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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Bable/Asturian
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Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 22:09:36 GMT
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In article <4juecu$bf1@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner <coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <Dp9s2s.DnG@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@harper.uchicago.edu> wrote:

Coby:
>As has been pointed out many times in this group, any claims for one
>"language" being "the oldest" are absurd.  By the 8th century there
>was a Romance dialect continuum that covered the Iberian Peninsula,
>except for the Basque-speaking areas.  The only survivors of this
>continuum are the dialects spoken along the northernmost strip of
>the peninsula, where Arab penetration was relatively brief.  These
>dialects can be put in five groups, from west to east: Galician,
>Asturian-Leonese, Castilian, Navarro-Aragonese and Catalan, with the
>middle three sometimes regarded as forming a central supergroup.
>In the 13th century there were written forms of all five, but A-L
>and N-A are close enough to Castilian so that eventually
>Castilian was adopted as the standard in the kingdoms of Leon
>(which after 1230 was united with Castile), Navarre and Aragon
>(not to mention the territories that Castile-Leon reconquered from
>the Arabs). 
>
>The kingdom of Portugal used Galician at first, but eventually
>developed a standard of its own, reflecting the speech
>patterns of central Portugal.

>>>                                      In Asturias, some 
>>>fanatics keep "fighting" for their language (sometimes referred to 
>>>as "Bable") to be recognized as an official language, but I tend to 
>>>share the majority opinion that it is merely a dialect of 
>>>Castillian, with strong Galician influences. You do find, however, a 
>>>fair sprinkling  of Celtic traces in place-names, rivers, etc.
>
>To assert that "A is [merely] a dialect of B" is a political, not a
>linguistic, statement, unless B refers to group of dialects that
>includes A, in which case the statement is a tautology; and no
>linguist I know of uses "Castilian" as a term for the central
>supergroup.  
>
>>Galician influences?  Like what?
>
>Because of geography, Asturian is clearly intermediate between
>Galician and Castilian; for example, [o] endings 
>in Castilian are [u] in Asturian, 

...but [o] in Galician/Northern Portuguese, not [u] as in Standard
Portuguese (and Eastern Catalan, for that matter).

>and initial f -> h, which is
>silent in Castilian, is aspirated in Asturian.  

And is conserved in Galician.  Nu?

>But to call these
>features "influences" is fallacious.

>>Bable looks more like Aragonese than Galician.
>
>That may be because of the relative closeness of Bable and Fabla to
>Castilian, and of the fact that modern Castilian underwent some
>drastic changes that the other two didn't share.  

Exactly.  One could say that they represent conservative dialects of
the "central group" ("Eastern Ibero-Romance"?).

>But, in any case,
>appearances can deceive.  Asturian even has some features in common with
>Catalan, e.g. palatalization of initial *l*.

Which it shares with at least some forms of Aragonese.  And then, there
is the -o# -> [u] change mentioned before.  But nobody tries to claim
Catalan influence on Galician.

>>Both of these are languages of former Spanish kingdoms
>>that, after a long period of attrition, have lapsed to the status of dia-
>>lects of Castillian.
>
>If you mean "dialects whose speakers use Castilian as the standard",
>I agree.

Basically, that's what I mean.  More specifically, the H variety 
corresponding to bable or aragones (which are always L) is now Casti-
lian with local colouring.  This is in marked contrast to the officially
recognised "languages" of Spain (Galician, Basque, Catalan), all of
which possess a full range of registers (though Castilian is still
primary in some linguistic domains).



-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
