Everything about Asturian Language totally explained
|region=
autonomous community of
Asturias
|speakers=550,000
|familycolor=Indo-European
|fam2=
Italic
|fam3=
Romance
|fam4=
Italo-Western
|fam5=
Gallo-Iberian
|fam6=
Ibero-Romance
|fam7=
West Iberian
|fam8=
Astur-Leonese
|script=
Latin alphabet
|agency=
Academy of the Asturian Language (Asturian)
|iso2= ast
|iso3= ast}}
Asturian (Asturian:
Asturianu or
Bable) is a
Romance language of the
West Iberian group,
Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the
Spanish province of
Asturias by the
Asturian people. In
Asturias it's protected under the Autonomous Statute legislation and is an optional language at schools, being widely studied.
As part of the
Astur-leonese group, Asturian was formerly considered an informal dialect (
basilect) of Spanish, but in 1906,
Ramón Menéndez Pidal showed it was the result of Latin evolution in the Kingdom of León, and nowadays it's considered a separate language.
History
The language developed from
Vulgar Latin with contributions from the pre-Roman languages, which were spoken in the territory of the
Astures, an ancient tribe of the
Iberian peninsula.
Castilian Spanish came to the area later, in the
14th century, when the central administration sent emissaries and functionaries to occupy political and
ecclesiastical offices. Nowadays, Asturian codification of Astur-Leonese spoken in the Asturian Autonomous Community has become a modern language, after the birth of "Academia de la Llingua Asturiana" in 1980.
Leonese and
Mirandese (the other two Astur-Leonese languages) are very close to Asturian.
Status
Much effort has been made since
1974 to protect and promote Asturian. In
1994 there were 100,000 first language speakers, and 450,000 second language speakers able to speak or understand Asturian. However, the situation of Asturian is critical, with a large decline in the number of speakers in the last 100 years.
At the end of the
20th century, the
Academia de la Llingua Asturiana made efforts to provide the language with most of the tools needed by a language to ensure its survival: a
grammar, a
dictionary, and
periodicals. A new generation of Asturian writers both in Asturias have also championed the language. These developments give the Asturian language a greater hope of survival.
Many people from Asturias, especially from the cities like Gijón or Oviedo, think that Asturian is a rude and "village" language. One can find some accent in Asturian persons speaking Spanish; for example, they often change
es ("is" in Spanish) to
ye ("is" in Asturian).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Asturian Language'.
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