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Aranese is fairly normal Gascon speech, I don't think it qualifies as its own subdialect [1]. This being said, there's something to be said about Gascon as a wh
by Bayart 5y ago
Aranese is fairly normal Gascon speech, I don't think it qualifies as its own subdialect [1]. This being said, there's something to be said about Gascon as a whole potentially being its own language, as is considered Catalan. Among Occitan dialects, it's highly eccentric.
As for Aranese speakers, to me (I have some amount of Limousin and Provençal) native ones [2] are understandable to the same extent as other Gascon speakers, but new speakers who bring Castellan phonological features are incomprehensible. If it manages to survives in this environment, it could truly be a new language in the making.
[1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isoglosas_gasc%C3%B3n-oc_(principales_ciudades).svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isoglosas_gasc%C3%B3...
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdYpvY6Efos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdYpvY6Efos
- nekcihc 5y agoImagine my first time discovering when I found out that Limousin(car) (apparently)is named after a region and that there is language named Limousin.
- Bayart 5y agoIt's also the name of a cattle breed that's native to the region [1] and famed for its meat, as well as the name by which the very language discusses in this thread used to go by during the Middle Ages (as the Limousin dialect formed the basis for the normalized form of Occitan, that was used by the Troubadour movement ever since its inception by Eble II of Ventadorn). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousin_cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousin_cattle
- mrlonglong 5y agoIt's also a girl's name - Limousine. We had a French girl by that name stay with us on an exchange visit.
- rjtavares 5y agoI mean, it's only a Limousine if it comes fron the french region of Limousin. Otherwise it's just an unnecessarily long sparkling car.
- frogulis 5y agoThere's a pretty apt phrase that applies here: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy Compare with the Serbian/Croatian "languages" that are far more mutually intelligible than varieties of the Chinese "language". I've heard that Arabic also has far more variance than is between Serbian and Croatian. Even though we often refer to it as a single language, it's actually a very diverse selection of varieties that are not all mutually intelligible. In short, the distinction is pretty arbitrary.
- not2b 5y agoThey used to say "Serbo-Croatian" before the war.
- UncleSlacky 5y agoOnly in Serbia, in Croatia it was "Croato-Serbian".
- marsa 5y agowhen you compare serbian and croatian and find them fairly similar it's worth keeping in mind that only holds true for the standard versions of those languages. thing is these standard versions were developed and agreed upon more or less at a time -- mid 19th century and the whole nationalist movements thing in europe -- when there was a unitarian tendency among south slavic nations. so the standard versions are (1) essentially artificial, and (2) politically motivated to an extent. once you get on the ground level of spoken language you find far more variance within each of the two -- the regional and even local dialects are very different from each other, to the point of seemingly being whole different languages were it not for the developed standard versions that tie them together.
- nradov 5y agoThe Croatian government is now trying to encourage more linguistic differentiation from Serbian by introducing neologisms that were never used in standard Serbo-Croatian.
- Ostrogodsky 5y agoI dont know how it is in other European countries, but at least in Spain, the slightest change in dialect+ some geographical distance will make people call their dialect a different language, and they may even not be wrong. And it is funny because that guy has a very marked Catalan accent, but they say it is the French side that brought French phonology to Occitan making it very difficult to understand.
- lottin 5y agoThis only applies to "regional" languages though. For example, Spanish has different dialects yet nobody would suggest Andalusian isn't Spanish, but an entire different language. The political motivation is clear.
- harperlee 5y agoWell andalusian does not have different words, just different accent and pronunciation, whilst catalan galician and basque have a different vocabulary, so there’s that.
- elnatro 5y agoAndalusian tongues have different words and different tenses. However, these are dialects because they have not been politicized like Catalan or Basque (less the Galician). In the case of Galician, one of the first to write in the Galician language was Alfonso X, the Castilian king, so there’s that to using languages as a political tool.
- Schiphol 5y agoThe funny thing is that Aranese is an official language at Val d'Aran, with all of the requisite legal protections to speakers. This makes Spain the only country where Occitan/Gascon (assuming with you and others that it is the same language; some apparently disagree) is an official language.
- ggrrhh_ta 5y agoYour second link is catalan to me... I could understand 100% and I don't know any Gascon language...
- Bayart 5y agoHe's got a somewhat Catalan accent and Catalan itself used to be part of Occitan, the boundaries aren't quite clear where they meet (whether in Aran or in Roussillon). It became its own language after Peter the Catholic died at the battle of Muret. Catalonia became culturally and politically cut out from Southern France and Catalan developed its own standard in isolation from the other courts it previously was affiliated with.