Alguerese - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Algherese is the variant of the Catalan language

Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

spoken in the city of Alghero

Alghero

Alghero , is a town of about 44,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the sea.-History:The area of today's Alghero has been settled since pre-historic times...

(L'Alguer in Catalan

Catalan language

), in the northwest of Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

.
Catalan invaders repopulated the town after expelling the indigenous Sardinian population in 1372, following several revolts.

Catalan was replaced as the official language by Spanish in the early 18th century following the War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...

, then by Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, but its use remained widespread until at least the 1960s. Today it has semi-official status, alongside Italian.

According to recent linguistic research, 22.4% of the population are first language speakers and above 90% have some knowledge of the language.

Differences from Standard Catalan

The Algherese variant is classified in the Eastern Catalan block, but it has many differences from Central Catalan

Central Catalan

Central Catalan is the Eastern Catalan dialect with the highest number of speakers, since it is commonly spoken in densely populated areas such as the whole Barcelona province, the eastern half of Tarragona province and most of the Girona province, except for it is northern part, where a...

. Some of the most obvious:
Phonetics

Like in other languages of Sardinia /ɛ/, /e/, /ɔ/, and /o/ may merge into mid vowel
Mid vowel
A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...

s e̞ and o̞, respectively.
Coalescing of unstressed vowels /a/, /ɛ/ and /e/ to ä (unlike the rest of Eastern Catalan that uses ə).
Algherese preserves /v/ as a distinct phoneme from /b/, like Balearic and most of Valencian
Valencian
Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...

.
Mutation of intervocalic /d/ or /l/ to r; e.g. 'Barceloneta' (little Barcelona): Eastern Standard [bərsəɫuˈnɛtə], Algherese [balsaruˈne̞ta]; and vila ('town') and vida ('life') are homophones in Algherese [ˈvira].
Mutation of syllable final /r/ to lateral l, and the possible resulting group /r/ + consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

is further simplified to l; e.g. forn ('furnace, oven'): Standard [ˈfo̞rn], Algherese [ˈfo̞l].
Depalatalization of syllable final sonorants: lateral /ʎ/ to l, nasal /ɲ/ to n; e.g. any ('year'): Standard [ˈaɲ], Algherese [ˈan].
Unlike most Catalan dialects, /l/ is never velarized in Algherese; e.g. sol ('sun'): Standard [ˈsɔɫ], Algherese [ˈso̞l].

Morphology

Simple past has been replaced by present perfect (present of haver "to have" + past participle), possibly due to Italian influence.
Imperfect Past preserves etymological -v- in all the conjugations: 1st -ava, 2nd -iva, 3rd -iva (unlike modern eastern and western standard Catalan which has 1st -ava, 2nd -ia, 3rd -ia) (a feature shared with Ribagorçan Catalan
Ribagorçan
Ribagorçan is the name given to a number of Romance dialects spoken in the modern territories of the medieval County of Ribagorza, in northern Spain...

).
Large-scale lexical borrowing and calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...

s from Sardinian
Sardinian
Sardinian can refer to:* Sardinia* Sardinian people* Sardinian language* Sardinian...

, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

.

Differences from Standard Catalan

See also

Further reading