese language. Modern Aragonese Today, Aragonese is still spoken natively within its core area, the Aragonese mountain ranges of the Pyrenees, in the comarcas of Somontano, Jacetania, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza. These are the major cities and towns where Aragonese speakers can still be found: Huesca, Graus, Monzón, Barbastro, Bielsa, Chistén, Fonz, Echo, Estadilla, Benasque, Campo, Sabiñánigo, Jaca, Plan, Ansó, Ayerbe, Broto, and El Grado. Aragonese is also learnt as a second language by other inhabitants of the country in areas like Huesca, Zaragoza, Ejea de los Caballeros, and Teruel. According to recent polls, altogether they only make up around 10,000 active speakers and about 30,000 passive speakers. Phonological characteristics Some historical traits of the Aragonese language: Open O, E from Romance result systematically into diphthongs [we], [je], e.g. VET'LA > viella ("old woman", Sp. vieja, Cat. vella) Loss of final unstressed -E, e.g. GRANDE > gran ("big") Romance initial F- is preserved, e.g. FILIUM > fillo ("son", Sp. hijo, Cat. fill, Pt. filho) Romance yod (GE-, GI-, I-) results in voiceless palatal affricate ch [tʃ], e.g. IUVENEM > choven ("young man", Sp. joven, Cat. jove), GELARE > chelar ("to freeze", Sp. helar, Cat. gelar) Romance groups -ULT-, -CT- result in [jt], e.g. FACTUM > feito ("done", Sp. hecho, Cat. fet, Gal./Port. feito), MULTUM > muito ("many"/"much", Sp. mucho, Cat. molt, Gal. moito, Port. muito) Romance groups -X-, -PS-, SCj- result into voiceless palatal fricative ix [ʃ], e.g. COXU > coixo ("crippled", Sp. cojo, Cat. coix) Romance groups -Lj-, -C'L-, -T'L- result into palatal lateral ll [ʎ], e.g. MULIERE > muller ("woman", Sp. mujer, Cat. muller), ACUT'LA > agulla ("needle", Sp. aguja, Cat. agulla) Latin -B- is maintained in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: teneba / teniba ("he had", Sp. tenía, Cat. tenia), dormiba ("he was sleeping", Sp. dormía, Cat. dormia) Aragonese, along with dialects of Gascon, has preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. CLETAM > cleta ("sheep hurdle", Cat. cleda, Fr. claie), CUCULLIATAM > cocullata ("crested lark", Sp. cogujada, Cat. cogullada) Orthography

In 2010, the Academia de l'Aragonés, formed in 2006, has established a single orthographic standard in order to modernize medieval orthography and look for a more etymological language. This new orthography is used by the Aragonese Wikipedia.1 Previously, Aragonese had two orthographic standards: The grafía de Uesca codified in 1987 by the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa (CFA) at a convention in Huesca (Aragonese: Uesca) is used by a majority of Aragonese writers. It uses a more uniform system when assigning letters to phonemes with less regard to the etymology of a word. For example, words traditionally written with "v" and "b" are uniformly written with "b" in the Uesca system. Likewise "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are all written "ch". In addition, the orthography uses letters more strongly associated with Spanish (e.g., "ñ").2 The grafía SLA devised in 2004 by the Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa (SLA) is used by a minority of Aragonese writers. It uses more etymological-based forms that are closer to Catalan, Occitan, and medieval Aragonese sources. With the SLA system, "v" and "b" and "ch", "j", "g(+e)", and "g(+i)" are distinct forms and "ny" is used instead of "ñ". In the sixteenth century, Aragonese Moriscoes wrote some texts in Arabic writing as Andalusi Arabic was forgotten or forbidden. Grammar This section requires expansion.

Aragonese grammar is similar to the grammar of other Iberian Romance languages, such as Spanish and Catalan. Pronouns Aragonese preserves the system of clitic pronouns derived from the Latin forms 'inde' and 'ibi', as 'en/ne' and 'bi/i/ie'. This feature is shared with other Romance languages (Catalan, Occitan, French, Italian), and makes Aragonese different from other Ibero-Romance languages without those clitics (Spanish, Asturian, Portuguese). 'En/ne' is used for: Partitive object: No n'he visto como aquello (I haven't seen anything like that, literally Not (of it) I have seen like that). Partitive subject: En fa tanto de mal (it hurts so much, literally (of it) it causes so much of pain) Ablative, place where a movement starts: Se'n va ra memoria (memory goes away, literally It (away from here) memory goes) 'Bi/i/ie' is used for: Locative, place where: N'ibi heba uno (there was one of them, literally (Of them) there was one Allative, movement towards somewhere: Vés-be ((you) go there (imperative)) Dialects There are about 25-30 dialectal variants of Aragonese, the majority of which are in the province of Huesca, due to its mountainous terrain where natural isoglosses have developed around valley enclaves, and where, not surprisingly, the highest incidence of spoken Aragonese is found. Ribagorçan, is one such variant: an eastern Aragonese dialect, which is transitional to Gascon, Occitan, Catalan, and Spanish. See also Aragonese language literature References ^ Orthographic Proposal for Aragonese language ^ Normas graficas de l'aragonés External links Aragonese language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For a list of words relating to Aragonese language, see the Aragonese language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aragonese language Academia de l'Aragonés, Cultural association. Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa, Cultural association and language academy. Ligallo de Fablans de l'Aragonés, Cultural association and language academy. A.C. Nogará, Cultural association and language academy. Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa, Cultural association. Aragonese language Aragonese Course (Archived 2009-10-25) Ethnologue report for Aragonese Aragonese Language Sample Webster's Aragonese-English Dictionary v · d · eDialects and varieties of Aragonese Western Aragonese Ansó Aragonese • Hecho Aragonese • Aragüés Aragonese • Aisinian Aragonese • Jaca Aragonese Central Aragonese Tierra de Biescas Aragonese • Acumuer Valley Aragonese • Vió Valley Aragonese • Puértolas Valley Aragonese • Ribera de Fiscal Aragonese • Sierra Ferrera Aragonese • Belsetan Aragonese • Bergotese • Serrablese • Sobrepuerto Aragonese • Tella Valley Aragonese • Tensinian Aragonese (Panticutian Aragonese) Eastern Aragonese Chistau Valley Aragonese La Fueva Aragonese Ribagorçan Upper Ribargorçan or Benasquese High Benasquese • Low Benasquese Middle Ribagorçan Campese Low Ribagorçan Graus Aragonese • Estadilla Aragonese • Fonz Aragonese Southern Aragonese Ayerbe Somontanese • Somontano de Blabastro Aragonese or Somontanese • (Navalese) • Old Sobrarbe Aragonese Other Aragonese varieties Judeo-Aragonese† • Navarrese† • Precastilian Riojan† v · d · eRomance languages  Italo-Western  Gallo-Iberian Gallo-Italic Ligurian Brigasc · Genoese · Intemelio · Mentonasc · Monégasque Lombard Eastern · Gallo-Sicilian · Western Others Emiliano-Romagnolo · Piedmontese · Venetian Gallo-Rhaetian Langues d'oïl Burgundian · Champenois · Frainc-Comtou · French · Gallo · Lorrain · Norman · Picard · Poitevin · Saintongeais · Walloon Rhaeto-Romance Friulian · Ladin · Romansh Others Arpitan Occitano- Romance Catalan Algherese · Balearic · Central · Valencian Occitan Auvergnat · Gascon · Languedocien · Limousin · Old Occitan · Provençal · Shuadit · Vivaro-Alpine Ibero-Romance Astur-Leonese Asturian · Cantabrian · Extremaduran · Leonese · Mirandese Portuguese African (Angolan, Cape Verdean, Guinean, Mozambican, São Tomean) · East Timorese · Macanese · Brazilian · European (Barranquenho) Galician Eonavian · Fala Spanish (Castilian) African (Equatoguinean) · Latin American (South American, Caribbean, Central American, North American) · Asian · Peninsular (Ladino / Caló) Italo-Dalmatian Italian Central · Corsican (Gallurese) · Sassarese · Tuscan Neapolitan Southern Italian dialects Pyrenean Navarro-Aragonese (Aragonese) · Mozarabic Others Dalmatian · Istriot · Judeo-Italian · Sicilian  Eastern and Southern Eastern Romanian Moldovan · Vlach Others Aromanian · Istro-Romanian · Megleno-Romanian Southern Sardinian Campidanese · Logudorese Italics indicate extinct languages; bold indicates languages with more than 5 million speakers; languages between parenthesis are varieties of the language on their left.